Gene Wolfe

I read Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe and to be honest I was very surprised by the reviews it got at Amazon.
:dunno:
Personally I wouldn't recommend it and I don't intend to buy the sequel or anything else by this author.

It was the writing style more than anything else ( Now that I think about it I'm probably not very demanding plot wise ).
I'm afraid I haven't read any of Hobb's books yet but in Wolfe's book the first person narration meant there were often references like
"I wouldn't see her again / fully understand until much later...."
There was too much hindsight and reminiscing in the story for my tastes and those seemed to imply too much about what was going to happen. And I thought the characterisation and romance were just daft.
In the end there was just nothing that surprised me.

I found them an enjoyable read, the writing style settles down about halfway through SOTT, the plot gets quite intricate as the series develops. Remember it is from the perspective of a fairly naieve chap sent out into the world, so everything will seem fairly simple at first !