What do you think?
Rate this book
The Unconventional Heroes #1
Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf
Two necromancers, a bureaucrat, and an elf – it sounds like the start of a bad joke, only the joke is on Timmy.
Timothy Walter Bolton – better known as Timmy – has spent most of his life as a necromancer. When he isn’t terrorising his enemies, he’s plotting inside his castle, which is built on top of lightless chasms filled with nameless horrors and beings of a generally malevolent and megalomaniacal nature. But after one of his latest creations, a zombie hydra-dragon-bear, tries to eat him, he decides that maybe it’s time to find a new, less dangerous, career.
But that’s easier said than done. He’s a wanted criminal with no shortage of powerful (and crazy) enemies, and he has a bone or two to pick with the Everton Council of Mages.
Hope arrives in the form of a new law. War is coming to Everton, and the Council is desperate. In exchange for providing some help, Timmy might just earn that pardon he’s been looking for. Of course, just because it’s possible to earn a pardon doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy.
To earn his pardon, Timmy is going to have to take down some of Everton’s most dangerous enemies and put together a quirky group of unconventional heroes, most of whom want nothing more than to mangle him and/or the Council in as vicious a way as possible. It’s a good thing that he’s got some help: an obnoxious ten-year-old apprentice who thinks that pink glasses are appropriate for a budding necromancer and a bumbling bureaucrat who may or may not make it through their first real fight without puking his guts up.
Wonderful.
Still, Timmy’s never been one to back down from a challenge even if their first recruit is basically the elf version of the bogeyman.
Timothy Walter Bolton – better known as Timmy – has spent most of his life as a necromancer. When he isn’t terrorising his enemies, he’s plotting inside his castle, which is built on top of lightless chasms filled with nameless horrors and beings of a generally malevolent and megalomaniacal nature. But after one of his latest creations, a zombie hydra-dragon-bear, tries to eat him, he decides that maybe it’s time to find a new, less dangerous, career.
But that’s easier said than done. He’s a wanted criminal with no shortage of powerful (and crazy) enemies, and he has a bone or two to pick with the Everton Council of Mages.
Hope arrives in the form of a new law. War is coming to Everton, and the Council is desperate. In exchange for providing some help, Timmy might just earn that pardon he’s been looking for. Of course, just because it’s possible to earn a pardon doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy.
To earn his pardon, Timmy is going to have to take down some of Everton’s most dangerous enemies and put together a quirky group of unconventional heroes, most of whom want nothing more than to mangle him and/or the Council in as vicious a way as possible. It’s a good thing that he’s got some help: an obnoxious ten-year-old apprentice who thinks that pink glasses are appropriate for a budding necromancer and a bumbling bureaucrat who may or may not make it through their first real fight without puking his guts up.
Wonderful.
Still, Timmy’s never been one to back down from a challenge even if their first recruit is basically the elf version of the bogeyman.
81 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 18, 2014
525 people are currently reading
2622 people want to read
About the author
L.G. Estrella
35 books505 followersI'm a reader and writer with a keen interest in psychology, history, physics, and economics. I'm especially interested in the intersection of these different areas (e.g., the psychology behind the sub-prime mortgage collapse).
In terms of fiction, I enjoy reading horror, fantasy, science fiction, Westerns, and thrillers. I believe that every genre has its good points, and I want to be able to incorporate all of these strengths into my own writing.
I currently live in Australia. When I'm not writing, I'm busy trying to fend off all of the deadly wildlife.
If you're interested in my fiction, you can find it on Amazon here.
In terms of fiction, I enjoy reading horror, fantasy, science fiction, Westerns, and thrillers. I believe that every genre has its good points, and I want to be able to incorporate all of these strengths into my own writing.
I currently live in Australia. When I'm not writing, I'm busy trying to fend off all of the deadly wildlife.
If you're interested in my fiction, you can find it on Amazon here.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 290 reviews
April 15, 2023
I think need to stop reading. Well, I need to stop reading books that ruin other books for me: Kate Daniels has thoroughly ruined all UF series with a female lead for me. Sandman Slim and Daniel Faust have utterly destroyed any possible delectation I might find in UF series with a male lead. And Johannes Cabal has completely demolished any interest I might have in Humorous Fantasy about necromancers. Sigh and stuff.
This book wasn't bad—and now that I've read it I want a) a magical shovel, b) bow-wielding abnormally intelligent ninja rats, and c) a zombie pig-lion—but the story wasn't exactly fascinating and the characters were so ridiculously flat that I didn't really give a fish about any of them. (Not even Katie the moderately wicked kid, dammit! Then again that's probably because I've read The Makening and cute little Chortle ruined me forever when it comes to "industrious little malignancies" 🙄.) Oh, and last but not least, despite being only 93 pages long this story sure felt like it would never end.
I guess I could have given this book a despicable 2-star rating but it seems I'm getting ridiculously wise and reasonable in my old age and decided to go for 3 stars instead. I mean, it's not this author's fault I didn't enjoy their story much. It's obviously Jonathan L. Howard's and Michael McClung's. Shame on you both for writing such great books and thoroughly ruining this story for me!
This book wasn't bad—and now that I've read it I want a) a magical shovel, b) bow-wielding abnormally intelligent ninja rats, and c) a zombie pig-lion—but the story wasn't exactly fascinating and the characters were so ridiculously flat that I didn't really give a fish about any of them. (Not even Katie the moderately wicked kid, dammit! Then again that's probably because I've read The Makening and cute little Chortle ruined me forever when it comes to "industrious little malignancies" 🙄.) Oh, and last but not least, despite being only 93 pages long this story sure felt like it would never end.
I guess I could have given this book a despicable 2-star rating but it seems I'm getting ridiculously wise and reasonable in my old age and decided to go for 3 stars instead. I mean, it's not this author's fault I didn't enjoy their story much. It's obviously Jonathan L. Howard's and Michael McClung's. Shame on you both for writing such great books and thoroughly ruining this story for me!
May 27, 2023
Fun and fantastic!
😂hee hee hee!
Invisible Ninja Rats!!
Enough said!
But this review requires 8 more words... Hmm... Just: Read this book!🤓
😂hee hee hee!
Invisible Ninja Rats!!
Enough said!
But this review requires 8 more words... Hmm... Just: Read this book!🤓
October 17, 2022
This was a fun quick read with cute characters and lots of things going on, however it definitely would appeal to a younger reader, for this reason I don't think I will be reading the rest of the series.
