Paternus: Rise of Gods

The Paternus Trilogy, Book 1

By: Dyrk Ashton

Narrated by: Nik Magill

Length: 15 hrs

Publisher's summary

Described as American Gods meets the X-Men, True Blood meets The Talisman, and Supernatural meets The Lord of the Rings, Paternus combines myths from around the world in a modern story of action and intrigue that is "urban fantasy on the surface, but so much more at its core!"

"Paternus is an imaginative...exhilarating ride ... A refreshing take on contemporary fantasy." (Anthony Ryan, New York Times best-selling author of Blood Song and The Legion of Flame)

"Epic, innovative urban fantasy. A great read!" (Mark Lawrence, Gemmell Award winner and international best-selling author of Prince of Thorns and Red Sister)

Even myths have legends. And not all legends are myth.

When a local hospital is attacked by strange and frightening men, Fiona Patterson and Zeke Prisco save a catatonic old man named Peter - and find themselves running for their lives with creatures beyond imagination hounding their every step.

With nowhere else to turn, they seek out Fi's enigmatic Uncle Edgar. But the more their questions are answered, the more they discover that nothing is what it seems - not Peter, not Edgar, perhaps not even themselves.

The gods and monsters, heroes and villains of lore - they're real. And now they've come out of hiding to hunt their own. In order to survive, Fi and Zeke must join up with powerful allies against an ancient evil that's been known by many names and feared by all. The final battle of the world's oldest war has begun.

"Terrific. Paternus is intelligent, intricate, suspenseful, and epic." (Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld and Bloody Rose)

"Ashton is a bloody, terrific genius. The action sequences are truly mind-boggling. Miss out on this one at your own risk." (Fantasy Book Critic)

©2016 Dyrk Ashton (P)2016 Dyrk Ashton

Critic reviews

“Fast-paced, gloriously intricate.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Brilliant Story Revolving Around Myth and Legend

Would you listen to Paternus again? Why?

Sure. The person narrating had a really annoying narration style. It sounded more like he was reading slides than a book. His voices for the characters, however, were really well done. I was a little surprised that his narration was so weird, as a result.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Loved Fiona and Zeke. They were so real, so visceral and their story seems like such a normal occurrence.

What three words best describe Nik Magill’s performance?

Frustrating, surprising, great [voices]

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

When the Gods have a fight to the death, who survives to make the legend into a myth?

Any additional comments?

In a story told from multiple points of view, omnipresent style, we learn of the Cataclysm, and the first and second apocalypse. In time, we are introduced to Fi, the main focus of our story, and Zeke, a co-worker and the man Fiona is interested in. Through miscommunications and fumbles, Fi believes Zeke doesn't like her which will make working with him awkward and will make things difficult for Zeke who truly loves her.

After the mishap with Zeke, and while on her way to work, a bum accosts Fi and later, the hospital where she works is ravaged. Confused and scared, Fi seeks safety with Zeke and the old man she cares for and discovers she has been unwittingly involved in a conflict of mythical and godly proportions where the bad gods will stop at nothing to take over the world and the good gods seem to be losing the battle.

It took some adjusting to get used to the story telling as it's been a while since the last time I read an omnipresent POV book. I loved knowing thoughts and feelings of most of the characters, even in little snippets. It added some depth to characters I wouldn't otherwise have must investment in.

The storyline was really clever, well researched, well thought out and I very much enjoyed it. When it ends, it doesn't make me feel as if I've been robbed of an ending, but likewise it leaves me wanting more.

Dyrk's characters feel realistic, with real problems, flaws, miscommunications, while being attractive, or plump, or maybe hideous for a variety of reasons. Even the mythical or legendary creatures are made visceral.

I'd definitely recommend this book if you have an interest in myth and legend, but be aware it covers a ton of myth and legend, not just the major ones. Well done!

Urban fantasy as it should be

Let's write an urban fantasy. Hmmm, now what mythology should we base it on? Persian? Greco-Roman? Celtic?

To hell with that, says Dyrk Ashton (author may not have said that), let's use ALL of them.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Paternus: Rise of Gods, a funny, erudite and action-packed urban fantasy that will leave you hankering for book two. The author weaves the world's mythologies together with skill, and his characters are likable and believable, even the mythological ones. The plot rattles along at a breakneck pace, rarely giving you the opportunity to catch your breath. As if you'd want to.

I listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator (Nik Magill) did a great job with the voices, although he needs to work on his pronunciation of Gaeilc names. Based on his performance though, I won't hold that against him.

The best thing about Paternus is it's accessible to everyone from grotty teens (the leads are teens and really well written) to cantankerous adults (like myself), and deserves more kudos than it gets (which is a lot).

slow hook

super slow to start but I guess you to lay the groundwork for the series. But once it gets going your hooked.

Creative, exciting & fun start to an epic trilogy!

