-
Brutal
- Brutal Trilogy, Book 1
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
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Publisher's summary
He has no name. His past is a mystery. His future is etched in blood....
The Sellsword knows an opportunity when he sees one. When he rides into the border city of Aldreth, he can tell that the power struggle between two feuding wizards needs a solitary spark to ignite into all-out-war.
As he sets the corrupt paladins and demonic adepts against each other, he's not surprised when the blood begins to flow....
But after the alluring duchess catches his eye, the Sellsword puts himself in harm's way to protect her and the innocent people of Aldreth. To save the noble few, spells and blades won't stop the Sellsword from leaving a swath of righteous carnage in his wake....
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A Fantasy Version of 48 Hours
- By John Kang on 12-24-18
By: Rhett C. Bruno, and others
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The Halls of Stormweather
- Forgotten Realms: Sembia, Book 1
- By: Philip Athans
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The Halls of Stormweather, a novel in seven parts, is the first book in a series that explores the mean streets of a city where everything has its price and even the wealthiest families will do anything to survive! Ed Greenwood - the creator of the Forgotten Realms begins the tale with the capable but embattled patriarch of the Uskevren family. Clayton Emery - the heir to the family fortune is brought to life by the author of Star of Cursrah and the Netheril Trilogy.
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Good for an anthology
- By Hab N Yarro on 11-02-24
By: Philip Athans
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The Empire of the Dead
- By: Phil Tucker
- Narrated by: Paul Guyet
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Acharsis has always loved long shots. But even with a perfect scheme and a handpicked squad of godsblooded grifters and fighters, breaking into the undead lord's Akkodaisis' ziggurat is suicidally impossible. Good thing Archarsis is a fallen demigod with more than one trick up his sleeve....
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Incredibly imaginative
- By RyRy on 09-08-17
By: Phil Tucker
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What Remains of Heroes
- A Requiem for Heroes Volume 1
- By: David Benem
- Narrated by: Andrew Tell
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Lannick deVeers used to be somebody. A hero, even. Then, he ran afoul of the kingdom's most powerful general and the cost he paid was nearly too much to bear. In the years that followed, his grief turned him into a shadow of his former self, and he spent his days drowning his regrets in tankards of ale. But now an unexpected encounter casts Lannick upon an unlikely path to revenge. If he can just find the strength to overcome the many mistakes of his past, he can seize the chance to become a hero once more.
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Fantasy with many lives in the balance...
- By MelHay on 12-23-15
By: David Benem
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The Mortal Tally
- By: Sam Sykes
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 24 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Cier'Djaal, once the crowning glory of the civilized world, has gone from a city to a battlefield and a battlefield to a graveyard. Foreign armies clash relentlessly on streets laden with the bodies of innocents caught in the crossfire. Cultists and thieves wage shadow wars, tribal armies foment outside the city's walls, and haughty aristocrats watch the world burn from on high. As his companions struggle to keep the city from destroying itself, Lenk travels to the Forbidden East in search of the demon who caused it all. But even as he pursues Khoth-Kapira, dark whispers plague his thoughts.
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Great Middle Entry
- By Casey on 04-15-18
By: Sam Sykes
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Cry Havoc
- Jack Frey, Book 1
- By: Mike Morris
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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They say when the demons come, you either fight or you die.The Black Dogs know this all too well. For three hundred years, the warrior priests have sacrificed their lives to keep the island nation of Abios safe from the flesh-eating Nostros, while the rest of the world fell under the demons' savagery. However, an armada now stands poised to invade mankind's last bastion.
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truly evil enemies
- By VJG on 02-01-18
By: Mike Morris
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131 Days: Omnibus 1
- Books 1-3
- By: Keith C. Blackmore
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 40 hrs and 14 mins
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Once every year, in the city of Sunja, gladiators Baylus, Goll, and Halm meet in the arena known as Sunja’s Pit. Their battles are epic, but deadlier still are the shadowy forces that conspire against them outside the Pit. Only by applying their brutally honed survival instincts can these brave warriors hope to win their freedom and exact grisly revenge upon their enemies.
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Narration is amazing, story is a joke
- By Vi on 12-11-22
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Akiri: The Scepter of Xarbaal
- Akiri, Book 1
- By: Brian D. Anderson, Steven Savile
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
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Akiri is a blistering new heroic fantasy novel from the multiple award-winning international best sellers Brian D. Anderson and Steven Savile who have come together to create the first adrenalin-filled standalone novel in Akiri's tortured world. Can one betrayal can save a kingdom? Will two destroy it?
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Buy this story!!!
- By wlantz on 11-02-16
By: Brian D. Anderson, and others
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Tower of the Forgotten
- The Tainted Cabal Prequel Novella
- By: Mitchell Hogan
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Niklaus, master swordsman, has not aged a day since being chosen by his mercurial goddess. A slave to her will, he moves from one cryptic mission to the next in the hope of ascending to become her equal. But even a man who has lived for centuries can sometimes find himself out of his depth. When Niklaus is sent to kill a sorcerer of the Tainted Cabal, overconfidence leads to a fatal mistake, and neither experience nor skill with a blade can prevail against the forces unleashed against him.