Happy Reading 📖📗📚📓📗📘📒📖📕📙📚📗📖📚📓📚📙📚📕📚📗📘📒📓📖
Happy Reading 📖📗📚📓📗📘📒📖📕📙📚📗📖📚📓📚📙📚📕📚📗📘📒📓📖
July 23, 2023
The basic story is pretty straight forward as far as fantasy stories go. Group gets an order to preform a task, picks up a specialist on the way and then they go for the big boss battle. What sets this book apart are the characters. The two Necromancers would be thought of as comic relief in most books, here they are the main characters. Their castle staff and the things that go on there are well over the top and help, (along with the characters) make the book one long list of out of context quotes. A great book for taking the edge off and getting away from the way serious books that make up most Fantasy/SciFi lists.
Well have to give the second book a look.
Well have to give the second book a look.
March 12, 2021
Everything is incredibly flat. There's no character depth or growth. The characters are all the same but with different flavors. The story ambles and never gets anywhere.
This was a two-in-one audiobook so this review goes for book two as well.
This was a two-in-one audiobook so this review goes for book two as well.
July 6, 2025
Enjoyed the beginning of this one, but the non-stop humour got repetitive and exhausting. It's only 80 pages, but there's no chapters and only very few actual paragraph breaks so there's not many places for the mind to rest. The author crammed in a lot of stuff so there's always something going on, but since it's so short it kind of lacked any substance to it. I also found the ending to be very abrupt.
Might have been better if the book was longer, I don't know. Or I might have dnf:d it.
Might have been better if the book was longer, I don't know. Or I might have dnf:d it.
March 5, 2016
I'm all for humor and fantasy in the same book, which is why I read this self-published book even though I almost universally abhor such literature. The premise sounded cute enough, and since it was so short, I didn't feel as though I would be wasting a great deal of time if the book turned out to be awful.
It wasn't. It wasn't amazing, either. The bickering could have been carried out more convincingly (and could definitely have been funnier...but then, I'm somewhat known for writing funny banter) and I can't say that I loved any of the characters. Overall, the silliness of the plot and the short length made it a worthwhile read.
It wasn't. It wasn't amazing, either. The bickering could have been carried out more convincingly (and could definitely have been funnier...but then, I'm somewhat known for writing funny banter) and I can't say that I loved any of the characters. Overall, the silliness of the plot and the short length made it a worthwhile read.
December 31, 2020
The book is well-written.
The story is fun, and funny.
But I still got bored.
Maybe it was a bit too much over-the-top.
Maybe I felt too many echoes of Morningwood, and I got tired of that book's type of humour after a while.
Maybe I like my books to not go above a certain level of facetiousness.
Call it hubris, or conceit on my part. It's all good.
I found this book amusing for a while. But I need more in a book than just a never-ending stream of slapstick comedy.
The story is fun, and funny.
But I still got bored.
Maybe it was a bit too much over-the-top.
Maybe I felt too many echoes of Morningwood, and I got tired of that book's type of humour after a while.
Maybe I like my books to not go above a certain level of facetiousness.
Call it hubris, or conceit on my part. It's all good.
I found this book amusing for a while. But I need more in a book than just a never-ending stream of slapstick comedy.
June 8, 2022
This was my first exposure to L.G. Estrella and I definitely want more! The author creates humorous and ironic juxtapositions of characters and roles: Timmy, the dread, dark necromancer, who's reluctant to kill. Katie, the whiz-bang apprentice who's 10 and cute as a button and hates being called a kid, and is protected by invisible ninja rats.
Then we meet the bureaucrat who's 6' 6" (two meters) skinny, and loves paperwork. But he can magically retrieve any paperwork at any time. As well as other things.
Finally, there's the woodland elf who's a pyromaniac because her magical power is creating fire.
I assure you, you will enjoy this romp.
Then we meet the bureaucrat who's 6' 6" (two meters) skinny, and loves paperwork. But he can magically retrieve any paperwork at any time. As well as other things.
Finally, there's the woodland elf who's a pyromaniac because her magical power is creating fire.
I assure you, you will enjoy this romp.
December 1, 2021
This was rather short and just about as silly, but still rather fun. I knew a bunch of the backstory from the other work I had read, but it was nice to read it first hand, as it were. The action picked up slowly, properly introducing characters with amusing scenes, and built up to a rather delicious climax, and then a resolution that made me smile. I can't wait to read more set in this world.
January 12, 2021
A solid 3.5
Cute, fun, light fantasy comedy. I needed some background noise the last couple of days and this fit the bill perfectly.
Cute, fun, light fantasy comedy. I needed some background noise the last couple of days and this fit the bill perfectly.
February 18, 2024
Hahaha hahaha shovel hahaha haha hahahahahahaha
February 22, 2024
Good goofy fun
June 17, 2023
3.5 stars
This is a nice palate-cleanser, with characters that are just so good!! We don't have a lot of plot going onward, it is all pretty straightforward (but it is also a short story and not a full-length novel so it's not so bad), but the characters are amazing! We have an unassuming Necromancer, that does not really sounds like much, and that is almost bullied by his ten years old apprentice and "hers" ninja rats (and yes, we have a ten years old apprentice necromancer and ninja rats... how cool is that??), but that he has some hidden depths (I would have loved to see more of them, frankly), the too-cool-for-school apprentice is a smart ten years old girl with billowing black robes and pink glasses, the ninja rats are self-commenting, as I said before, because they are just cool, cool, and cool. But they are not alone, we have an unassuming mage bureaucrat that possesses some interesting magic, and a maniac elf, who is also pyromaniac and so powerful!
It is a fast and fun read, that would keep you company for a while, and it is also original and cute!
This is a nice palate-cleanser, with characters that are just so good!! We don't have a lot of plot going onward, it is all pretty straightforward (but it is also a short story and not a full-length novel so it's not so bad), but the characters are amazing! We have an unassuming Necromancer, that does not really sounds like much, and that is almost bullied by his ten years old apprentice and "hers" ninja rats (and yes, we have a ten years old apprentice necromancer and ninja rats... how cool is that??), but that he has some hidden depths (I would have loved to see more of them, frankly), the too-cool-for-school apprentice is a smart ten years old girl with billowing black robes and pink glasses, the ninja rats are self-commenting, as I said before, because they are just cool, cool, and cool. But they are not alone, we have an unassuming mage bureaucrat that possesses some interesting magic, and a maniac elf, who is also pyromaniac and so powerful!
