Well, I just finished at a café downtown, and I LOVED IT.
Overall, a very well-crafted story. Especially the most vital component in a reader's investment: The characters.
Random thoughts as they occur to me:
*I ended up being a bit surprised that the brood ladies didn't have more page-time, as I found them quite interesting. But then I suppose there was only so much that could be done with them.
*Sebastian's journey was an interesting read. I was prepared for him to either die in a sea of blood, or just fall all the way, a subversion of the noble hero who remains stoic through any amount of crap from an unjust world. I'm an atheist, but that moment when he found his god again really struck me. Good moment, right there.
*THIS is how you do a dragon, and how I will do a dragon if I ever get around to writing the iron age series that has been rolling around in my head for a while: An absolutely terrifying, nigh-unstoppable monster. I feel the same way about dragons as I do about vampires: If a hero can dispatch one relatively casually, you aren't doing it right.
*I'm surprised to see there are sequels, as The Copper Promise feels like a fairly complete story in its own right, and I thought it was a collection of shorter stories.
*Maybe I got the distances between areas wrong, but the griffins seemed able to get between different rune-sites with rather strange speed.
Anyway, that's my stuff for now.