The City That Would Eat the World

More Gods Than Stars, Book 1

By: John Bierce

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Thea is a washed-up mimic exterminator who expected more out of life, not some hero from stories. Aven is an impulsive wandering adventurer whose personal goddess is constantly getting her into trouble. Neither of them has the slightest interest in getting involved in world-shaking historical events.

History doesn't care what they want, unfortunately. It's fallen right into their laps in the shape of a god-slaying weapon from a fallen civilization. Thrown together out of chance, Thea and Aven will have to learn to work together if they want to survive their pursuers.

Because if they fail, and the weapon falls into the wrong hands? The results won't be pretty. No one's going to be using it on some random street corner goddess, teakettle god, or any of the other countless teeming millions of divinities on Ishveos.

No, there's one target that sits above all others.

Cambrias, whose watch never ends. Cambrias, whose power has given rise to Cambrias' Wall, the greatest city in the known multiverse—a city that has already covered much of a continent and is strip-mining entire mountain ranges for space and building material. A city that threatens to spread across the entire surface of Ishveos.

And there's no shortage of folks willing to kill Thea and Aven in order to stop the Wall, no matter the consequences.

Contains a special note from the author.

©2024 John Bierce (P)2025 Podium Audio

Entertaining

It was a great book with character depth and growth along with the adventure. Word

Not the most innovative start...

But it does pick up after a couple of chapters and I always enjoy when economics and fantasy combine!

Macro and micro economics, investment theory, and the deification of loans?

With this textbook, I might be back in college. Great job otherwise.

John Bierce is known for the amount of research that he does for his books. this is often shown in his writing with how detailed the world is and, consequentially, the amount of wonderful exposition there is to glean from the story, characters, and environment. it's clear that he struggled with this book, and the story suffers through near-endless exposition of various economical and investment concepts of this world.

However, when I put aside the exposition and consider only the story: this book is phenomenal. I love the two main characters that we got to meet, and even more I liked the flashbacks we got to see in the beginning. I loved to see the growth that the characters went through. And I loved to see what the trans experience was like in this other world. I also thought the voice actor was phenomenal.

Most importantly I liked the theme. I loved how this narrative and this world he's created is a heavy-handed critique of Western imperialism and it's pursuit for endless growth. It was obvious that in some ways the 2008 recession was a significant inspiration for aspects of this always expanding city.

For your next book, Bierce, I hope you don't turn down the exposition. Instead I hope you find a way to make it flow's seamlessly into the narrative and into your character's experiences, so the readers don't have pages or minutes of side note exposition to weed through.

Such a Thing as Too Much World Building

FYI Lots of lgbtq+ themes. Which I'm fine with but it might turn off some people. I'm not even sure about the story. Is there one? Ya know how some books drone on and on about stats and other metrics that aren't strictly necessary to expand on the story? This book is like that but about economics. This book is a Mashup of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gamen, and an investment banker. The flashbacks are really awkwardly kind of stuffed into the story along with unending explaining about the world's economics. Maybe things would pick up later in the book but honestly I have no interest in trying to get that far.

Great world building and amazing narrator

Bierce hits it out of the park again, super interesting world and an amazing narrator that’s perfect for the story