It is a fast and fun read, that would keep you company for a while, and it is also original and cute!
May 26, 2024
The book had an almost amateur feel to it and I wondered if it was part of a National Novel Writing Month challenge due to the inclusion of a travelling shovel of death. But the humour was good and the characters enjoyable, even if they coud have used a bit more fleshing out.
December 1, 2022
What a silly, fun, and enjoyable book. A nice palette refresher after heavier reads.
January 3, 2024
‘“I’ll have one of the servants show you to your room.”
Gerald paled, and Timmy bit back a chuckle.
“Relax, I meant one of my living servants. And, yes, your room is completely normal. But try not to wander too far from it. The part of the castle where you’ll be staying is safe, but I can’t guarantee your safety if you wander around.”
Katie giggled.
“We still haven’t found that zombie pig-lion I made. Based on some of the tracks we’ve found, I think it’s learned how to walk on the ceiling.”
Gerald immediately looked up at the ceiling. How exactly did a zombie pig-lion learn to walk on the ceiling?
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“If you do run into trouble, call for help. It won’t be long before one of the rats turns up to give you a hand.”
“Rats?” Gerald twitched. He was, Timmy thought, a very twitchy sort of person. “What kind of rats?”
“Not zombie rats, ninja rats. They live here, and they’ve been told to keep an eye on you. So if you see any rodents running around with swords, maces, bows, or any other weapons, relax. They’re here to keep you safe.”
“I see.” Gerald didn’t see. He really didn’t.
Katie cackled. “They can also turn invisible.”’
Honestly this book had me constantly laughing. Who doesn’t like a story with a necromancer who likes to bash creatures with a magical shovel, a child apprentice that acts like they are the anti-christ and has turned the ninja rats against their master, a bureaucrat who questions their life choices, an elf that might actually be the anti-christ and the aforementioned bloodthirsty ninja rats with tiny weapons (that are still dangerous) and the ability to turn invisible.
Bonus: a zombie hydra-dragon-bear, a zombie pig-lion, a vicious black dragon and the friendly creature under the castle called Sam🥰🥰
Gerald paled, and Timmy bit back a chuckle.
“Relax, I meant one of my living servants. And, yes, your room is completely normal. But try not to wander too far from it. The part of the castle where you’ll be staying is safe, but I can’t guarantee your safety if you wander around.”
Katie giggled.
“We still haven’t found that zombie pig-lion I made. Based on some of the tracks we’ve found, I think it’s learned how to walk on the ceiling.”
Gerald immediately looked up at the ceiling. How exactly did a zombie pig-lion learn to walk on the ceiling?
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“If you do run into trouble, call for help. It won’t be long before one of the rats turns up to give you a hand.”
“Rats?” Gerald twitched. He was, Timmy thought, a very twitchy sort of person. “What kind of rats?”
“Not zombie rats, ninja rats. They live here, and they’ve been told to keep an eye on you. So if you see any rodents running around with swords, maces, bows, or any other weapons, relax. They’re here to keep you safe.”
“I see.” Gerald didn’t see. He really didn’t.
Katie cackled. “They can also turn invisible.”’
Honestly this book had me constantly laughing. Who doesn’t like a story with a necromancer who likes to bash creatures with a magical shovel, a child apprentice that acts like they are the anti-christ and has turned the ninja rats against their master, a bureaucrat who questions their life choices, an elf that might actually be the anti-christ and the aforementioned bloodthirsty ninja rats with tiny weapons (that are still dangerous) and the ability to turn invisible.
Bonus: a zombie hydra-dragon-bear, a zombie pig-lion, a vicious black dragon and the friendly creature under the castle called Sam🥰🥰
August 21, 2023
This is a pretty straightforward story about a necromancer trying to earn a pardon from a magical council. He’s getting old – what, 30’s is old for a necromancer! Plus his apprentice is going to dispose him and take over the castle when she’s able to match his skills. Enter one bureaucrat to keep the paperwork straight and one quest to build a crew to help with the war that’s coming.
From the cake loving cosmic horror that lives under the castle, to the invisible Ninja rats, and a hilariously cute 10-year-old apprentice that is definitely evil but also loves pink, there’s a ton of fun things in this story.
There’s not much in terms of character development but it’s fun to find out about their lives and shenanigans. I personally love the audio book narrator as well, he does a good job bringing out the teasing dynamic in the group and his Gerald the Bureaucrat voice is also hilarious.
There’s tons of action and magic to keep things interesting. For the age group, there’s a bit of vulgarity but it’s pretty tame and I would be okay handing this to a young teen, like 12+ probably.
The Bonus Stories:
Tomb Raiding: an adventure into a tomb to find some treasure. Plenty of traps and educational opportunities for Katie the apprentice. Fun for sure but didn’t add much to the world at large.
The Bank: this story is a bit much honestly! I don’t think we needed so much insight into how necromancers do banking, although it was fun to see Katie and Spot open accounts. Each story has some fun moments but 🤷♀️ overall
Overall:
Hilarious, fun, probably best consumed in small doses as I can see the series getting dry pretty quickly. Go meet those deadly rats and pyromaniac elves for 0.99, why not 🤣
From the cake loving cosmic horror that lives under the castle, to the invisible Ninja rats, and a hilariously cute 10-year-old apprentice that is definitely evil but also loves pink, there’s a ton of fun things in this story.
There’s not much in terms of character development but it’s fun to find out about their lives and shenanigans. I personally love the audio book narrator as well, he does a good job bringing out the teasing dynamic in the group and his Gerald the Bureaucrat voice is also hilarious.
There’s tons of action and magic to keep things interesting. For the age group, there’s a bit of vulgarity but it’s pretty tame and I would be okay handing this to a young teen, like 12+ probably.
The Bonus Stories:
Tomb Raiding: an adventure into a tomb to find some treasure. Plenty of traps and educational opportunities for Katie the apprentice. Fun for sure but didn’t add much to the world at large.
The Bank: this story is a bit much honestly! I don’t think we needed so much insight into how necromancers do banking, although it was fun to see Katie and Spot open accounts. Each story has some fun moments but 🤷♀️ overall
Overall:
Hilarious, fun, probably best consumed in small doses as I can see the series getting dry pretty quickly. Go meet those deadly rats and pyromaniac elves for 0.99, why not 🤣
January 11, 2024
I enjoyed this oh so much! It tickles my funny bone in just the right way, much like the works of Christopher Moore do, being well written, but not taking themselves too seriously at the same time.
