I finished A World Apart by David M. Brown and I am of two minds of it - great storytelling to the end that kept me turning the pages, but the world building comes up unconvincing (those 20000 years of same are really hard to take as human history tends to move much faster), and the story itself is a a bit meh and pointless.

Overall the author has narrative pull but needs more interesting stories and a more convincing world building to get to the top level of today's fantasy