Tim

The good: Pacing is solid. It ebbed and flowed as appropriate for a good mix of exposition and action. Most importantly, they didn't trip each other up, ‘learning' and ‘doing' are kept quite seperate for the characters, so it's quite hard to get lost for the reader.

The meh: World building was a lot of ‘tell don't show'. Often times world building was ‘hint don't tell' to set up maguffins and plot points for the series ahead. It's fantasy world, you've read about many like this one I'm sure.

The bad: The dialogue. Here's a drinking game for you:

“Drink whenever the ‘fish out of water' simply repeats back a keyword or phrase they've heard but as a question so the author can explain or hint at something.” The reviewer suggested

“Fish out of water?” You ask conveniently

“It's a trope used by writers to better enable you, the reader, to learn about the world by implanting a character that is just as ignorant about the world as you are. With the aim of you learning through” the reviewer explained

“Wait, what's a trope?” You ask even more conveniently....

Bonus game: drink whenever someone “sniggers”