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What's Next?
- By James on 06-04-17
By: Mitchell Hogan
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The Palace Job
- Rogues of the Republic, Book 1
- By: Patrick Weekes
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Loch is seeking revenge. It would help if she wasn’t in jail. The plan: To steal a priceless elven manuscript that once belonged to her family, but is now in the hands of the most powerful man in the Republic. To do so, Loch - former soldier, former prisoner, and current fugitive - must assemble a crack team of magical misfits that includes a cynical illusionist, a shape shifting unicorn, a repentant death priestess, a talking magical war hammer, and a lad with seemingly no skills.
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Awful narration
- By 9littlebees on 12-18-15
By: Patrick Weekes
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Shadow of the Exile
- By: Mitchell Hogan
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Outcast and exiled, the demon Tarrik Nal-Valim has long been forgotten by the world of humans. At least, so he thinks. But when he is summoned as a last resort by a desperate sorcerer, it seems as though his past has caught up with him. The sorcerer is Serenity “Ren” Branwen, the daughter of Tarrik’s former master - and friend. Though she seems cold, driven, and ruthless, Tarrik can tell Ren has her back against a wall, and he is compelled by ferocious powers to obey her.
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Entertaining
- By @tone0189 on 10-22-18
By: Mitchell Hogan
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In the Land of Hershel
- The Sunrider Saga, Book 0
- By: Rafael Hohmann
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Five knights tell stories of ancient lands, madness, and terrifying monsters...but no one can top Knight Elric's tale of the Land of Hershel, a monstrous swamp filled with horrifying creatures and an ever-present threat. If you stop moving, you drown. "In the Land of Hershel" is a short story set in the thrilling world of SunRider.
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Good but
- By Mistina on 05-09-23
By: Rafael Hohmann
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The Dead Rogue
- An NPC’s Path, Book 1
- By: Pavel Kornev, Petr Burov - translator, Irene Woodhead - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
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A game is only a game if you can quit. This is something I learned the hard way. I just wanted to let off some steam in virtual reality and ended up getting murdered and imprisoned in the body of one of the undead - slow, clumsy, and cursed to die at the hand of other players over and over again. The only way out of this awful predicament was to find the legendary Scroll of Rebirth, but the helpless plague-ridden corpse would need to be turned into a real killing machine. If only people knew what it was like to level up a dead rogue....
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Don't be fooled it is BAD
- By David on 11-06-18
By: Pavel Kornev, and others
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Conan the Barbarian, the world’s most famous fantasy hero, returns in an all-new novel tied directly to the famous works by his legendary creator, Robert E. Howard. Set early in his life, Conan has left his northern homeland to cut a bloody swath across the legendary Hyborian Age. A mercenary, a soldier, a thief, and a pirate, he faces conquering armies, malicious sorcerers, and monstrous creatures—against which he wields only the sword held in his powerful grasp.
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What listeners say about Brutal
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nicole F.
- 05-11-18
A Fistful of Brutal
Maybe it’s Tolkien’s popularity that is to blame. All the cookie cutter stories of elves and orcs, and wizards with goofy hats. Or maybe it’s all those damn multi-novel epics that require twenty-plus years of an author’s life to complete. Or it could just be the genre’s tendency towards “it happened because f--- you it’s magic, that’s why!” plots. Whatever the reason, the point is: I avoid fantasy like the plague. And that’s precisely why I was interested in reading James Alderdice’s Brutal.
At its heart, the premise of Brutal can be summed up in one sentence: One day a lone mercenary wanders into the wrong frontier town. It could be Deadwood. It could be Tombstone. But this is the age of high-adventure, a time of sword & sorcery and men of legend. So the place is Aldreth—a mining town so infamous it’s come to be known as simply, “All Death.” And our hero, a sellsword, is the Man with No Name. And as the blurb on the back of the books says, this “Sellsword knows an opportunity when he sees one.”
Supposedly, Robert E. Howard once said his epic-tales of Conan were related to him by the barbarian himself. That one night alone at his typewriter, Howard felt the shadow of Conan standing over his shoulder with a large axe, commanding Howard to, “Just stay there and write, and if you don’t do exactly what I’m gonna tell you, I’m gonna cleave you down the middle.” While reading Brutal I got the distinct impression Robert E. Howard was standing over the shoulder of author James Alderdice with an axe…or possibly a six-gun.