The tale of Timmy and his apprentice, Katy is not a long one here, though with three more books (and a couple short stories too), I assume we'll get more of this quest in the coming parts. At it's core though, this is just a delightful tale that really introduces these two and shows us their relationship, which is probably the best part of the whole book. I love how they play off each other. He the doting master who is stern but loving, and she the young apprentice who may say she doesn't like to be doted on, but who clearly respects her master far more than she lets on sometimes.
The world is surprisingly well built for such a short story, and the writing fits the mood of a comedy fantasy, being not too serious but not so lowbrow as to take away from the enjoyment (though you may get tired of hearing the word "zombie" after a while).
This is the audiobook version so I also have to give praise to the narrator, Fred Berman. He does an excellent job of breathing life into the story and characters. I quite enjoy his style and am looking forward to more of his narration.
Overall, this is a light read, but a fun one and more proof that taking a chance on random books can sometimes bring great rewards.
The tale of Timmy and his apprentice, Katy is not a long one here, though with three more books (and a couple short stories too), I assume we'll get more of this quest in the coming parts. At it's core though, this is just a delightful tale that really introduces these two and shows us their relationship, which is probably the best part of the whole book. I love how they play off each other. He the doting master who is stern but loving, and she the young apprentice who may say she doesn't like to be doted on, but who clearly respects her master far more than she lets on sometimes.
The world is surprisingly well built for such a short story, and the writing fits the mood of a comedy fantasy, being not too serious but not so lowbrow as to take away from the enjoyment (though you may get tired of hearing the word "zombie" after a while).
This is the audiobook version so I also have to give praise to the narrator, Fred Berman. He does an excellent job of breathing life into the story and characters. I quite enjoy his style and am looking forward to more of his narration.
Overall, this is a light read, but a fun one and more proof that taking a chance on random books can sometimes bring great rewards.
January 5, 2024
3⭐️
This was a fun romp. Though it relied a bit too much on being funny and had an insanely long and detailed fight scene, I am intrigued with the characters introduced in this short novella and am committing to at least read the next book before I decide to further read the series.
My favourite characters so far have been Gerald and the ninja rats.
This was a fun romp. Though it relied a bit too much on being funny and had an insanely long and detailed fight scene, I am intrigued with the characters introduced in this short novella and am committing to at least read the next book before I decide to further read the series.
My favourite characters so far have been Gerald and the ninja rats.
February 6, 2023
I really enjoyed listening to this audio book. I found the writing to have a subtle, dry and wacky sense of humor like Terry Pratchett. The character are deranged and lovable. The cherry on top is the narrator is awesome. I love all of his voices and think they are perfect for these characters.
August 13, 2020
its another weird one.
October 28, 2020
2.5 stars
January 13, 2023
This was perfect nonsense and I loved it! I would have loved it even more if it hadn't finished so abruptly.
November 5, 2023
An unconventional necromancer, and invisible ninja rats 😁 loved listening as an audio book.
February 16, 2024
This book was cute with likable characters, but it felt a little young for me. I enjoyed it enough that I listened to the second book as well
May 20, 2024
Ratings:-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
March 17, 2022
The premise itself is sufficiently captivating: a tale of “good” necromancers. I was originally intrigued by this concept when it was first observed in the comic Dominic Deegan. However, that comic, nor subsequent media I found that iterated on this subject, made significant effort to expound the idea in any meaningfully inverted way:
In Dominic Deegan, there was a short conversation in which the necromancer made a short conversation espousing the necromantic merits for its use in medicine (bringing life to dead tissue, like from severe burns unable to be mended) and granting final goodbyes to loved ones. If I recall correctly, he also assisted in the creation of one of the nicest and most helpful side characters. However, his actual presence in the story was very minor, and so we didn’t see how he conducted his daily affairs and, thus, couldn’t gleam much more into how is practice was generally utilized.
In Johannes Cabal, the eponymous necromancer was really more of an antihero, a researcher with a more analytical approach, trying to seek the secret of perfect resurrection in a setting where the mechanical limitations of the field are painfully restrictive and the supernatural (which he is wont against)—while perfectly capable of creating an army of the shambling undead—requires making deals with demons. In the course of his stories, his necromancy seems almost incidental: he is compelled to make a recently deceased politician function *just long enough* to mindless orate a speech, tries to gleam the final moments of a murder victim in one book, and he only animates a skull back to complete and perfect consciousness (to his absolute surprise) when he attempts a similar gleaming in a fantasy world called The Dreamlands. Basically, you need to sell your soul, or resign yourself to negligible and fleeting results in a scientific field that’s more like a dead end, or operate in a place where there is a literal power to imagination (or be the devil or cosmic horror). There wasn’t much necromancy, and the flashiest uses of it were employed by pretty bad people who wanted to make deals with demons anyway. Good books, but not necessarily good necromancers, neither in practice nor morality.
In Abhorsen, I was initially intrigued. It’s about a girl who took her father’s mantle of using necromancy to help people. For example, if a region has problems with bodies returning to life, she could build little constructs that prevent ambient energies from infusing with corpses. So the idea is that, if you know how to do something, you can also know how to prevent it from causing problems. However, it eventually became clear that literally every other necromancer is unabashedly evil and that everyone who attempts it will likewise consign themselves to villainy, and that the Abhorsen is a singularly special person whose lifelong goal is to oppose every other necromancer. So yeah, necromancy is inherently evil. It’s really hard to accept that this book is about a good necromancer when their entire purpose of practice is that of solely being an anti-necromancer.
So, what makes the primary necromancers in Unconventional Heroes so compelling is that we see them in the full scope of their practice—they’re some of the main characters—; they also operate without mundane restrictions (and even are able to work in much more extravagant ways, like combining different animals to make composite zombies); these necromancers even control their own army of the undead; and, while necromancers in that setting do tend to be bad, it’s shown to be mostly just from how from society treated them rather than from any inherent evil. This series contains *exactly* the kind of narrative that I wanted to witness that inverted the trope. And, by the process of this inversion, the stories feel fresh and new, so they’re exciting.
