This is the first time I have felt the need to use a half star in a rating. 3.5 stars. I'm having such mixed feelings about this book. It had quite a few five star parts, but a lot of stuff that didn't make sense. It started out a two star book, and scaled up to a four star book by the last few chapters, so 3.5 stars. 
 Pros: 
 * Author was very tasteful. There was unsavory stuff occurring, but the author didn't feel the need to describe it graphically, which I appreciated. 
 * I liked having a strong moral protagonist. Some people will hate this, but I'm tired of all of the "gray" heroes and anti-heroes. Vaelin has a strong conscience and makes tough moral decisions. Some of the moral decisions are a bit contrived, but those can be overlooked. 
 * At first, I thought this was going to be an atheist book, which can make for some boring fantasy. It turns out the author did some very interesting things with religion. He made an atheistic religion; that is, one that says "a god is a lie", but has faith in departed ancestors and a "Beyond." 
 * The book gets better as it goes along. The writing and storytelling both improve. I love authors that show improvement. 
 Cons: 
 * I felt the book lacked direction. That isn't to say the author didn't have a direction in mind, but it was too hidden from the reader. I can get more excited about a book when I have a vague idea of where it's going, and there's something I can look forward to and get excited about, but you don't see the direction things are heading in in this book until the end, and that stuff won't start until the sequel. Yes, it ends in a bit of a cliffhanger. 
 * I thought the tests were stupid. They don't make economic sense. Your order only gets 8 new recruits a year or so, and you kill most of them in tests? Vaelin says it's to make them immune to fear, but a soldier who has some fear or lacks skills is still more useful than a dead soldier. If you want to test recruits, you send them on actual missions; you don't contrive danger. It's not as if danger is such a scarce resource you need to create it artificially. The book lacked economic sense in general. I think the author felt the need to have a lot of deaths to show that the danger was real, a common pitfall. 
 Summary: This book kept me reading, but it's not something I'm excited to recommend to friends and family. I want to try Ryan's later work, though, because he does seem to be improving.