I finally found the time to start the series that I never stop hearing about. I found the first book painfully average. It is very similar to lotr in many aspects but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's kind of nice to read something like that again. I found that after about a third into the book that the charcaters stopped being so bland and gained a personality. The ending was a tad underwhelming but I'm interested to see where everything is going. Hopefully the second book is slightly better.