Fate Lashed

Ethereal Earth, Book 2

De: Josh Erikson

Narrado por: Josh Erikson

Duración: 15 h y 59 m

Resumen del Editor

Some heroes are born, some are made, and some are willing to fake it for the right pay.

Gabe abandoned life as a conman after the disasters in Lincoln, and he managed to carve out a bit of peace with the scraps he had left. Unfortunately, bad guys suck at respecting personal boundaries. So, together with Heather and a group of weird new companions, he finds himself shackled to a horrifying cosmic game with sky-high stakes, inscrutable goals, and rules that seem to change every five minutes. And when old gods and monsters resurface to make things so much worse, he's finally forced to admit that he might not be talking his way past any of it.

Fate itself rises to force-feed Gabe a cliché quest, leaving him only to find the artifact, get paid the fortune, and try to make it out alive...and if there's enough time, maybe save the whole stupid world.

Fate Lashed is the sequel to Hero Forged and is the second audiobook in the Ethereal Earth series - an ongoing tale about the nightmares we create, those they create for us, and a few people who refuse to take any of it too seriously.

©2019 Josh Erikson (P)2019 Josh Erikson

Fantastic Series!

It's pretty rare that the role of author and narrator blend together so seemlessly and Mr Erikson is one of those exceptions. His series, strikes the right balance of action and intrigue liberally salted with most of the contents of a shaker full of heartache and witty snark that definitely resonated with my literary taste buds. I can't wait for the next book on the series!

Wonderful Sequel!!

This is the continuing adventure of Gabe, a conman from the midwest who was inadvertently pulled into the world of the supernatural when he gets a very powerful evil god stuck in his head.

Gabe and Heather are recovering from the events of book one, trying to lay low since there’s a pretty sizable bounty on their heads, but are hired by a group of witches and tasked with breaking into an unbreakable vault to collect an item before anyone else does.

They are teamed up with a minotaur with anger-management issues, a hexen (sort of like a shaman, I think), an ancient spectre, and her granddaughter, a human scholar. They are tasked with first retrieving a magical artifact, which is used to get into the unbreakable vault, and then getting there before the aforementioned evil god who no longer resides in Gabe’s head can get there so that he can’t get all of his evil shenanigans under way.

This was a well written and fast paced sequel, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I didn’t find that I latched onto it quite as hard as I latched onto Hero Forged. Not at first anyway. By about the halfway point though, I was hooked! It was an exciting romp through a few different locales with all kinds of baddies on their tails.

Gabe and Heather are still together but not really together, and this one added a bit of a third wheel to that entire scenario, which I wasn’t a huge fan of, at first. I didn’t especially love Lorelei as a character, and it seemed unnecessary to have her in the middle of the other two. The whole triangle ended up uh… actually really kind of weird as well, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t bother me overmuch. I still enjoyed myself quite thoroughly.

This one was something like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom meets a Final Fantasy game. I often think that many books would make really great movies, but I think that this series would make an amazing anime. Someone should get on that!

The narration was again awesome. Josh Erikson puts emotion where it needs to be, and emphasis where it needs to be. That’s one of the pros of having an author be the narrator. Not all authors are good narrators though, but I’m glad to say that this is one author narrator who pulls it off very well! The last 1/4 or so of this book was full of emotion and I got suitably misty-eyed.

And so, all told, this was a really fun sequel to Hero Forged, which forges the way (#notsorry) for many, many more adventures for Gabe and Heather and whichever company of odd heroes they manage to recruit when the time comes. Can’t wait for more!

This review is based on a review copy of the audiobook. :)

Jump into the Ether!

Once again, Josh does a great job of reading his own book.

I found myself listening to this book in places I don't normally listen to my books in, like, business meetings, casual conversations with family and even when getting instructions from the TSA.

Turns out it's not appreciated overall but it sure is entertaining!

Great job on this one, Josh.

Excellent work, great characters!

I really enjoyed this book. I liked it a good deal more than the first book. The characters are believable because they’re flawed. It’s a great example of “regular people, extraordinary situations”. Gabe, the main character is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Also Rezkin(sp?), a supporting antagonist, is hilarious.
I’m pretty new to the modern fantasy genre, but the first of this series got me hooked and this book will keep me coming back.
Also, the plot twists (no spoilers) made sense in retrospect, but took me completely by surprise. Well Done!
The narrator also did a great job distinguishing the characters and putting emotion into the text.

loving this story

I appreciate that you finish each book with a resolving ending and don't leave it with a big cliffhanger. can't wait for the Nextbook!

still awesome

An awesome follow up to the first one. Can't wait for the third.keep it up

So very close

I really wanted to give this book 5 stars, and I almost did.

But the authors use (almost abuse at this point) of the same trope to attempt to keep ratcheting up the tension very quickly becomes wearing.

Plus one more small gripe.

I'll get back to that in a minute.

First, most of the book is excellent, the editing is professional. the characters are well written. the dialogue is believable.

The bad guys are puncheable, but not cartoonish, even the ones that really should feel cartoonish.

The book really has 2 things slowing it down.

1) Gabe is starting to lose his agency, he is a believably helpless human, thrown into a world he doesn't understand. No he should be a master swordsman in a few months, or an expert with his magic.

But he feels less and less like a protagonist and more like a man shaped plot device every time he tried something, only to have the problem miraculously solve itself just well enough for him to make it to the next problem

2) The constant psueodo nihilistic."Everything is lost, now I die" trope is getting old.

the first time Gabe gives up and waits for the sword to finish falling only for something to change at the last second is a neat learning moment for him.

The third time it's a predictable, rather annoying thing.

The 10th time I found myself just skipping ahead minutes at time to get through the crushing, overwhelming despair and hopelessness and numb acceptance of his complete failure to just get to the solution that would move him over to the next round of crushing despair at how completly he failed.

All that said, I will likely buy the next book, because this one was still overall good, and it's so close to being great.

Obviously!

I found the first book was good enough to buy the second book. (obviously) This book, has taken what I thought were simple flaws in the first book and shown them to be intricate filigree on a real work of art.

Loved it!

Josh did it again,! I really really enjoyed this. l listened to them back to back. great story, excellent performance, (barring the British accent)! one quibble:. check with an actual Brit before writing any more British idiom. I'm up for helping!

Josh hit it on the head again thanks buddy

This series has been a real boon. I drive a ridiculous amount for work and have a good fiction to listen to as I drive helps me make my day a little brighter and keep me awake so I don’t crash it.