It's traditional epic fantasy, with a world inspired in feudal Europe, threatened by the expansion of the Wild, which is like a magical force of wild nature and the fey realm (think like one of those huge, enchanted forests and hordes of creatures within). In that context, the north of one kingdom is invaded by the Wild. While the kingdom tries to muster its forces to respond to the invasion, an ancient fortress in the northern forests, inhabited by an order of nuns, hires a mercenary force to help defend their fortress. The Red Knight who gives the first book its title is the leader of that mercenary force.

The author is a historian and former officer in the US Navy who belongs to a historical reenactor group. Before writing epic fantasy, he wrote historical novels. All that shows in the style, with many details about military issues and medieval life.

The story is told with a number of point of view characters, in alternate chapters. There are probably too many point of view characters, and I felt the story was interesting but a bit too long, wordy and slow at times. In the end, it was a fine read, but I had to wonder if it was worth spending so many hours on it. At least it works (more or less) as a standalone, because the idea of reading the whole saga is too much for me. ( )

This book was good, but not incredible. Some of its flaws: (i) the characters, while interesting and likable, were not as deep as I think the author was hoping for (ii) the subplots didn't often progress in an interesting manner, even if the progressed in the sense that they followed the main storyline (i.e. things like the romance angle, the relationship between the queen and the magus, the reason for the sossag being in the book were introduced and then not developed, which was a bit awkward) (iii) the perspective switching was fine, but inconsistent. Sometimes the author would tell you when he was switching to someone new, sometimes not.

Overall, I'll read the next one, and hope it's as good or better! ( )

I was going to give this book a solid 4 - but then wow, the war just kept going on. I'm okay with a good fight, but only if it can be simple enough for me to follow... I'm terrible with, um, tacticky stuff!

Pros
- When switching between characters, we get a nice heading that says Location - Character Name. That was not just helpful, it also looked great.

- The titular character was charismatic, too young for his station, and had an intriguing but secret background. Is this a good thing? Is this Mary Sue? I think it was done well.

Cons
- Boglins. Fighting. Irks. Fighting. At the tower, fighting. At the castle, fighting. Fighting boglins all day every day. Half the book was spent describing swords going through chitin.

- I was less than halfway through when I recieved my Kindle. Sorry, that is a con. ( )

I grasped the story and appreciated the characters and world much more the second time around. On to the next books of the series. ( )

The Red Knight is a tremendously impressive epic fantasy. Cameron skilfully manages a huge number of viewpoints, with some well-realised characters and a clever magic system.

On the downside, the author is a devotee of historical re-enactment, and this shows in the heavily over-used research. Every item of clothing is given its proper medieval name and this quickly becomes distracting.

The e-book version is the worst-proofed professional publication I have ever read. There are literally errors on almost every page, including a persistent misunderstanding of "it's" and "its". The book is too good to warrant such a sloppy publication. ( )