I loved this book. The characters were complex and interesting, with protagonists that I cared about and villains that made me cringe. The action and pacing kept me listening non-stop until it was finished (with quite a few driveway sessions), and left me looking forward to the sequels (and I’ve read/listened to them both now and they’re EPIC!). Great edge-of-your-seat fight scenes, as well as humor and touching emotion. Well-written prose, with descriptions and attention to detail that made me feel like I was there. I loved the main characters and their building relationships with each of the new team members as they appeared, and couldn't wait to see that grow in the sequels. But what really did it for me was the world building and magic system that just worked. I mean really truly worked. I didn’t feel like my mind was struggling to learn something far-fetched and hold onto all the pieces in order to follow the story. This was a fabulous blend of all our existing mythologies, religions, histories, anthropology, and evolution, mixed together with some creative sci-fi and a dab of magic to create characters and “powers” that felt familiar on our own planet and its doppels. There must have been a pretty significant amount of research put in to pull these threads together in a way that felt so truly believable. With characters as diverse as Merlin, Prathmaja Nandana, Samson, Asterion the Bull, vampires, werewolves, and dinosaurs, all discreetly hiding on present day Earth, a place full of varied cultures and religions that have beliefs, legends, and science that echo their many names, it feels like a beautiful interweaving of humanity that shows our commonality. What’s the best part is that the gods and demons in this story are all one big dysfunctional family, and have the character traits and relatability of the average human brothers, sisters, daughters, and fathers. Loved it! Read the whole trilogy… the other two books are even better, and the ending is fantastic!!!!!

Interesting... I can recommend this new author!!

The short story Berserker is not a stand-alone story in my opinion. I have already read the first book of the trilogy and I still find his story a little confusing. Although I did have an epiphany listening to this story, and I don't know if posting my guess about the plot would be a Spoiler; but I promise I've not heard or read anything but Berserker and book 1.

Still you may not want to read further, my kids say I have a gift for this:
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that father has got to die ...or be delt with in a very final way. He has out-lived his usefulness (sounds harsh but I'm thinking on a geological / evolutions scale not morality scale) and he is very sick. Nature culls the herd. This work embraces the physical worlds laws inasmuch as it wants too- so that, to me is what I feel will happen. I like father so it sucks but a HEA with him bringing about a new day having slain all evil firstborn is so unlikely had it been reality this author would not have had so many edgy author endorsements, ie Jim Butcher, ECT.
...and he is tired... he is so very tired. He feels emotions stronger than humans who live such short lives yet he is over 4 billion years old!!? Give the guy a break Mr Supreme Whoever You Are; oh, I mean author. lol
Now I have such a low score on this story because of an ongoing confusing manner of writing, for example when the author list all the many names a river, a person, or another 1st or 3rd born has been called throughout the Epoc ...argh it just overwhelms my brain and instead of bringing about a sense of awe at the largeness of it all it brings confusion. like...wtf is he talking about?... especially when pertaining to all the different storys, fairy tails, belief systems. regions that are not even history but fiction ...it is just too too much. this is a great writing tactic that has just been overused in this series.
It is, so far, a GREAT series. This story not withstanding I highly recommend the 1st book!

Bloody Interesting

Dyrk Ashton crafted an intriguing story in Paternus: Rise of Gods. Lots of events occur, to detail would be spoiler-ish. But if you love stories involving myriad gods of different pantheons, Rise of Gods is for you! Not only “gods”, but creatures of legend. Many of them. Well worth the time. DRmz 07-19-23

An excellent perspective on Myths & Legends!

A fun and very detailed ride with creatures of myth, lore and legend. One of my top reads of 2017. Thanks Mr. Ashton.

Hard to get into at first but worth it

At first, as I point out in the headline, this book was painful to get through. It jumped around incessantly never staying in one spot long enough for me to bond with any character and they all had names that were incredibly difficult yet all similar at the same time. I couldn't keep them straight and had the overwhelming impression that the authors scope was way to large for what he was attempting and what he was able to pull off. A fact that I really wished one of his beta readers or someone else involved in the draft process had told him.

At about 3/4 of the way through the book it seems like he learned how to write an actual novel and the author started sticking with a core set of character perspectives and things started getting pretty dang good, making me glad I dealt with the pain and almost unreadable/unlistenable sections before it.

I love the idea of what the author is trying to pull off; tying all of world history and mythology together into one story line. But man he does go out in the weeds to do it, and most annoyingly has to tie it all together using one amazing guy named Zeke who is a foster kid mythology buff, who dropped out of Harvard and Juliard to become a music therapy guitar player for a local hospital for homeless people and spends his time traveling to South America to help impoverished people. I liked him and recognize the need to have someone in the story explain and tie this far reaching mythology together but really? Zeke is more unbelievable than the progenitor of all life that has ever existed on earth and his son the original Dracula Irish fairy King put together.

This book has a lot of flaws and can be downright annoying but once it all ties together I believe it is worth the effort to try to get through which is why I rated it 4 stars instead of 3. I'm hoping the author cleans things up much more in the sequel.

Gods Behaving Badly

First third of novel overly didactic and overflowing with too many wordy metaphors, even given how well they are written. All the extra wordiness interferes with providing a cohesive flow to the story arc. Still, near the middle, the story begins to coalesce and pick up the pace as the action between the opposing forces starts to kick in.

For those who are interested in blending of many cultural mythological deities, and I do mean many, into an Infinity War type battle, they may find this novel fulfilling. However, while the author's writing skill is quite good, along with the narrator's performance, the story arc itself came across too fractured and somewhat superficial for my liking.

The book every kid that loves myths wants to write

I think the narrator did and exceptional job of not letting the female voices or the intense descriptions become overwhelming.

Looking forward to book 2!