Anonymous

Another excellent start to a new series

Reviewed: 03-26-25

I am really impressed with Richard Swans writing skills. He has made some very interesting characters who have made me either really love or really dislike. His story is top notch and seems to explore the supernatural that he outlined in his first series, which was an excellent series itself. Really liked this one and recommend it!

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Grim, dark, quite brilliant

Reviewed: 09-25-24

I have listened to the first black tongued book, and to one of his vampire based books. This author has incredible prose and tells a great dark fantasy/ horror story. This one feels like a fantasy version of the horrors of world war 2. No food, the destruction of great cities, and so much pain and death. My only complaint with his writing is that he started so strong in bringing the story to life, with great detail, but towards the end he seemed to not know how to end it and settled for a more generalized telling of what happened. I am not a horror fan. So I hope he will continue his forays into fantasy in this series as I am very much enjoying his story telling. This is well recommended for anyone who enjoyed gritty fantasy.

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Excellent space opera

Reviewed: 08-19-24

I very much enjoyed the the characters, who are well developed, and the plot and world. Good combat scenes, excellent imagining of life on a naval/space ship during war.

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Excellent series. Author checks all the boxes and is a master of his craft

Reviewed: 04-18-24

I felt very content with his conclusion of the trilogy. I did however find his take on the afterlife to be a very grim view of the supernatural. It of course gives gravitas to the danger of the antagonists of the story, but I do wish he could of given the reader a little greater glimpse into the possibility of a brighter option that could happen with right action and thinking. A sense of heaven and a path that offers hope and love and spiritual growth that was missed by the antagonist due to their choice of pursuing power. I think that is the one thing I felt was missing from this excellent book when I finished it. I think he did an admirable job of showing the value of a well defined system of laws and procedures and their importance in a society. Had he fleshed out the values and flaws of a religious institution just a little more this would have improved the story just that much more. I don’t mean to be critical. This story did a great job and was quite thought provoking for me. The narrator is top notch, the author is a master story teller. And I will certainly be looking forward to reading more from him in the future.

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1 person found this helpful

Every bit as good as book 1

Reviewed: 04-07-24

Jay Kristoff has improved on an excellent first book. I am not a vampire genre loving guy and yet this series has me quite enthralled. His characters and their dialog is top notch. The world is very dreary and grimdark and yet he has kept enough hope and wry humor in it to keep my interest and the world is very well realized.

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A very promising beginning but falls flat

Reviewed: 01-16-24

The first part of the book showed great promise with an interesting character and plight. But then the book devolved into the same battle over and over again.
Spoilers
I wish the author had explained how the demons broke into this reality and was expecting that answer to somehow connect to the mage dragon angle.
Also, it was never really explained why the main character and certain other characters developed these powers to resist the demon fear. I also disliked the idea that good people can simply be damned if they don’t have the help of the main characters protective aura. It makes the commons man’s efforts in these battles mean nothing really. I wish this author could rewrite this book and put a little more thought into his magic building and into defining his worlds plight and come up with a more thoughtful resolution to his story. The beginning was really good! It just fell apart midway through and turned into something I cared nothing about by the end.

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An over the top fun hero tale

Reviewed: 01-06-24

The story doesn’t break any new ground or anything, but it is a fun read for sure. The narration is incredible and brought a huge smile to my face many times. I just imagine how many times the narrators busted up laughing during the tantric healing part was going on. It must have been many, many takes to get it right! Well done narrators! I LMAO during that part. If you are looking for a ribald, over the top hero quest story to entertain you for 17 hours, this story would be an excellent option for you.

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Very enjoyable series

Reviewed: 11-07-23

A great ending to a well written series. I will say that I felt there were a few too many filler battles. I understand the need to show the scourges effects. I just wish there had been a better way to show how these atrocities developed from a person believing she did holy work. Though I understand it would of likely needed another POV to do this, which was not possible. To me, everything else about this book was masterfully done and well worth my credit.
A great narrator.
I find it interesting that this book should come into our hands at a time in the real world where we have just witnessed rape and brutal murder of innocent people by the hands of people who think they are doing holy work. The fact that the ripples of hatred and evil thought and deed continue in our very own colleges and cities as I write this truly frightens me and adds greater weight to this story.
It is almost as if the malicite truly exists.

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1 person found this helpful

An interesting premise ruined by far left politics

Reviewed: 11-03-23

I very much enjoyed the idea of how we might actually colonize the stars and the role downloading our consciousness plays in this story. That was fun to think about. I didn’t mind the trans character. Her dilemma was interesting. the questioning of whether Asimovs three robot directives was fun as well. These were interesting things to think about and ponder. The major problems I had with this book is that he stopped bringing up interesting thoughts there and then started trying to ram his far left views down the listeners throats. As if Covid was as cut and dry a topic as if everyone who had any kind of dissenting view was evil and wrong for doing so. That is not good sci fi. It’s preachy uninformed drivel. I very much enjoyed the narrators.
If you lean far left and like to have your stories preach to the choir you will love this story. If you are polarized to the right, not so much. It is worth a light listen if you can stomach a little preachiness from an obviously left leaning author.

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Brilliant Series worth your time

Reviewed: 10-16-23

It is absolutely crazy that this series is not more well known. Deep and nuanced characters you will love and hate set in an interesting world. I too am very surprised to have had such a dark and gritty story also evoke such emotion and actually cause me to tear up at times. A gem of a series!

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