OK, it's got a touch of Hogwarts about it - which will do it no harm with younger readers - but I found enough originality in this to hold my attention. The world-building is good, the characters are clearly defined and credible, and it's not all about magic - there's a whole mix of supernatural and scientific here. Very enjoyable, even for veteran readers like myself, and I'll be interested to see how the rest of the series goes.

It's a really good book and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I sometimes wish that someone would write a story where the central character, a poor peasant from a low caste family with an undiscovered talent goes to wizard school and Doesn't make an enemy of the offspring of a powerful aristocrat.