The Bookwyrm's Review of The Bones of Our Fathers by JD Glasscock

 

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Rating: 8.25/10 Stars

Synopsis

Two brothers face the end of all they know as the Earth is absorbed into something called War World. On Earth they were up and coming duo competitors in ACS (Armored Combat Sports) and it is with those skills they just might survive. A LitRPG Grimdark novel. Dark Fantasy.

THIS IS A PLANNED 9 BOOK SERIES..

"My flesh knew what to do as I spun again, pushing off his huge body to set myself a few steps past his now exposed back, planting feet, arresting momentum, only to jack its kinetic energy into legs pushing off stone, axe lowered, behind me, coming forward in sync with my body, taut, muscles exploding as the axe came over my shoulder pistoning into the top of his head, planting a heraldic flag to the fuck yous of history."

The Bones of our Fathers

Book One in the series Blood Brothers

'“Come on Dozer, let’s see what you and Daddy can do.” I pulsed what I wanted over the bond. The floodgates opened. He scraped his hoof in imitation of taurean improvosu, head lowered, billows of repressed loss from snorting snout, and he was off, a locomotive with only one destination and one purpose, carnage. I stepped a breath from his shadow, dialed in, 1-800-Die Fuckers Die.'

Review

I was kind of intrigued when I saw the premise for this book, a grimdark LitRPG set on a warworld Earth. Lots of LitRPG is fairly lighthearted and humorous, but this is definitely not that. It takes some of the standard tropes and turns them on their head to take it's own path.

The world building is based on what is becoming a more standard in litRPG, the warworld, where the earth is turned into a dungeon/battlefield by external forces. Examples of this can be seen in titles like Dungeon Crawler Carl and Tower Climber. This one takes some different directions, though, since it's not comedic, it's a much darker and serious challenge for the people forced into competing against the horrors of the new world that were created. In a nice twist, the main characters actually had useful combat skills from the world before, being competitors in Armored Combat Sports, which resembles MMA but with armor and weapons, and is a real thing in places like Russia IRL. The author uses this effectively to give the MCs a realistic way of bringing combat skills into the game world. 

The characters are an interesting group. The brothers Mason and Dom get brought into the warworld scenario with their abilities as melee fighters intact, and this allows their progression to get quite the jump start. Their mother played a part in their training as well, although she hasn't been training recently, so is  rusty in her skills. Dozer, their pot bellied pig, gets a series upgrade into a giant boar when the game scenario begins, making him much more of a force multiplier. Their skills progression is a little easier than I expected, with some of the abilities just seeming to progress in random ways. Just a small thing, but not necessarily uncommon in the genre. The boys are very protective of their mother, to the point where I thought it was actually detrimental to her, since progression is the way to stay alive in this new reality. Just another niggling point that I was surprised they didn't realize themselves. 

The villains are the usual mix of goblins and orcs you'd expect in a fantasy based LitRPG. There is some interesting variation within them, however, and some intriguing magic used to buff the higher level orcs. Oh, and spiders. because any dungeon worth it's salt has to have giant spiders. You get the feeling that this is only the beginning of the bad guys you'll see in the story, and it will be interesting to see how things progress.

The narration is handled by Patrick O'Connor. He does a nice job of giving each character their own individual voice, and you always know who is speaking. He brings a lot of emotion to each as well, and his narrative pacing is quite good. I was unfamiliar with his work before this, but will be glad to listen to further installments.

The mix of dark, gritty elements with a LitRPG setting is something I wasn't used to seeing, but I think the author pulled it off nicely. There were a few niggling issues in the story, but nothing resembling a deal breaker in terms of characters or plot. I can see this appealing to fans of dark fantasy, and I definitely recommend checking it out.