Put me down as another reader who found it tedious.

There are some very good moments of course, but the waxing philosophical gets very tiresome. For me, it's not the presence of philosophy but the presence of such embarrassingly bad, sophomoric philosophy that was more distracting than helpful.

I much prefer something like The Last Season where themes like respect for the land are quietly woven into the narrative. Fletcher tries to hit his reader over the head too much.