An interesting take on the idea of a "fantasy" world. It manages to be clichéd without being clichéd. There is standard magic, but the character Jason sets the tone when he tells Henry that being from modern Earth would be an advantage because they would think differently about their magic (i.e. outside the box). This turns out to be true in so many ways.

The introduction of other characters is handled well by spending a chapter (or more) getting to know each one. Every character is engaging and real (with a few minor exceptions) and the clashing of various cultures is wonderful to watch.

The characters getting down on themselves almost to the point of self loathing was hard to listen to, but mainly because it hit so close to home. Everyone has doubts about themselves, and way too often, we magnify those to the extreme. This is one of the rare times I have seen in a book where that was realistically portrayed without the characters constantly saying, "Everything is my fault."

I have three minor complaints. The first is a few spots where word choice was kind of weird. At one point, a god-like character says that mortals are always "eating, s***ing, and fornicating". For consistency’s sake, that sentence should have been either, "eating, s***ing, and f***ing," or, "eating, defecating, and fornicating". There are a few examples of this throughout the book.

My next complaint is one of the villains. I am specifically using the word "villain" because "antagonist" isn’t melodramatic enough to describe him. He is a fairly minor character, but he is SO over the top evil and unpleasant. Corvin seems to have some very specific opinions about a certain neck-bearded, fedora/trilby wearing internet subculture. This villain (if you listen to the book, you will know EXACTLY who I am talking about) is all of the worst qualities of that group turned up to eleven. He is whiny, talks about being a nice guy while being physically and verbally abusive, and talks about having "earned" a particular woman. He "deserves" her. With all of the characters, despite coming from wildly different cultures, being so real and down to earth, having such a two-dimensional character (who is obviously an expy for the author’s loathing) is a little jarring.

My last complaint is that the coincidences in the protagonists’ favor got a little ridiculous. At one point, this is hand waved by Jason realizing just how lucky he and Henry are and thinking that all of his bad luck on Earth was to save up good luck for Ludus, but that doesn’t excuse it.

Still, fantastic book I enjoyed the hell out of.

Hays does a very good job as narrator, but is helped along by a fantastic editing team. When a character is supposed to laugh, Hays will laugh in the character’s voice, and him narrating "he laughed" is edited on top of it. When one character interrupts another, the two lines are cut together to sound like an actual interruption. My favorite was when a goblin was killed, Hays was describing it’s death rattle and in the background, one could actually hear it’s choking gasps. Most useful is when a character has an internal bit of monologue, there is a slight reverb to it. This works almost like an audio italicize. This book felt almost like a step toward audio drama. It was amazing!

Definitely worth the credit for a listen. I highly recommend this book.