This is a pretty interesting book with a cool premise, powers and an compelling protagonist.

My only relevant issue after having read through half of the book is the utterly ridiculous hesitancy of introducing guns into this world. This isn’t our world, it’s a fantasy world filled with evil mages that have no qualms about mind breaking and enslaving sentient beings – any real world analogues about introducing guns to a technologically inferior society are just laughable.

That’s not the reason why I couldn’t and probably won’t finish though, but this is VERY much a Me issue. I self insert into books, which means if that line of credulity with the protagonist is strained too far, it snaps and I become un-immersed.

The protagonist is gay. The story does a pretty good job of letting you ignore this fact and I was able to listen normally without a care in the world. The issue came when he’d randomly start sperging over the ‘distracting, handsome centaur’ or some other gorgeous, buff dudes etc.

None of this is worthy of a demerit of any kind, but it’s like a cold slap to the face with a wet fish for me, instantly pulling me out of the narrative every time. If you self-insert when you read like me, be warned of this going into this seemingly pretty good story, you might struggle like I did.