Just finished Cry of the Newborn and decided I wanted to put down a few of my thoughts, if only to assuage my frustration at a book that I found both compelling and disappointing. Beware, spoilers galore.
First off, the positives. I thought the Estorean Conquord was an excellent creation, based clearly on the Roman Empire, its political structure and it's rationale and methods of expansion. The military formations were similarily convincing and well researched( the mix of Roman legions, Macedonian phalanxes and Parthian cataphracts into one quasi-historical army was particularly clever), and every single battle was exciting and vivid: the Battle of Scintarit Fords was the best part of the whole book.
I also thought the conflict between dogmatic orthodoxy represented by Chancellor Koroyan and 'natural' belief, for want of a better phrase, represented by the Ascendants was realistic and sadly relevant for the times we live in.
I also liked the powers of the Ascendants; a very green and groovy magic.
Now the negatives. I am loathe to put this so bluntly, but the quality of the writing wasn't great. Far too often it seemed to occur to the author that the reader would be thinking 'Hang on. Why are they going that way? It doesn't make sense' and he quickly had one of the characters say 'Oh by the way, we have to go on this path because the other leads to the Metaphor of Doom, okay?'
Poor writing was made worse by the pace. Too much happened too quickly, which meant many characters didn't get as fully rounded as they should. It wasn't such a problem for the main characters, but many of the lesser ones were too cardboard: Marshal Defender Yuran's relationship with Megan, for example, didn't feel realistic at all and rather than enrich the story it felt irrelevant and pointless. Yuran, better written, could have been one of the best characters of the whole book, but the fantastic idea of a man trapped by circumstances not of his making was for me mostly wasted. Even the characters who were fully rounded like the Ascendants and Paul Jhered I didn't care about. Indeed, by the end of the book I found myself willing the Tsardon to smash the Conquord every single time.
I also didn't like the use of contemporary language("work with me people" and "I hear you" for example), although why it bothered me more in this book than others such as The First Law series I don't know.
The author also stretched credibility to breaking point too often. The worst case of this was the march of Roberto Del Aglios with his army through Tsard and Atreska. The Tsardon were smart enough to trick and defeat the main Conquord force at the Scintarit Fords and then ambush and annihilate the southern army at Ludjek's Defile, but the one army that actually beat one of theirs, well that one they totally ignore as it ambles on its way through their own country. After all, what harm can eleven thousand battle-hardened and victorious soldiers do. Not until it reachs the border with Gestern do they think about it and even then it's only to delay it, not use the 3-to-1 man advantage to destroy it.
Furthermore, by the end of the book its so obvious that the Conquord is going to win that even if their army was down to four men and a goat it would still trounce the 50,000+ Tsardon hordes, Ascendants or no Ascendants(By the way Tsardon, learn to defend your artillery from enemy cavalry. Four times in the final battle you let them trample it, ffs).
There are other examples I could give of things I don't think worked but it would be tedious to list them one by one, so I'll end by saying that despite the negative vibe I've written I saw enough in Cry of the Newborn to read the second book Shout for the Dead and the Raven books but I'll be hoping another great story doesn't get lost in the telling of it again.
) I think it was a tough approach to take with a lot of pitfalls smartly avoided and although the Garonin seemed a little out of place in the world I couldn't get enough of it by the end. I was pleasantly surprised by the Raven lineup and more Auum is always a good thing, all in all well worth a second read ... once I've read the first six again 
I am unable to complete my lunch. Who, besides yourself are these heretics? I am desolate to discover I am not universally popular and loved equally by man and beast for the extraordinary quality of my work.
