Kings of the Wyld

Executive Summary: A slow start, but a strong finish made this a pretty enjoyable read. 3.5 Stars.

Audiobook: This is the first book I've listened to narrated by Jeff Harding. I thought he did a really good job. He does a few voices and reads with a good cadence and volume. This is definitely one of those books that works well in audio.

Full Review
Their on a mission from god! When Jake Blues finds out his childhood home is going to be closed unless he can raise $5000 in short order he convinces his brother Elwood to help him get the band back together and crazy hijinks ensue.

OK, so I might have gotten some of those details slightly wrong, but every time they said “We're getting the band back together” (and this happened a fair bit) I just kept thinking of the Blues Brothers movie.

Instead of Jake and Elwood we have Golden Gabe and Slowhand Clay Cooper who set out on adventure to reunite their once great band of adventurers, the legendary Saga, in order to save Gabe's daughter from an angry horde.

I thought most of the characters were a bit cookie cutter, but still fun. Clay was a sympathetic protagonist, and Gabe made for a fine catalyst, but neither are especially memorable in the pantheon of fantasy characters. The rest of the band is about the same. They all fill their role, but nothing we haven't really seen before. The long exception is probably Moog the Wizard. The crazy wizard isn't exactly new, but I still found him a lot of fun.

My favorite character however probably has to be the bandit leader Jane. She's a pretty minor character, but is very memorable. I hope she plays a larger role in sequel.

The world building felt like it was based on D&D manual, which works well for me. There was a variety of classes and monsters straight out of the manual.

That said, the book was still a lot of fun. Nothing like some old and out of shape heroes stumbling their way through a dangerous world full of monsters.

Despite very familiar themes, I was hooked in by the end eager to find out what would happen next. This book was far from groundbreaking, but I enjoyed it enough to continue on with the series.