The poor character development, redundant word usage (myriad anyone?) and outright plot theft make this novel, quite simply, bad. Yes, the plots from Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars and more were used in combination but what bothered me the most was the outright theft of the idea of an ancient language that contained everything's "true name" from Wizard of Earthsea. This infuriated me and I encourage all of you to read the book and see what a real fantasy novel is like.