Overall, a good book. It won lots of awards and was nominated for twice as many. However, the fact that she's a first-time writer is quite apparent. Fortunately, every great writer was once a first time writer, and this was a big debut.

There are only two primary flaws, but they aren't hidden. However, I think they are ones that will have been overcome by her next release. First is her pace. This book wins the longest beginning competition. Things happen, but nothing pivotal. And second is unity. It's not a universally known term, I know, but it means cohesiveness, relevance. In this book, there's a lot of scenes that could have been either deleted, compressed, or combined to remove all the unnecessary fluff that doesn't either further the plot, develop the characters, or establish the setting. If she were to have solved this problem, she would have been well on her way to solving the first problem.

As for strengths, she has many. First is originality. Reading the description on the back, you might think it's a Harry Potter spinoff. However, if she had any inspiration from Harry Potter, it was only to have magic in familiar setting (England, only this one is in the 1800s). Her implementation of magic is quite different. Here, magicians are more like scholarly mathematicians and scientists (Mr Norrell, at least). The story as well is original. Quite often, in fantasy, writers borrow generously from past writers, but I can't spot anything here.

I definitely recommend this book. And for those of you who drop a book if you aren't hooked within the first fifty pages, be patient with this one. Look at all the awards it won and give it some of your time. The ending is satisfying.It seems that Harry Potter is having an effect on the fantasy community because until it came around it seemed as though everything was a Tolkien spinoff. Susanna Clarke has set the second milestone in fantasy originality. Since Rowling has one book left and may retire after she's done, let's hope Clarke continues to lead the way to ridding the fantasy world of their addiction to the elf-wizard-dwarf-orc-blackrider formula that is so frequently used. And let's also hope that they're more creative than Stephen R Donaldson.