So how do the books present them? Well, initially not that well. It’s obvious that the writer was still trying to figure out who the characters are, the world they’re in, and the author’s own approach to prose. Early books also made me wonder if they were aimed at young adults, but the humor in later books—while I couldn’t call it mature—is certainly sophomoric. The early work is rather painfully basic in its writing and characterization. The early work is also repetitive to an extreme, having the same exposition repeated over and over again either by the first-person narration reiterating the same commentary up to dozens of times or by the characters saying things to other characters who are *already* aware of the details. Later books also had this really strange issue of a character “thinking” something and, then, less than a page later, saying it out loud almost word for word. . . . Either this was a strange attempt at humor (comedy by reinforcement) or the author neglected to excise the redundant internal monolog. So I'm going to say that the first 2 books are not that good, but they do build up to something much better, albeit with some residual problems in later entries. Still, I think that the characters and story compensate for the writing.
Before going into the characters and story, I think it’s a good idea to explain the setting and rules that they’re in. Magic is something that can be harvested as a natural energy source from the land, but people can also have innate talents and reservoirs of their own. These talents arise as a primarily ability, but some people can have a secondary one. So basically, people are born into their powers, which can be a familial trait and other times can spontaneously appear. So no-one chooses to have necromantic powers (although they can simply not use them, if they want). However, if someone does turn out to be a necromancer, they’re considered scary and kicked out of the family, sent to become apprentices to more mature necromancers who can relate to them. So, from the start, necromancers have a rough time because they’re already treated like pariahs. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re likewise shunned by local businesses. So most necromancers, however wealthy they can be, develop a bad impression of society and are typically forced to rely on themselves for maintaining their property. But self-reliance only goes so far, especially when you have to run castles and vast tracts of land, so many resort to thieving, mass murder, and impelling their local populations by fear, whom the necromancer wouldn’t care much for anyway because those people were jerks who never gave them a fair chance. By treating people as inherently evil and not to be trusted, society actually pushed people into becoming evil and untrustworthy, creating a vicious cycle as those stereotypes are reinforced. Necromancers are also the absolute best sorcerers in battles of attrition, being able to win nearly all grindy battles because they can simply animate the dead, so local governances are averse to actually bringing necromancers to justice (since they need to use absolute, totally overwhelming force to defeat the criminal IMMEDIATELY or not at all) or even be present in the general area. Without local police, and with an uncaring necromantic lord presiding over the regions, bandits tend to occupy the lands as well. Despite necromancers having developed such a poor reputation, they are still useful as a deterrent for invasion by other countries, plus they’re so preoccupied by internal conflicts that they’re not a threat of usurping the local government, meaning that they’re tolerated to an extent. So necromancers are commonly a nuisance, and far too difficult to eradicate, but they generally occupy small areas and have their uses for national security and, so, are allowed to exist as long as they don’t overstep their boundaries.
So, that’s the premise. What about the characters?
I really want to emphasize that the characterization is easily the part that improves the most. In the first book, the necromancers are not that likable. It begins with the self-proclaimed ‘imposing and powerful’ master necromancer, an obvious egotist, who is otherwise utterly self-oblivious to his own silliness. He’s proudly this super and troublesome sorcerer, the bane of his country’s governance, yet his name is “Timmy”, his goofy weapon of choice is an enchanted shovel, and he relies on his 10-year old apprentice to do all of his paperwork because apparently she is much smarter than him. Oh, and the first thing we see him do is frantically beat up a failed experiment with said shovel. When reading all of this, I could imagine the author writing, in the margins after each of these things, “Isn’t that whacky!?” He is a silly and incompetent person flouting himself like some master of evil or something. He is an arrogant, delusional moron who lacks self-awareness and is very lame. Also, his apprentice, though a very young girl, not only is smarter but also much more powerful, as she can also wield shadow magic. Isn’t that whacky!?? (Sarcasm)
All of this characterization is retroactively changed in following entries, in subtle ways involving learning background information for why he still calls himself Timmy, why he uses a shovel, and why he relies on his apprentice to do his paperwork. In less subtle ways, he completely loses the arrogance and is an extremely competent person who just happens to work in a professional field in which sometimes you need to beat your zombie ‘hydra-shark-griffin-bear’ monstrosity back to death.
Timmy was a good kid who was kicked out of his household and left to live with easily the most evil person in the land. Timmy was abused and mistreated by his master, but was put into enough life-or-death training to become all-around competent in magic and survival. And, since he was young and approachable, his master relied on him to find contractors to help maintain their castle and surrounding lands. However, this was still difficult to reliably do, so Timmy ended up having to learn plumbing, carpentry, and masonry all on his own. He thus became an excellent handyman, but the mason work was still way too much for one person to do with their bare hands. Luckily, he has minor talents with earth magic (you can say that he’s an earth bender). Because he needed a way to augment his meager earth-bending abilities, he needed a tool to do that. And so he infused runes into a shovel, which he chose so that he could be armed in public without scaring people and because it was useful in his work as a mason and gravedigger (very practical). In a fight, the flat end can be used to bludgeon and the sharp ends (which he kept very sharp) sufficed as an ax. Timmy is a good lad who wants to be friends and be absolutely NOTHING like his evil and malicious master, so he still called himself Timmy and went around with his friendly shovel so that he could still seem amicable to others. But he is also ready to fight, when needed, and carrying a shovel and calling himself Timmy is a great way to make foes underestimate him. So he’s smart and generally capable of many things, but paperwork is not one of his interests.
Nevertheless, he still had to do paperwork for several years once his master died, on top of defending what is now *his* castle from opportunistic necromancers, warlords, and vampires eager to steal his property. After some time spend inheriting his master’s legacy of being a monster and actually defeating his rivals in ruthless combat, he did nevertheless develop a bad reputation that put him on the bad side of the government. It was during this time that a 7-year-old girl was dropped onto his doorstep simply because she wanted her puppy to come back to life so much that she made it happen, which frightened her family. Despite their association with each other putting a target on her back for his own enemies, he nevertheless took her in, protected her, and raised her, so that she could become a smart, kind, and very talented 10-year-old necromancer of her own . . . and someone that he could conveniently use to do his paperwork, haha. We also learn, based on the musings of a dimension-hopping protoplasmic horror that, if it wasn’t for his good influence, she would— either because of some family curse or mental disease — have likely become evil. So, there was a lot more to their relationship than “egotistical moron being bested by little girl.”
