I enjoyed that book too, although it is a direct ripoff of the wonderful Kent Montana books by Charles L. Grant, writing under the psuedonym Lionel Fenn.

I mean, down to the weird archetypical characters, the pacing, the settings, everything. I brought this up at Philcon a couple of years ago at a forum addressing "Tribute or Theft?" The panelists got uncomfortable and didn't want to talk about it, but I suspect that's because they'd never read any of the books in question and didn't want to admit it.