Well, my quick and dirty answer is actually "It's Hamlet crossed with Henry V set on a modern fantasy world."

But that really doesn't explain it very much either. :)

I don't think I would have finished PSS if I had not had to. Though I found I liked much of the last half of the novel more than the first half, once the action picked up. Sadly, that's at page 300 or so...

But in the end, Meiville isn't my cuppa, so I doubt I'll read more of him. Plenty of other books on the shelf.