So what do necromancers do when they’re averse to evil? Rent zombies as security forces, as mercenaries, and as labor for unpleasant tasks. Timmy also invested funds in different businesses. He also used necromancy as a form of food preservation, as seen in the short story collection “The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company.” There was also tomb raiding (or “archeological excavation”), but that was dismissed as no longer a reliable investment. But what kick-starts this series is his acceptance to perform government tasks so that he can be absolved of his perceived misdeeds. Basically, this involves recruiting powerful allies and using their newly-compiled team of paramount fighters to perform surgical strikes against powerful enemies. The stories do sort of become formulaic, in the sense that they follow a similar pattern of “Task given Plans made Execute plans Deal with setbacks go home with victory, loot, and maybe a new member of their team.” There’s also a lot of back-and-forth talks during fights, with the characters posturing and trying to figure out each other’s powers like they’re in some sort of anime. They sort of becomes a team of superheroes who are so competent that they fight against absurdly difficult odds.
The team comprises an eclectic, eccentric group:
There’s a pyromaniac wood elf, who ends up stealing a dragon egg in the hopes that it’ll grow up to terrify all of her innumerable enemies. She’s also so powerful and maniacal that she would name a man-eating flower “Mister Sparkles”, a horse-sized 3-headed dog “Chomp”, and a dragon … well, we’ll get to that.
There’s also an old man (named Old Man), who uses a samurai sword so deftly that he can teleport behind enemies and, somehow, instantly shred them to pieces without seeming to do anything. He says it’s because of his power over space and time, but let’s be real: it’s the power of anime.
There’s a bureaucrat who is a coward, but is ultimately retained during these very dangerous missions because he’s needed to monitor and record the group, plus his magic involves impossibly vast storage in some other dimension that makes him perfect for support. Numerous missions and countless life-or-death moments, as well as instances of passionate fury, do eventually inure him a bit to the hazards so that he could be more reliable.
The egg hatches into a baby dragon, who is adorable, innocent, and named “Spot” because he is black and has a white spot on his nose. (Don’t worry, his real name is something like “Destroyer of all enemies”) Even at a year old, and despite being so cute by how he waddles on stubby legs and pouts when he doesn’t get a snack, Spot is nevertheless one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, borderline indestructible by conventional means and loves eating swords and molten metal. His introduction really changes the general format of the narrative, since the mission-based storyline is sidelined by everyone trying to learn how to take care of a baby dragon (which has never occurred because you need a person completely immune to fire for them to consider someone to be their parent).
There is a sophisticated higher vampire whose ability to heal from wounds is so good that she can afford to be blasted to pieces and strike when her opponents are surprised that she can still fight. She can also summon seas of blood from the fallen and transform into a cosmic horror that’s all black shadows, teeth, and eyes. Wait. . . . That’s just like Alucard in the anime Hellsing. . . . Oh no! Between the anime structures of fights, the anime fighting style of the swordsman Old Man, and the obvious anime parallels of the higher vampire, there’s just no doubt that anime is a huge influence. Weird. Unfortunately, unlike Alucard, her clothes don’t regenerate, so her lack of self-preservation during combat is antithetical to her wardrobe. That seems a little sexist.
There’s also ninja rats (Don’t think of the rats from Clan Eshin in Warhammer). Some of them are also demolition rats (Definitely *do* think of the rats from Clan Skryre, with maniacal cackling and love of things that go boom). They are adorable. And they diligently protect the little girl and treat her like their master, instead of Timmy, probably because she dotes over them and knits them little pink sweaters. Initially, they were used as a gag (imagine the author writing “Aren’t they whacky!?” in the margins again). For example, in one book, Timmy went on a mission with them and was surprised to observe that they had a priest who was able to summon a magic sword, and was later able to summon a giant magic rat of unknown composition and origin. Neither of those surprise features were mentioned again, so they come across as a joke (“Aren’t they whacky!???”, is probably the nature of the joke intended). It’s the kind of joke that makes you go, “Huh, that was random.” But they do grow into their own characters, with their own tragic backstory, and they become one of the most reliable allies among their weird and wild group of heroes, whose talents are gradually introduced and, unlike the magic sword and giant rat from the one book, do get re-used throughout the series.
The books generally proceed as a series of missions, from trying to recruit an elf, a dragon, and a half-demon lord; to fighting a rogue army of golems; to assaulting a prison; and to attacking a military base from sea (“It’s every necromancer’s dream to control zombie pirates.”). In one of the later books, they go all-out necromancer when Timmy uses a legit zombie army to save the dwarves from genocide by the countless hordes of goblins (because necromancers are the obvious winners of wars of attrition, remember?). The repetitive nature and consistent successes of the heroes does gradually reduce the tension in these stories, as their obvious skill makes them formidable enough to match nearly anyone, even when obscenely outnumbered, without that much risk involved, so one has to more appreciate the appeal of *how* they manage to overcome the odds rather than asking *whether* they can do that.
But book 4 does get interesting by finally putting the heroes to their limits. After much grueling fighting, it culminates in a surprise 3-way fight between a sky city, a military base, and a several-mile-long cosmic fungus (yes, you re
In Dominic Deegan, there was a short conversation in which the necromancer made a short conversation espousing the necromantic merits for its use in medicine (bringing life to dead tissue, like from severe burns unable to be mended) and granting final goodbyes to loved ones. If I recall correctly, he also assisted in the creation of one of the nicest and most helpful side characters. However, his actual presence in the story was very minor, and so we didn’t see how he conducted his daily affairs and, thus, couldn’t gleam much more into how is practice was generally utilized.
In Johannes Cabal, the eponymous necromancer was really more of an antihero, a researcher with a more analytical approach, trying to seek the secret of perfect resurrection in a setting where the mechanical limitations of the field are painfully restrictive and the supernatural (which he is wont against)—while perfectly capable of creating an army of the shambling undead—requires making deals with demons. In the course of his stories, his necromancy seems almost incidental: he is compelled to make a recently deceased politician function *just long enough* to mindless orate a speech, tries to gleam the final moments of a murder victim in one book, and he only animates a skull back to complete and perfect consciousness (to his absolute surprise) when he attempts a similar gleaming in a fantasy world called The Dreamlands. Basically, you need to sell your soul, or resign yourself to negligible and fleeting results in a scientific field that’s more like a dead end, or operate in a place where there is a literal power to imagination (or be the devil or cosmic horror). There wasn’t much necromancy, and the flashiest uses of it were employed by pretty bad people who wanted to make deals with demons anyway. Good books, but not necessarily good necromancers, neither in practice nor morality.
