Blood Demons Retirement: To See a Beautiful World

The Blood Demon's Retirement, Book 1

By: Avitue (W.Huang)

Narrated by: Kaet Matthews

Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Civil War had raged on the Al-Shan Archipelago for the past four decades, only recently coming to an end with the enthronement of the new Emperor.

This is not his story.

The Blood Demon, renowned general of said civil war, was tired of all the fighting and politicking that had described the last four decades of her existence. All she really wanted to do now is to go out into the world and see the many lands from her father's stories.

Thus she retired, and went and did exactly what she wanted.

This is the story of what happens when you toss a (retired) war machine with somewhat lacking common sense into an unsuspecting world at peace.

©2023 Riverfolk Books (P)2024 Riverfolk Books

I really liked it

Good story and narration, I really liked the quotes from people in the world in the beginning of each chapter.

Boring

I'm not trying to be mean and discourage a young author, but this is not a good book. I'm giving it three stars, which is my rating for an exceedingly average book that would not inspire me to read any sequels but I was able to at least finish. I feel that is a generous rating since I'm here at the halfway mark and debating if I want to continue at this point. The problem is, as the summary suggests, this is basically a travelogue of a retired war veteran who, while not quite OP, is very talented, relentless, and ruthless when necessary. I like her character, and I like the general mood the book is trying to set, but a travelogue book needs a new, exciting world to explore and interesting character interactions along the way. Unfortunately, that is where this book falls on its face. The author writes in a very straightforward and uninspired manor and the world he is sharing is rather generic. When you add in the fact that most of the "interesting" character interactions are nothing more than the MC eating and drinking with the locals, it gets old VERY fast. The narrator is also obviously not a pro, and while she does OK with voices and dialogue, her narration is very dry. There are also a number of mispronunciations and undeleted edits, as if no one even cared enough to give this a listen before releasing it. I don't blame them. In fact, now that I think about it, I think I'm moving on to another book and giving this one two stars. If you just want background noise, this might be OK, but don't buy it for the "story."