The Sword of Shells

By: Matthew Fish

Narrated by: Poppy Royana

Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

A young musician escapes from the kingdom on the night before a great battle is to occur. In his attempt to sneak away in the darkness, he is met by others who soon become traveling companions as his journey to discover his role in a war that will sweep the entire world begins.

With his new companions, he finds himself caring for others as he learns about the four sacred blades that might just hold the key to defending the world from a threat that wishes to obtain the power to unmake it.

The Sword of Shells is a fantasy novel based in the world of The Lemniscate Tower. However, it takes place during a different time period, and neither are related aside from this shared world.

©2022 Matthew Fish (P)2023 Matthew Fish

Great plot, good narration.

This book is not super fast paced, but doesn’t drag on either. There is enough world building to make you feel immersed but the author doesn’t drag it out to the point where you feel like you are bogged down with the size, shape, smell, and texture of every new leaf.

There are many fantastical creatures that drop in for a short time and the narrator described them well but without killing the pacing with details.

Characters were well-written and were given enough back-sorry to ensure you actually care about them and have a vested interest in their lives. Book takes some clever twists and didn’t end up at all how I expected.

The narrator was good, but not fantastic. I felt her pronunciations were a bit off on some less common words and I felt that she could have worked on pausing more when switching. Between characters and maybe a bit more variety in voices. But, her voice was quite soothing and easy on the ears.

Overall a 4.5/5

Fantastic World Building

This tale was an adventure from start to finish! I especially loved the various creatures that show up!

Wonderful Fantasy Tale

I greatly enjoyed the world created and found the creatures and beauty of the world a nice distraction from its more serious elements. I’ve read multiple books by this author and I have noticed that someone’s enjoyment of one of his books can come down to the books final pages, The author enjoys writing the unexpected, which can at times be jarring, however it can also be a very effective narrative tool and memorable. The narrator was wonderful, her voice was great and she really made the characters distinct. The accent was spot on for this type of story. I hope to see more books in this world.

A Timewarped Journey

This is a tale of four strangers, brought together by circumstance and plot, who get to know each other, overcome obstacles and their own personal flaws… really, really quickly.

Note: spoilers from the first couple chapters.

“Hey, Boy! Your name is bad, you should change it to the name of my dead son.” “Okay, guy-I-literally-met-a-day-and-a-half-ago, you’ve convinced me!”

“How dare you not address me as royalty, peasant?” “Princess, you need to overcome your years of being a noble and realize we’re all in this together!” “Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry.”

“You know that magic sword that has passed into myth and legend? Have you tried… just wishing for it really hard?” “Oh, wow, that worked, that’s handy.”

“My father was turned into a horrible dread beast that tried to kill me, so we had to kill him… oh well; I’m vaguely saddened by this event.”

“Arg! I’ve lost a hand!” Little fireside cauterization and I’m up and running around in a day or so.

The evil advisors are also ridiculously over-the-top evil. Like mustache-twirling, cowl-wearing, cackling evil. How they even got into the front gates, let alone onto the palace staff, is a bit unclear. I assume magic.

Narrator does a decent job. Her voice is nice and clear; but her range, especially for male characters (which is most of the cast), is a bit limited.