Hello everyone!
Honestly, that's probably my favourite place to grab new books from nowadays, I'll admit as much. It's really a fantastic site, and the exchange of free ARC and review works really well if anyone asks me.
So tonight we take a look in something that's not too far out of my comfort zone.
It's got rulers, kingdoms, politics, gods, assassins, and space warriors for some reason.
This last one is probably the most confusing of them all!
The author, Christan Warren Freed, served in the military for over twenty years if I remember the biography information correctly, so each of his published stories features some aspect of that. This one's no exception either.
As it's the first book in what's going to be a series, naturally it's a set-up and the possibilities of explanation become larger the more you dig deeper, but you'll have to decide for yourself if this kind of story if for you!
Coward's Truth, a novel of the Heart Eternal, is up.
Given that I have nothing remotely close to this scale and scope, there won't be any links at the bottom of the page. Instead, it's show time.
The god-king of the city everyone calls Heart Eternal, a neutral, rich city in the middle of civil war which has lasted for years, is dead.
Chaos soon follows.
Not only was the god-king assassinated right before peace talks were supposed to take place in the city, but the city itself can't actually survive the chaos long without the god-king, who has ruled in unbroken chain for 47 generations.
Oh and also, an ancient evil - the name Razazel should be ringing bells somewhere - is risen to take the city that apparently belongs to said ancient evil?
To try and prevent the chaotic nature of events, a motley crew is sent through the kingdom to take a young boy to the ancient home where the god-kings are born. Because the essence of the god-king didn't actually dissipate or die, but chose a new host, so the task is now on a time-crunch as the kid won't survive that essence long and needs to ascend, like, yesterday.
The group is beset from all sides by problems and hunters, because as we've said before, the kingdom is at war with itself, and it turns out the god-king's assassination was ordered by the Vizier of one of these factions, who's been working with a prophet within the city proper. And his army has been sowing terror across the land.
They even reach our group, but they're saved by the arrival of the space cowboys, I can't really call them anything else LOL.
See, right at the start of the book, we're told there's some sort of galactic or inter-galactic conflict going on, and troops are being rotated when one of the transports is hit, and survivors find themselves on the planet of the god-kings. After serving as mercenaries they then proceed to take the group the rest of the way to their destination, because not only was there a problem with the faction army, but some sort of ancient demon from Razazel came after them as well.
The boy's guardian, a being I can only really describe as an angel, is comatose until the god-king puts his hands on him to revive him, and they head on up to get him to ascend - for another one of the demons to attack in what looks like a Biblical battle to anyone who witnesses it.
BUT the god-king rises again, and not a moment too soon at that.
The assassin who was hired to kill him is now on a spree through the Heart Eternal, because the guild he worked for found out about this un-licensed kill, sentencing him to death, so now he's on a path of revenge. His name WILL be known, damnit!
Sorry bud, the god-king isn't actually dead. You can go ahead and croak.
Besides which, the peace talks are pretty much falling apart, the city is plagued by zombies continuously rising because a mad merchant is trying to achieve immortality, the mad prophet is found out, and the mad Imperator unleashes his attack on said city so that he can take over. See a trend here?
The defenses of the city kick in but they're hard-pressed and probably would have fallen eventually if the god-king didn't show up right on time to deal with them, and to deal with Razazel who hoofs it over, sees his ancient foe, and they go at it. The god-king ends up winning, and the demon is entombed once more, not to mention one of his servants and protectors didn't even rise like the other two which were killed during the quest.
The city can now breathe again and recover, and our main characters mostly all get a send-off with a glimpse into their future; the space cowboys decide to stick around and see if anyone else survived of their convoy, too.
But wait!
The innkeeper seems to know more than we know - one of his patrons is a fallen god, who was supposed to be the god-king at some point. And HE was the one who pulled the strings to get the current god-king assassinated, and spark the chain reaction across the entire kingdom which then took Razazel off the board. Think of him as a kind of Gandalf - Gandalf pressed for the removal of Smaug in The Hobbit because he knew that a greater evil was coming.
Our fallen god knows the same thing, but WHAT this greater evil is, welp, he doesn't actually say.
Instead, the book ends.
