The Bookwyrm's Review of The Great Hearts by David Oliver

Author: David Oliver

Length: 324 Pages/ 10 hrs, 46 mins (Audio)

Release date: May 16, 2017/ January 31, 2018 (Audio)

Publisher : David Oliver

Narrator: David Oliver

As anyone who's read my reviews knows I am a big fan of audiobooks, and thanks to Audiobookboom.com, which connects reviewers to authors, narrators and publisher looking for honest reviews, it's possible to discover books like The Great Hearts. That's a good thing, since it would be tragic to miss out on stories as good as this.

Callidan Darkheart and his hulking partner Cassius are Imperators, Voice of the Emperor, the hands that solve the Empire's problems which others can't, often painfully and permanently.

They are also Callidan and Cassius, boys from a small village in the mountains, who watched their entire village be tortured and slaughtered by a group of barbarian cannibal demon worshipers bent on summoning their foul master to the realm. Escaping the barbarians and their demon, they swear revenge as only young teens can do. While escaping, they trap their pursuers and manage to have a huge boar kill most of them.

One survived, the tracker, although he was injured. They discover that he only worked for the barbarians, he wasn't a crazy cannibal. They start nursing him back to health so he can help them make it to civilization. During this time, they also encounter a strange creature in the dark one night, and Callidan feeds it. This comes in handy later as they face down a wolf pack, since this creature comes and saves them. It is a giant cat the size of a moose, called a Great Heart, and Callidan feeding it caused it to bond to him. This means he is mentally linked to it, and gains strength, speed, agility, increased healing and other abilities, making him much more than human.

Reaching civilization, they are introduced to the local army commander, who puts the tracker to work training his scouts, and takes the boys under his wing, training them as future officers. This includes training in a martial art from a distant country, which Callidan's abilities really allowed him to excel at. This all comes to an end, though, when a rogue Imperator student comes through the city, with two Imperators on her trail. This leads to a confrontation with the student, who it turns out is possessed by a demon. This confrontation injures Cassius, and outs Callidan's bond to his Great Heart, which forces the Imperators to bring them before the Emperor, who heals Cassius. He also inducts them into his Imperators,  telling them the training will either make them Imperators or kill them.

Thus starts the Imperator training. The sheer difficulty of the training would be hard to describe, and be a huge spoiler. Needless to say, it involves a varied cast of characters, learning the skills it takes to be and Imperator, including statecraft, combat training, diplomacy, assassination, and the basics of magic. They even take a field exercise to mysterious valley which has killed all who have entered it. The students and their Imperator instructor do enter, and discover the lost history of their world, which I can't reveal due to spoilers. They also discover the truth of the worlds magic, all in an exciting climactic battle.

This is all told in flashback form, as we start and continue the story throughout with Callidan and Cassius on various tasks as full fledged, experienced Imperators. This includes trying to track down the demon and his worshippers that killed their village. You also see that Cassius is bonded with a creature from the depths of time, making him a match for anything on the world, if also making him frightening in the extreme. This leaves us waiting for the next book for the story to continue.

I am a huge fan of Callidan and Cassius. They play very well off each other, and are hugely different from teens to adult. You can tell life has really weathered them. They are just so well drawn out, you are really able to get inside their heads. The secondary characters are all equally well drawn out, given three dimensions, with realistic motivations and consistent actions. The format of shifting to flashbacks doesn't work for all authors, but this author does it better than any writer I have ever read. It is done so well, it never feels jarring, and is used with great effect to foreshadow current events. The plotting is fast paced, and definitely qualifies as grimdark for those looking for genre labels, although there is a generous helping of humor to help offset the grim. The action scenes are so well described you would swear you can feel the swish of the blade, the bite of the edge. From the smallest duel to the biggest battle, you feel as though you are right in the middle of the action, blade in hand. You can't ask for much more in a fantasy tale.

The Author self narrates. This is often a hit or miss proposition, but in this case, it's a definite hit. He really brings each character to life, injecting separate personalities into each. He really gets a variety of accents and inflections to differentiate the characters. His narrative pacing is excellent, and you never feel the narration slow down into any sort of monotone.

All told, an excellent effort, one which I heartily recommend. As I've said, I rate this up there with Nicholas Eames' Kings of the Wyld and Ed McDonald's Blackwing as my top fantasy reads/listens in the last 12 months. Do yourself a favor and get a copy.

The Bookwyrm's Review of The Miscreant by Brock Deskins

Author: Brock Deskins

Length: 399 Pages/ 13 hrs, 16 Mins

Release Date: November 30, 2014/ February 22, 2018 (Audio)

Publisher: Dingo Dog Publishing

Narrator: JS Arquin

After reading Brock Deskins Shrouds of Darkness and being hugely impressed by that, I was looking forward to see what else he had coming out. It turned out he had this antihero gem that just captivated me from the first page to the last. I was really impressed how quickly the book sunk the hooks in and kept me wanting to keep going.

Garran Holt lives in a small village in a kingdom with two factions vying for supremacy: The King versus the powerful Merchants guild that controls all commerce and goodly amount of the members of Parliament. In an effort to break the stranglehold on the economy the Guild has, the King, with some secret backers, is building a free trade road through the kingdom to open it up to outside competition. The guild decides to let him waste his treasure, and hopes to bankrupt and overthrow him by using mercenaries disguised as bandits to drive up the cost of building it. This is the setting in which we meet Garran Holt, the Miscreant.