One part Conan, one part Clint Eastwood (or possibly Toshiro Mifune); Alderdice’s Sellsword is the archetypal gunfighter set within the trappings of pulp adventure. Now THIS is a breed of fantasy I can get behind! Here there are no multi-chapter arcs about high-council meeting or hobbits walking from place-to-place. No flowery language aping Middle English myths. No ancient prophecies awaiting to be fulfilled. Hell no! This is a story about a man, his sword, and him getting s--- done. The writing is punchy. The pacing is fast. And we don’t need a stinkin' appendix and map to understand the story. Even better is the collection of oddballs, outlaws, and scheming hucksters our hero must deal with. In short, Brutal is everything fantasy is lacking today. Possibly has been lacking for the last thirty or so years.
My only real criticism of the book is how closely it mimicks the narrative of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai-classic, Yojimbo (or Sergio Leone’s homage Fistful of Dollars). If anything, Brutal reads as homage to both films—which it probably is. That is not a bad thing. That said, my own familiarly with Kurosawa and Leone’s work meant I was all-too-aware of what would happen next at several points in the story. Then again, that’s typical of any homage. Not to worry, though. By the end the narrative completely abandons Yojimbo plot and veers in an absolutely unexpected direction.
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- The Bookwyrm Speaks
- 03-12-18
Fantastic fantasy!
You know the old Western movie trope of the man with no name riding into a border town with two gangs feuding over control of the city, and going out and cleaning house? Well, James Alderdice takes that old trope of many a Clint Eastwood movie, places it in a medieval type setting, then proceeds to turn the whole thing on it's head and make it his own! This leads to the creation of a unique, brutal, dark and at times humorous story with an interesting collection of characters.
The book starts out with the man who becomes known as Sellsword attacked by bandits on the way to the small city of Aldrith. He dispatches them like the boss he is, although his horse falls off a cliff during the fight. Shame, it was a good horse. He then travels on foot towards Aldrith, and discovers the city, although it has a Duke, power is actually split between two warring wizards. There is also a group of dark cultists in the mix, as well as a dark version of the kingdom's religion stirring the volatile mixture of power politics.
Arriving at the Duke's manor, Sellsword finds the Duke gone, but does meet the Duchess. Receiving a note, the Duchess leaves suddenly. It turns out The Duke was murdered, setting off a chain event of actions as people, including the Duchess, scramble for power. Sellsword starts to approach each party offering his services. This leads to some epic fights, as Sellsword goes and proves his worth to the various parties. The best, and both most hilarious and gory, example of this is when he goes to the local casino run by one of the wizards and asks to see the wizard. when told no, he tells the guards to disarm themselves or he will. all six of them then rush him, where he proceeds to disarm them by removing all their arms! This type of dark humor runs throughout the book. He also runs into the town Paladins, basically the constabulary, who are corrupt and work for the highest bidder, and has several run ins with them.
This is the mix the Sellsword has to deal with, as alliances shift, plots are hatched and tensions boil to the breaking point as each side jockeys for the ultimate power in the town, with an unseen menace over it all providing even worse danger. With some epic city battles, betrayals on all sides and shocking revelations, the plot rushes forward headlong into the final confrontation that will determine the fate of the city!
This book has everything I look for in a fantasy book. Its dark tonally, with just enough humor to keep it from becoming brooding. The setting is well drawn out, reminding me of classic hives of villainy and scum like Lankhmar and Sanctuary without being a knockoff of them. You really get a feel for the city, feeling as though you are right there on the streets. The characters are all very well written, from the mysterious Sellsword to the Duchess through all the other supporting characters. The villains, of which there are several, are some of the best I can remember in recent memory for a small scale story that isn't world shaking. The reasons behind their actions are reasonable in their own minds, and actually make some of them even a bit sympathetic. Sellsword, though, is the star of the show. He is a mystery, but you can piece together the mystery of his identity with the clues you're left. He is definitely one of my favorite characters in recent memory.
I had never heard Liam Gerrard narrate before, but I was extremely happy to discover him. He has an excellent range, and he really brings the various characters to life. He uses a variety of tones and accents to differentiate the characters, and he has excellent pacing on the narration parts. I am definitely keeping an eye out for his work in the future.
Overall, this is one of the top stories I've read in the last couple years. I would rank it up with Nicholas Eames's Kings of the Wyld, Ed. McDonald's Blackwing and CT Phipps Wraith Knight as my favorite reads of the last year. Definitely a recommended read!
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-22-19
Great story!
I loved this book and would highly recommend it! It keeps you engaged the whole time, so it’s difficult to pull away from it. I vote for a Brutal 2 to come out! :-)
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- Melissa Parker West
- 03-01-18
Sword and Sorcery
It’s not my usual genre, but I enjoyed the characters. It was an interesting mix of fighting and philosophy.
This book is definitely for Conan fans.
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- Steve West
- 02-27-18
A new epic
An epic story with an amazing world I can't wait to experience more of. the sellsword is a medical Brock Sampson I can't wait to see more of in the future!
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- ElementalDrake
- 07-19-18
Bad choice in narrator
I wanted to imagine this powerful intimidating killing machine but instead I got nameless village boy #3.
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