First some of the good stuff
Narration
Jeff Hays is the real MVP of this garbage fire. Each character sound distinct from from one another and sounds like they have more personality than the plot ever gives them.
And then there’s the rest
World building
I may be spoiled, coming straight from the latest Spellmonger book, but I like to see at least a base level of care given to the world the author is setting up. Aside from the setup; “We are in a world of heroes and villains, in a city run by a villain, here are some of the consequences of living in such a world!”, there is little to no further exploration of what this means on a broader scale and is largely forgotten for most of the book. Oh, yes, and there are fantasy races here for some reason. Why are there fantasy races here, they are barely used? What impact does this have on society and politics? These are some of the questions i’m left with after a full reading of the book. The only reason for this choice that I can see is so the main love interest could be a wolf-girl.
The main cast
The main character, whose name I have forgotten, is both the blandest individual I have ever had the displeasure of reading about, while simultaniously beeing the the most despicable, amoral person in this book. He is a sentient collection of harem tropes with an inconsistent moral compass. The remaining cast is a bit varied in quality. From a wolf girl, who skirts the edge between charming and annoying, to a soul stealing mage lawyer. Sadly, as the cast expands many characters are quickly overshadowed by each other. If the cast was a bit more focused many of these girls have potential that is never properly capitalised on.
The plot
The plot is pretty streamlined. From our main guy buying his first slave to him making a slave based megacorporation, the step by step progression is pretty clear, sensible and well built. A point in its favor. However, any good story needs drama, which in turn is created by conflict. This is where the story trips and faceplants into the dirt. There’s minimal friction between the cast, despite beeing entierly made up of one dude and several women fawning over him. The main protagonist has one of the most broken powers I have seen, leaving no room for doubt he’ll ever loose. All the major action set pieces are caused by a faceless faction of something-or-other who oppose the protagonist for no clear reason. Which brings me neatly to my the topic:
Antagowhatnow?
Any good super powered story needs a good antagonist, a villain to put a steel pipe to our protagonists kneecaps. Super Sale on Super Heroes thinks it needs no such thing. While there’s clear evidence someone is out to get our protagonist, we are not given any reason as to why until the very end. This book has one of the most unsatisfying endings I have read. Out of respect for whoever may still want to listen to this trainwreck I will not spoil it, but a book should leave you wanting more, not asking “WHY?!”.
Cannibalism and the moral highground
And then there’s the elephant in the room. The part which separates this from the piles of mediocre fantasy books and into the terrible mess it ended up being. No, im not talking about the slavery bit. Honestly that part is easy to swallow compared to my biggest issue with this book.
WHATS WITH THE CANNIBALISM?! Seriously, who thought this was a good idea. One moment our protagonist curses the heinous acts of his hidden adversary, the next he openly tells his subjects to grind the bodies of his enemies (dead and living) into meat paste for them to consume. This goes on for most of the book with no sign they will ever stop in a sequal. The worst part must be that it’s written like this is no biggie, like the protagonist is just a bit zaney and the child murdering opposition is totally worse guys! It clings to some sort of moral supperiority despite the protagonist suggiesting ‘beeing ground up and eaten’ as a reasonable punishment for poor work preformance. You are not showing us shades of gray here. So much could have been solved by just removeing this one aspect of the book.