This story wasn't particularly absorbing, but it wasn't particularly disappointing, either. The characters were engaging, or at least interesting, enough that I kinda-sorta cared about what happened to them, but at the same time managed to portray the common foibles of real people, complete with some believably awful decision-making -- maybe just a little bit too much of that at times, but not so much it turned me off the read. It managed to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of RPG-based novels, but there was the minor annoyance of the main character having a special power as a sort of combination deus ex machina and MacGuffin which managed to avoid becoming an awful detraction from the story's readability, but was probably its second greatest flaw.

The greatest flaw in this story was its overall unremarkable quality, but I enjoyed it somewhat. ( )

Paizo Publishing continues their record of solid, stand-alone, sword and sorcery novels. These books won't blow your mind, but they won't insult your intelligence either, and they are written by people who understand the fundamentals of novel writing.

Winter Witch involves a journey north with a Viking-like maiden and a young wizard of sorts. Frozen vistas, melting hearts, dark magic etc etc. It's not exactly China Mieville levels of originality, but Mieville could learn a thing or two from Cunningham's structure - the book starts, continues, and finishes in a satisfying fashion.

Cunningham's characterisation is enjoyable; these are familiar types but she peppers them with enough originality to get some reader sympathy, and a fairly relentless narrative makes up for any shortcomings.

The world-building, coming as it does from a tabletop RPG is interesting, varied and creative as you'd expect. There's no sense of staginess or checkboxing - which can be a challenge for shared world settings at times. The worlds (and action) are rendered well in smooth, easy prose that goes down without a ruffle.

Some glimmers of romance and humour, nice tonal contrasts and a little bit of flair (the villain's funny motivation, for example) all add up to a very solid book. Good stuff. ( )

I picked up Winter Witch at BEA from the nice guys at Paizo publishing. I have bought some of their D&D stuff in the past, but haven’t read any of the Pathfinder books. Pathfinder is the world that the Paizo people have created for their campaigns in D&D, and it is an interesting world, though very much a D&D setting, including the magic systems and such, though the author does a pretty good job of making it so you don’t need to know the magic system to understand the book.

Winter Witch overall is a good book, the story follows a boy who has an interesting magical power, and his quest to save the fair maiden in danger. I know that sounds kind of corny, almost like a D&D module huh? Anyway with a fair amount of adventure, and fun, the book weaves it’s way through, and ends in the far North with some twists that I didn’t really expect.

As I said, overall it was a good book, and the writing was just so-so, in the beginning it really bothered me that the author switched between the first and last name of the main character, and not sticking with one in the middle. Towards the end of the book, it got better, or I just didn’t notice as much, I am not sure which.

The characters overall are pretty good, there is some humor, but not so much that it gets in the way of the story. All of them have their own personalities, though from time to time, a few of them are too similar, in my opinion.

This is a standalone book as far as I can tell. Though the end makes it sound like you really could have a second book in the series. I would probably read another book if they did write another. ( )