This book wasn't exactly my cup of tea, or at least I maybe wasn't in the best of moods reading it, to feel that way? I'm not sure. I know it's good however, regardless of that fact, so let's see what I can say about it.
The story is actually fairly simple: a neutral city ruled by god-kings who everyone and their mother wants, a large amount of characters, from the god-king's assassin, to his personal guard, the guards of the city, the Overseer, the religious sect, the merchants, and some other dubious personages of more-or-less ill-repute, all fighting for a piece of the pie as well as taking out Walking Dead extras along the way (just experiments gone wrong by someone wanting immortality, natch).
The one element that's completely out of its place is a downed starship rescue pod, indicating there's a much bigger universe out there that hasn't come into play yet, and of which the planet we spend this book on is mostly unaware (I think some may know, or at least one).
So in essence, this has all the elements of a really good story. The pacing is great, the military tactics and especially military point of views fantastic, which is of no surprise given the author's personal background really. I think for me it boils down to the characters as a whole.
Most of them, with the exception of maybe one or two, are literally driven by greed and try to excuse their actions with 'pure intentions' but in reality it's just greed, plain and simple. That desire for MORE. It left a bad taste in my mouth so I realize it's maybe not something that I'm the intended audience for. I like a little more hope and goodness in my stories than that, and I feel like this one lacked it!
Also, no offense to the character chosen for the next god-king host but ... he is, essentially a momma's boy. Given the society we're introduced to, and the fact he's a young man, not an early teen, I just couldn't associate with HOW attached he was to his mother, to the point of there being a segment saying he'd never been without her for such long periods of time. And so he goes and finds himself a random surrogate mom on the trip, not helping matters at all. The other characters, I could sort of understand, some even respect, but this one I just gave up on. Thankfully he ascends and that's all over with, honestly.
Overall, like I said, this is a good book, the characters are flawed but realistic, the pacing is great, the story proceeds, there's elements in there of something greater, but I don't think I'll be picking up the second volume. I might try something else by the same author though and see if it's just this story that I'm on the fence about.
If you're looking for political machinations, god-kings, and spaceship cowboys however, this is definitely the one for you, as crazy as the statement sounds!
The story is actually fairly simple: a neutral city ruled by god-kings who everyone and their mother wants, a large amount of characters, from the god-king's assassin, to his personal guard, the guards of the city, the Overseer, the religious sect, the merchants, and some other dubious personages of more-or-less ill-repute, all fighting for a piece of the pie as well as taking out Walking Dead extras along the way (just experiments gone wrong by someone wanting immortality, natch).
The one element that's completely out of its place is a downed starship rescue pod, indicating there's a much bigger universe out there that hasn't come into play yet, and of which the planet we spend this book on is mostly unaware (I think some may know, or at least one).
So in essence, this has all the elements of a really good story. The pacing is great, the military tactics and especially military point of views fantastic, which is of no surprise given the author's personal background really. I think for me it boils down to the characters as a whole.
Most of them, with the exception of maybe one or two, are literally driven by greed and try to excuse their actions with 'pure intentions' but in reality it's just greed, plain and simple. That desire for MORE. It left a bad taste in my mouth so I realize it's maybe not something that I'm the intended audience for. I like a little more hope and goodness in my stories than that, and I feel like this one lacked it!
Also, no offense to the character chosen for the next god-king host but ... he is, essentially a momma's boy. Given the society we're introduced to, and the fact he's a young man, not an early teen, I just couldn't associate with HOW attached he was to his mother, to the point of there being a segment saying he'd never been without her for such long periods of time. And so he goes and finds himself a random surrogate mom on the trip, not helping matters at all. The other characters, I could sort of understand, some even respect, but this one I just gave up on. Thankfully he ascends and that's all over with, honestly.
Overall, like I said, this is a good book, the characters are flawed but realistic, the pacing is great, the story proceeds, there's elements in there of something greater, but I don't think I'll be picking up the second volume. I might try something else by the same author though and see if it's just this story that I'm on the fence about.
If you're looking for political machinations, god-kings, and spaceship cowboys however, this is definitely the one for you, as crazy as the statement sounds!
xx
*image not mine
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