In Abhorsen, I was initially intrigued. It’s about a girl who took her father’s mantle of using necromancy to help people. For example, if a region has problems with bodies returning to life, she could build little constructs that prevent ambient energies from infusing with corpses. So the idea is that, if you know how to do something, you can also know how to prevent it from causing problems. However, it eventually became clear that literally every other necromancer is unabashedly evil and that everyone who attempts it will likewise consign themselves to villainy, and that the Abhorsen is a singularly special person whose lifelong goal is to oppose every other necromancer. So yeah, necromancy is inherently evil. It’s really hard to accept that this book is about a good necromancer when their entire purpose of practice is that of solely being an anti-necromancer.
So, what makes the primary necromancers in Unconventional Heroes so compelling is that we see them in the full scope of their practice—they’re some of the main characters—; they also operate without mundane restrictions (and even are able to work in much more extravagant ways, like combining different animals to make composite zombies); these necromancers even control their own army of the undead; and, while necromancers in that setting do tend to be bad, it’s shown to be mostly just from how from society treated them rather than from any inherent evil. This series contains *exactly* the kind of narrative that I wanted to witness that inverted the trope. And, by the process of this inversion, the stories feel fresh and new, so they’re exciting.
So how do the books present them? Well, initially not that well. It’s obvious that the writer was still trying to figure out who the characters are, the world they’re in, and the author’s own approach to prose. Early books also made me wonder if they were aimed at young adults, but the humor in later books—while I couldn’t call it mature—is certainly sophomoric. The early work is rather painfully basic in its writing and characterization. The early work is also repetitive to an extreme, having the same exposition repeated over and over again either by the first-person narration reiterating the same commentary up to dozens of times or by the characters saying things to other characters who are *already* aware of the details. Later books also had this really strange issue of a character “thinking” something and, then, less than a page later, saying it out loud almost word for word. . . . Either this was a strange attempt at humor (comedy by reinforcement) or the author neglected to excise the redundant internal monolog. So I'm going to say that the first 2 books are not that good, but they do build up to something much better, albeit with some residual problems in later entries. Still, I think that the characters and story compensate for the writing.
Before going into the characters and story, I think it’s a good idea to explain the setting and rules that they’re in. Magic is something that can be harvested as a natural energy source from the land, but people can also have innate talents and reservoirs of their own. These talents arise as a primarily ability, but some people can have a secondary one. So basically, people are born into their powers, which can be a familial trait and other times can spontaneously appear. So no-one chooses to have necromantic powers (although they can simply not use them, if they want). However, if someone does turn out to be a necromancer, they’re considered scary and kicked out of the family, sent to become apprentices to more mature necromancers who can relate to them. So, from the start, necromancers have a rough time because they’re already treated like pariahs. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re likewise shunned by local businesses. So most necromancers, however wealthy they can be, develop a bad impression of society and are typically forced to rely on themselves for maintaining their property. But self-reliance only goes so far, especially when you have to run castles and vast tracts of land, so many resort to thieving, mass murder, and impelling their local populations by fear, whom the necromancer wouldn’t care much for anyway because those people were jerks who never gave them a fair chance. By treating people as inherently evil and not to be trusted, society actually pushed people into becoming evil and untrustworthy, creating a vicious cycle as those stereotypes are reinforced. Necromancers are also the absolute best sorcerers in battles of attrition, being able to win nearly all grindy battles because they can simply animate the dead, so local governances are averse to actually bringing necromancers to justice (since they need to use absolute, totally overwhelming force to defeat the criminal IMMEDIATELY or not at all) or even be present in the general area. Without local police, and with an uncaring necromantic lord presiding over the regions, bandits tend to occupy the lands as well. Despite necromancers having developed such a poor reputation, they are still useful as a deterrent for invasion by other countries, plus they’re so preoccupied by internal conflicts that they’re not a threat of usurping the local government, meaning that they’re tolerated to an extent. So necromancers are commonly a nuisance, and far too difficult to eradicate, but they generally occupy small areas and have their uses for national security and, so, are allowed to exist as long as they don’t overstep their boundaries.
So, that’s the premise. What about the characters?
I really want to emphasize that the characterization is easily the part that improves the most. In the first book, the necromancers are not that likable. It begins with the self-proclaimed ‘imposing and powerful’ master necromancer, an obvious egotist, who is otherwise utterly self-oblivious to his own silliness. He’s proudly this super and troublesome sorcerer, the bane of his country’s governance, yet his name is “Timmy”, his goofy weapon of choice is an enchanted shovel, and he relies on his 10-year old apprentice to do all of his paperwork because apparently she is much smarter than him. Oh, and the first thing we see him do is frantically beat up a failed experiment with said shovel. When reading all of this, I could imagine the author writing, in the margins after each of these things, “Isn’t that whacky!?” He is a silly and incompetent person flouting himself like some master of evil or something. He is an arrogant, delusional moron who lacks self-awareness and is very lame. Also, his apprentice, though a very young girl, not only is smarter but also much more powerful, as she can also wield shadow magic. Isn’t that whacky!?? (Sarcasm)
All of this characterization is retroactively changed in following entries, in subtle ways involving learning background information for why he still calls himself Timmy, why he uses a shovel, and why he relies on his apprentice to do his paperwork. In less subtle ways, he completely loses the arrogance and is an extremely competent person who just happens to work in a professional field in which sometimes you need to beat your zombie ‘hydra-shark-griffin-bear’ monstrosity back to death.
Timmy was a good kid who was kicked out of his household and left to live with easily the most evil person in the land. Timmy was abused and mistreated by his master, but was put into enough life-or-death training to become all-around competent in magic and survival. And, since he was young and approachable, his master relied on him to find contractors to help maintain their castle and surrounding lands. However, this was still difficult to reliably do, so Timmy ended up having to learn plumbing, carpentry, and masonry all on his own. He thus became an excellent handyman, but the mason work was still way too much for one person to do with their bare hands. Luckily, he has minor talents with earth magic (you can say that he’s an earth bender). Because he needed a way to augment his meager earth-bending abilities, he needed a tool to do that. And so he infused runes into a shovel, which he chose so that he could be armed in public without scaring people and because it was useful in his work as a mason and gravedigger (very practical). In a fight, the flat end can be used to bludgeon and the sharp ends (which he kept very sharp) sufficed as an ax. Timmy is a good lad who wants to be friends and be absolutely NOTHING like his evil and malicious master, so he still called himself Timmy and went around with his friendly shovel so that he could still seem amicable to others. But he is also ready to fight, when needed, and carrying a shovel and calling himself Timmy is a great way to make foes underestimate him. So he’s smart and generally capable of many things, but paperwork is not one of his interests.
