I've read it--it's very odd, and I'm not sure how much of that is the original text and the translation (there's a free translation PDF online you can find pretty easily since the book isn't available for sale in the west). The part that always stuck with me is how after the war Eomer becomes a religious convert to something pseudo-Islamic and basically becomes a whirling dervish--with shades of critique for both the religious leanings and the specifically pseudo-Islamic leanings. The narrative itself sounds like a far better idea than the actual fiction.