A review by subplotkudzu
The Unwilling Warlord by Lawrence Watt-Evans

3.0

Another Ethshar book, another mundane fantasy as only Watt-Evans writes. This one is more frustrating than the prior two, because while it shares the tone and elements of the other book the second act is fully of really interesting stuff - a clever cast of misfit magicians with an untrained warlord running a guerrilla war - to which the first act has built towards nicely, the third act changes gears in ways that I don't want to spoil, but not only is the solution obvious, the protagonist knows it, and it is just a waiting game. So we spend a third of the book watching events in which our protagonist has little control, waiting for the ending he knows will occur. It's a real let down, and I wanted the second act to go on a lot longer. I almost gave this two stars, but the strong second act kept it up to the three star level.

(In some ways this is like Pratchett's _Pyramids_, where the back half of the book is so much less interesting than the front half...)