Nevertheless, he still had to do paperwork for several years once his master died, on top of defending what is now *his* castle from opportunistic necromancers, warlords, and vampires eager to steal his property. After some time spend inheriting his master’s legacy of being a monster and actually defeating his rivals in ruthless combat, he did nevertheless develop a bad reputation that put him on the bad side of the government. It was during this time that a 7-year-old girl was dropped onto his doorstep simply because she wanted her puppy to come back to life so much that she made it happen, which frightened her family. Despite their association with each other putting a target on her back for his own enemies, he nevertheless took her in, protected her, and raised her, so that she could become a smart, kind, and very talented 10-year-old necromancer of her own . . . and someone that he could conveniently use to do his paperwork, haha. We also learn, based on the musings of a dimension-hopping protoplasmic horror that, if it wasn’t for his good influence, she would— either because of some family curse or mental disease — have likely become evil. So, there was a lot more to their relationship than “egotistical moron being bested by little girl.”
So what do necromancers do when they’re averse to evil? Rent zombies as security forces, as mercenaries, and as labor for unpleasant tasks. Timmy also invested funds in different businesses. He also used necromancy as a form of food preservation, as seen in the short story collection “The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company.” There was also tomb raiding (or “archeological excavation”), but that was dismissed as no longer a reliable investment. But what kick-starts this series is his acceptance to perform government tasks so that he can be absolved of his perceived misdeeds. Basically, this involves recruiting powerful allies and using their newly-compiled team of paramount fighters to perform surgical strikes against powerful enemies. The stories do sort of become formulaic, in the sense that they follow a similar pattern of “Task given Plans made Execute plans Deal with setbacks go home with victory, loot, and maybe a new member of their team.” There’s also a lot of back-and-forth talks during fights, with the characters posturing and trying to figure out each other’s powers like they’re in some sort of anime. They sort of becomes a team of superheroes who are so competent that they fight against absurdly difficult odds.
The team comprises an eclectic, eccentric group:
There’s a pyromaniac wood elf, who ends up stealing a dragon egg in the hopes that it’ll grow up to terrify all of her innumerable enemies. She’s also so powerful and maniacal that she would name a man-eating flower “Mister Sparkles”, a horse-sized 3-headed dog “Chomp”, and a dragon … well, we’ll get to that.
There’s also an old man (named Old Man), who uses a samurai sword so deftly that he can teleport behind enemies and, somehow, instantly shred them to pieces without seeming to do anything. He says it’s because of his power over space and time, but let’s be real: it’s the power of anime.
There’s a bureaucrat who is a coward, but is ultimately retained during these very dangerous missions because he’s needed to monitor and record the group, plus his magic involves impossibly vast storage in some other dimension that makes him perfect for support. Numerous missions and countless life-or-death moments, as well as instances of passionate fury, do eventually inure him a bit to the hazards so that he could be more reliable.
The egg hatches into a baby dragon, who is adorable, innocent, and named “Spot” because he is black and has a white spot on his nose. (Don’t worry, his real name is something like “Destroyer of all enemies”) Even at a year old, and despite being so cute by how he waddles on stubby legs and pouts when he doesn’t get a snack, Spot is nevertheless one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, borderline indestructible by conventional means and loves eating swords and molten metal. His introduction really changes the general format of the narrative, since the mission-based storyline is sidelined by everyone trying to learn how to take care of a baby dragon (which has never occurred because you need a person completely immune to fire for them to consider someone to be their parent).
There is a sophisticated higher vampire whose ability to heal from wounds is so good that she can afford to be blasted to pieces and strike when her opponents are surprised that she can still fight. She can also summon seas of blood from the fallen and transform into a cosmic horror that’s all black shadows, teeth, and eyes. Wait. . . . That’s just like Alucard in the anime Hellsing. . . . Oh no! Between the anime structures of fights, the anime fighting style of the swordsman Old Man, and the obvious anime parallels of the higher vampire, there’s just no doubt that anime is a huge influence. Weird. Unfortunately, unlike Alucard, her clothes don’t regenerate, so her lack of self-preservation during combat is antithetical to her wardrobe. That seems a little sexist.
There’s also ninja rats (Don’t think of the rats from Clan Eshin in Warhammer). Some of them are also demolition rats (Definitely *do* think of the rats from Clan Skryre, with maniacal cackling and love of things that go boom). They are adorable. And they diligently protect the little girl and treat her like their master, instead of Timmy, probably because she dotes over them and knits them little pink sweaters. Initially, they were used as a gag (imagine the author writing “Aren’t they whacky!?” in the margins again). For example, in one book, Timmy went on a mission with them and was surprised to observe that they had a priest who was able to summon a magic sword, and was later able to summon a giant magic rat of unknown composition and origin. Neither of those surprise features were mentioned again, so they come across as a joke (“Aren’t they whacky!???”, is probably the nature of the joke intended). It’s the kind of joke that makes you go, “Huh, that was random.” But they do grow into their own characters, with their own tragic backstory, and they become one of the most reliable allies among their weird and wild group of heroes, whose talents are gradually introduced and, unlike the magic sword and giant rat from the one book, do get re-used throughout the series.
The books generally proceed as a series of missions, from trying to recruit an elf, a dragon, and a half-demon lord; to fighting a rogue army of golems; to assaulting a prison; and to attacking a military base from sea (“It’s every necromancer’s dream to control zombie pirates.”). In one of the later books, they go all-out necromancer when Timmy uses a legit zombie army to save the dwarves from genocide by the countless hordes of goblins (because necromancers are the obvious winners of wars of attrition, remember?). The repetitive nature and consistent successes of the heroes does gradually reduce the tension in these stories, as their obvious skill makes them formidable enough to match nearly anyone, even when obscenely outnumbered, without that much risk involved, so one has to more appreciate the appeal of *how* they manage to overcome the odds rather than asking *whether* they can do that.
But book 4 does get interesting by finally putting the heroes to their limits. After much grueling fighting, it culminates in a surprise 3-way fight between a sky city, a military base, and a several-mile-long cosmic fungus (yes, you re
August 20, 2022
⭐️ 2.5 stars ⭐️
February 4, 2024
Short book that didn’t really have a lot of substance.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 290 reviews