Resurrection City

Ciphercraft, Book 3

De: Tim Kaiver

Narrado por: Ryan Kennard Burke

Duración: 15 h y 59 m

Resumen del Editor

The price they paid to find this city won’t come close to the cost it will take to build it.

The Cipher has rewarded Cullen with XP to distribute across areas of Resurrection City, from military to defense, economy and more, but he'll need so much more than that to protect his people. And he must do it while negotiating treaties with invaluable allies and fighting off sorcerers, mobs, and the dungeon core growing up out of their backyard.

The galaxy-spanning Osuna have seen the city’s power from beyond the stars, and are now on their way to claim it for themselves. Cullen’s job is to build this city before they get there, because if he doesn’t, only slavery and genocide await.

Will he meet the challenge, or let his people’s greatest hope die in a valley somewhere deep in the Spirit Realm?

©2021 Tim Kaiver (P)2021 Podium Audio

Cullen must fight many enemies to build a city!

Following up directly from the ending of Windwalker, the second book in the Ciphercraft tetralogy, we catch up with Cullen as he does his best to protect his people in the newly restored Resurrection City. Having rejuvenated this mythical city, he must now build it, so it becomes the fortress he needs it to be.

For his people need to not only protect it but must also be ready for the oncoming war with the Osuna imperialists. The Osuna want to claim this city for themselves, but Cullen and his allies won’t give it up without a fight.

To become the governor, Cullen recognizes that it is a difficult and high-stakes job. He needs to build tenuous alliances with other local tribes to gain resources and knowledge. He must also make sure the walls of their fortress are strong enough to survive incursions by dangerous creatures and deadly enemies.

But an old enemy lurks in the darkness, waiting to strike at Cullen and his allies. At stake is Resurrection City and how it represents hope with the power to create a brighter future. Can Cullen succeed against the odds stacked against him?

As each novel evolves the worlds of the Ciphercraft universe, here the story adds a new layer to its gaming mechanics: world-building. As this novel is in the LitRPG genre, known as the Literary Role-Playing Game genre, this adds new elements to the novel. Not just in the writing sense of creating and telling a story, but also developing Resurrection City as the new outpost of their civilization.

Cullen must literally and figuratively build the city by assigning roles to its denizens and dispersing Experience points, known as XP. By doing this, each works toward the larger purpose of Resurrection City. As its newly appointed Governor, this role is something Cullen has never known before, and the responsibility weighs heavily on his shoulders.

As Resurrection City is built, other sinister forces hide nearby waiting to strike, not wanting Cullen to succeed. Knowing the power this city holds, Cullen must think outside of the box, find unlikely allies, and gain the skills needed to fortify the city against the oncoming onslaught by the Osuna. This requires the use of strategy on a city-wide scale for an entire population and not just for a small group.

Waiting to strike is an enemy from the past, who becomes even scarier than she was in the past. She’s become augmented, imbued with dark power, and transforms into a powerful Dungeon Core. And she’s got only one thing on her mind: revenge.

Having made a deal for those powers, she schemes in the background, waiting to strike from the shadows. Her attacks on Cullen and his allies are insidious and subversive, undermining what he is trying to build.

This enemy is someone readers have met previously, so knowing that they are amassing power creates a lot of tension here. It makes the stakes more personal. The feeling of oppressiveness that lies in the darkness of this realm is palpable, adding a mood to the adventure where anything can and will happen.

There are many different points of view and each character takes a different path over the course of this epic novel. But all of them eventually coalesce into one big finale. It’s a breathless, no-holds-barred series of strikes and counterstrikes between two groups fighting a desperate struggle. The lives of Cullen and his citizens are at risk, as the fate of a city rests upon their shoulders.

Magic, telepathy, control over time, wind walking, all these powers, and more are integrated into the story here. Between Experience, Health, and Spirit points, these are all factors built into each character and their skills via stat cards. These demonstrate how each character can allocate their points into different skills, which help them level up, just like in a video game.

As the story is in the LitRPG genre, this is an important part of building their skills to try to gain an advantage, help build a city, and help their fellow citizens. Their faith in Shephka, their ancient god, is also tested like never before and it will be needed to face all oncoming threats.

These threats come in all shapes and sizes, as there are also new and more dangerous creatures lurking in the wild like the Isbahe, a mix of a hog and a dragon. Or the Razorflies, whose name perfectly matches its ferocity and ability to inflict damage. These and other opposing forces lurk deep in the forest, waiting for their chance to strike. This adds to the ferocious and unpredictable nature of this realm.

While Cullen, Viera, Torek, Schaefer, Ehli, and others help build up the city, elsewhere, others are struggling. Emmit is now a Runeslave to the cruel Cian. Anything that Emmit does is in service to him. It’s a difficult journey for him to travel, as he took this path because of what happened in the previous novel. Now that he’s experiencing the consequences of his choices, his regrets are plentiful, and he is looking for a way to get out of his servitude. But even with telepathic powers, it’s more difficult than he thinks.

Each character continues to develop their skills as well as experience growth over the course of this novel. They demonstrate their faith, their strengths, and their weaknesses as well as their integrity and belief in their mission. Even Shephka gets some character development here. Usually a stoic, mysterious, and enigmatic entity, here, he gets more personality and even displays a sense of humor.

Because of the perilous nature of the threats they all face, everyone is put at risk here and no one is safe. Characters we’ve met and gotten to know over the course of this series are put at risk and not everyone makes it out of this alive. One death really gutted me, as I thought that person had what it took and might survive to the end of this saga.

The Osuna empire is the biggest threat of all, looming over the entire series. It looks like that threat will come to fruition once and for all in the final book in the Ciphercraft tetralogy.

The narrator of this audiobook is Ryan Kennard Burke. He injects this story with an infectious energy that elevates it to the next level. Each character has a distinctive voice that brought them to life in my head as I listened.

This is an enveloping and mesmerizing tale, diving deep into multiple plotlines and points of view from different characters with a variety of enemies. There are many layers to this novel and the series overall. It’s an energetic and creative adventure whose characters and plotline continue to evolve in innovative ways that keep me turning the pages.

I have some high expectations for the final book based on the strength of this novel and the series as a whole. But I also have faith the author will be able to bring it all together into a satisfying ending.

Great book, great series.

The writing in this book is great, the characters are so well developed and the story is really engaging. I can’t wait to dig into more of what the author has to offer.