Anyone reading it? I'm about 100 pages in. I really liked Sword and Serpent; but some things about 10th Region are annoying me.
There's a religious community of women that live in a necropolis who focus on "prayer and mortification".
The Christian theme is just poured on so heavily with them. Their interactions with Jurian and then Aikaterina just feels too forced to push that theme.
This might sound odd.. it's clearly written by a Christian and it has that theme, and it's a theme I like. But they seem too perfect, too saintly, too wise...

I'm still liking it. It seems to be picking up a bit. The story of Aikaterina (daughter of the Governor of Alexandria) and her interactions with her various slaves and tutors isn't told in a way that's going to click with a 30something guy. Feels too giggly and girlish for me.

But, as I said it's picking up

Aiketerina is St. Catherine of Alexandria.

This one didn't seem to flow as well as his first St. George book. If you haven't read that one yet, stop reading this one and read the other first.

I really liked Sword and Serpent... I did like that one quite a bit.
And maybe I'll really like this e too. Just 100 pages into it

It's picking up a bit now. More enjoyable

Editing

Everyone is always hissing in this book. I've never read a book where so many people are hissing through their teeth.

The word sibilant was used at one point to replace hissing... but then that word was used twice within two pages.

I did get the feeling this was a little more rushed than Sword & Serpent. I think he's pressing to get material out there.

There are parts of this book that I like quite a bit. T.Marshall does a good job with the dialog during his intense scenes of this book. They seem so believable even though it's fantasy/historical fiction.
The dramatic moments are very, very good. But this book is over 480 pages long.... and there's just so many moments where it feels like the same kind of scenes over and over.

If I were to have read this one first it might not have bothered me as much. Maybe it's because even though Sword and Serpent was also long it felt much more variable in the story. The separate vignettes clipped along.

I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this book. I think it's still good. The dramatic scenes (Galerius confronting those guilty of treason was amazing) are just as good as those in Sword and Serpent.

Actually, some might really like the slower bits of the novel. They might like losing themselves in that kind of story.