Garran is his village's bad boy, the kind of kid that plays all the pranks, filches the moonshiner's liquor and is just kind of a rowdy slacker. After an assignation with the mayor's daughter goes comically wrong, Garran is hauled before the town counsel on rape charges. after proving his innocence, while also enraging the entire counsel as well as his mother and stepfather, which brings up what happens next. Garran is indentured into the King's Road building crew until he turns 18. Shockingly, he's not to happy with that, and starts to plot his escape.

The work camps are made up of teens like Garran and convicts released to the crews in exchange for reduced sentences. This includes a lot of thieves, rapists and murderers, which puts the boys ill at ease. After an encounter with a particularly nasty bruiser, Garran sets a trap that teaches the bruiser and his cronies he's not an easy mark. The crew settles in working the road, but Garran is injured severely falling from a tree when his safety equipment fails. While recovering, he discovers the wonders of laudnum. When the camp is finally attacked by the mercenaries, something in Garran breaks open. He discovers e has power he never knew about before. Time basically slows down for him, and he is flush with strength and vitality, as well as expanded senses. He goes from zero to death machine in no time at all, killing all the mercenaries in a blurry rush of air. The work camp leader sees this, and realizes what he is: a Transcended, one of those blessed with power who held the barbarian berserkers at bay in the last invasion of the kingdom.

Taking Garran  to the Kingdom capital, Garran is enrolled in the Agents training program at the university, which trains the diplomats, spies and assassins. This is, of course, after Garran gets lost in the city using stolen credit papers to peruse the city's red light district and its casinos, where he runs afoul of the local mob. All these relationships he makes will come into play later. Needless to say, Garran, being a penniless commoner in a school full of noble and merchants sons, has to live by his wits, which are actually rapier sharp. I cant' go into huge amounts of detail about his time at school without spoilering it, but needless to say, if there was ever a character that could find a way to lie, cheat and steal his way through an entire education, Garran is it. His adventures in the school are spectacularly creative, and his successes and failure are all monumental in scale. Lets just say this isn't Harry Potter at Hogwarts. The next book deals with his life after his time in the program.

This is one of the most character driven stories I have ever read, with Garran very much the centerpiece. He's such an antihero he makes Deadpool look like a straight arrow in comparison. You never know what he's going to do next, but with his utter lack of respect for authority and his trust issues with women, you know its probably going to be out of this world crazy. The setting is well drawn out, from Garran's small village to the work camps and on to the capital. The actions scenes are fantastically laid out and executed, really giving the reader/listener a feeling of being right in the action, which is a gift this author shows in all his work. The secondary characters are fleshed out, and aren't just caricatures and stereotypes. The magic system is of a person, body magic type, and it is well described and detailed. Definitely a lot for fantasy fans to enjoy, especially if you enjoy flawed protagonists.

JS Arquin did an admirable job narrating. His narrative pace is smooth, with no lags or monotone. His voice work is excellent, gifting each character with their own voice, whether through pitch, tone, accent or intonation. He really brought the story to life.

I would recommend this book to any fantasy fans, most especially those looking for a more morally debatable, flawed main character. I can't wait to get into the second book, The Agent.

The Bookwyrm's Review of Shrouds of Darkness by Brock Deskins

Author: Brock Deskins

Pages/Length: 217 Pages/ 7 hrs, 41 mins. (Audio)

Publisher: Dingo Dog Publishing

Release Date: May 8, 2013/ November 30, 2017 (Audio)

Narrator: Steven Jay Cohen

With the slew of vampire urban fantasy that has hit the shelves in recent years, from romance with vampires to gritty urban grimdark, I wasn't sure where this would fit into that group. While the idea of a vampire detective isn't new, Brock Deskins' Leo Malone is definitely a great character who brings an added dimension of humor and determination you don't see in a lot of this type of character.

When a mob accountant is accosted outside his office by a gang of rival thugs, things get hairy, literally, as he turns out to be a werewolf. That's bad, since supernaturals are supposed to keep it hidden, and shredding some gangsters isn't very subtle. The vampire leadership is quite keen and strict about keeping it hidden from the humans. 

This brings Leo Malone onto the case when the accountants adult children hire Leo to find out what happened to their father. The case turns out to be much more complicated that its seems, Since it seems there are forces that don't want him found, and will do anything to keep him from being found. Leo's complicated relationship with the vampire Elders isn't helping, as they would rather see him dead if they could than anything else. As he delves further into the disappearance, he discovers a much larger conspiracy that that threatens not only his life but exposure of the supernatural community in general, which could have far reaching consequences for all the supernatural nations.

Like his other books, Shrouds is a character driven book. The urban setting is fun, and you get immersed in it, but the characters are where the action is at, especially Leo. His attitude towards life and the vampire nation in general really make him a sympathetic character. You really root for him, even as he snarks his way from one discovery to the next. The secondary characters are well fleshed out as well, and the plotting if fast paced and never lags.

Steven Jay Cohen does his usual excellent job of bringing the story and characters to life. His Leo voice may be my absolute favorite he does. Just the right amount of snark for the part. His narrative pace is spot on, and smoothly flows throughout the book. He is definitely a reason to consider getting the audio version.