Imagine a fantasy world with taverns, elves, orks, bands, guilds, priests, and corruption. A mixture of Tolkien, Pratchett, the dark part of the Middle Ages, and an exploitation version of Conan. In that world, there’s an overweight battle mage who works as a detective but not too hard. He’s drunk half of the time and dedicated the other half when he’s short on cash to support his drinking habits. Feels like he’s intoxicated in the way Jack Reacher would have a toothache – more of a nuisance than an actual weakness. His action style and vision are more of a Bud Spencer or The Mountain rather than a guy with poor health and addictions. If I could imagine one present-day celebrity as Thraxas, that would be Eddie Hall.

Thraxas has a superhuman sidekick. Makri is a former undefeated gladiator who works as a waitress and wears revealing clothing. She has impossible sword and axe skills and studies hard to get admitted to the university. Thraxas has no purpose in life or goals. Makri has a purpose and several very ambitious goals. In a sense, despite being described as a sidekick and only having a small part of the page time, she’s the true main character of book one and is far more appealing. You can’t like Thraxas but can love Makri.

5/5, Goodreads

PS. I already completed book 2 and have ordered books 3 and 4 but I feel book 2 deserves a separate review.