Don’t pay attention to the cover image. Don’t pay attention to the book’s summary. They don’t reflect the content, at least for the quarter of it that I listened to before giving up.
The story is an uncommon, though not unheard of, take on the fantasy genre. The most refreshing aspect is the idiocy of the main character. Unfortunately, that wore thin real quick. The narration pointing out concepts and ideas only to brush it off with a “but the main character is too dumb to know that” got a smile the first time, a groan the second, and nothing after.
The story structure doesn’t help either. After the first chapter, a clear pattern is well-established. Introduce new characters that sound interesting. Maybe they’ll affect the story in some aspect at some point. Nope, killed and cleaned up a few minutes later and the next batch is brought in. This felt like an online choose-your-own-adventure story where each chapter’s author just wanted to get their personal adventuring party killed in some spectacular fashion.
A positive part of this is the narration. There’s a good variation in tones, inflections, and voices to keep things interesting. It’s just too bad the story material lets it down. Do be careful if you’re listening on earbuds, though, as there’s a few sounds that can peak. I was listening at a medium volume and still have a touch of ringing in my ears.
Overall, this was disappointing. Perhaps the story gets better after the first two hours, but I’m not hanging around to find out.