I like the super human part of this, but I didn’t care for the concept of the one ‘real’ city.  It made things really confusing in some ways, as the concept of shadows was confusing.  The story was good, and the crazy painter character was fantastic.  The ‘trumps’ he made seemed like an odd concept, especially if he is the only one to make them.  The descriptions of the battles were dry by being too over the top in many ways, and not descriptive enough of the inglorious parts of the battles.