Son of a Liche by J. Zachary Pike – An Audio Book Review

Blurb:

A doubly disgraced dwarven hero. A band of accident-prone adventurers. Giving redemption a second shot may have been a grave mistake….

Still bruised and heartbroken from their last calamitous quest, Gorm Ingerson and his band of washed-up heroes try to make amends for the orcs they accidentally betrayed. But justice is put on hold when an old foe marches to the city gates. Gorm is horrified to discover a liche pitching the frightened city-dwellers on the merits of the undead lifestyle…at the head of a corpse army.

To save the city from high-pressure sales tactics and an inevitable siege, the dwarf warrior and his misfit band hatch a harebrained scheme that lands them at the top of the king’s kill list. With death and dark magic on his heels, Gorm must craft his own pitch to round up the troops and put the undead snake-oil salesman and his army of pushers permanently out of business.

Author: J. Zachary Pike

Publisher: Gnomish Press LLC

Running Time: 20hrs 10mins

Series: Dark Profit Saga #2

Genre: Fantasy/Comedy

My Rating of ‘Son of a Liche’: 4 out of 5

Purchase: Audible UK, Audible US, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Review:

Having loved ‘Orconomics’, getting my hands on ‘Son of a Liche’ was never up for debate. J. Zachary Pike returns to the world of Arth and continues on with the misadventures of our heroes from the previous book.

Now on the run from the law and hunted by just about anyone willing to draw a blade, Gorm and his fellow party members find themselves experiencing the sort of thing that no adventuring party should ever have to face. Not only are they without a guild or even a quest to complete, but they can’t show their faces anywhere for fear of attack or capture. Just what does a party of heroes do when they have no quest to complete?

Bicker, mostly, it seems. Life on the road and on the run starts to fray at the edges of the party’s resolve and ‘Son of a Liche’ treats us to a very real look at what happens to people when they are forced into each other’s company and have no real goals.

In this book, the author expands upon the world of Arth and, more importantly, he delves deeper into his characters backstories. Whereas before we got the bare bones (and were still treated to a wonderful tale) we get a far greater fleshing out of the characters pasts and their current motivations along with their future dreams.

All in the typical humorous style that makes it such easy reading/listening.

My only real issue with ‘Son of a Liche’ is that, due to all this greater detail, the book is twice the length it was before. just over 20 hours if you are listening to the audio book and over 600 pages if you are reading the print book. My problem isn’t necessarily the length (I’ve read and listened to longer), my slight problem is that it feels long. I don’t like being made to feel every page read or every hour listened, but with this one I did as the story pressed on.

Another reason for this length is that there are two real main narratives going on, one which features the party and one which features a former Goldson and Bags employee from book one. This storyline is a good one as it shows the side of Arth that, viewed through the eyes of the adventurers, you don’t ordinarily get to see. It’s also used to tie up some of the threads from book one that the heroes wouldn’t otherwise encounter.

I greatly enjoyed this book and the series as a whole is one of my favourites, but I feel this could have benefited from being maybe a little shorter and some of the additional side stuff could have been saved for a later book. Still, going by the plethora of five star reviews and outpouring of love for this book I have seen in other reviews around the world wide web, I could just be the minority as far as these thoughts go.

The characters themselves, as always, are incredibly interesting and fun to follow. My favourite will always be the bard due to the sheer bleak humour he has. I also like the fact that their protector from book one takes up a bit more of the spotlight in this outing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and can’t wait to see where things go in the next book. I just hope it doesn’t follow suit and clock in at double the length of the book that precedes it.