• Conqueror's Blood

  • Gunmetal Gods, Book 2
  • By: Zamil Akhtar
  • Narrated by: Peter Noble
  • Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (128 ratings)

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Conqueror's Blood  By  cover art

Conqueror's Blood

By: Zamil Akhtar
Narrated by: Peter Noble
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Publisher's summary

The Kingdom of Alanya is home to mystic warriors and mischievous djinns, vulgar poets and vain philosophers, soaring simurghs and scheming shahs.

Little do the people know that a power struggle between an ancient sorceress and an upstart sultana threatens to bathe the sands in bile and bones. A bloody cauldron boils, and primeval gods laugh while they stir it.

As warhorses charge, arrows shower, and cannon shots brighten the night, all must choose a side.

©2021 Zamil Akhtar (P)2021 Podium Audio

What listeners say about Conqueror's Blood

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

When gods fight, everyone loses

What an incredible, horrific, amazing tale! Peter Noble gives the characters so much soul and Zamil Akhtar's story just rips those souls apart in what is one of the most awful and awesome dark fantasy series I've read. Each character is alive with motive and aspiration, that is until the veil is lifted and the blood starts flying. Riveting to the last punctuation mark!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Slow burn great payoff.

Amazing sequal following up with all the same unique themes. this book manages to combine Arabian Nights, Magic, and a complete lovecraftian under tone in such a unique way. it has a very slow and long build up full of politcal intrigue and characters before it returns to magic, world building, and deep lore so the start can be daunting, but the ending is fantastic. definitely worth it

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful yet terrifying

One of the best sequels I’ve ever read. A story of betrayal, mystic creatures and amazing twist and turns.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Glad I stuck with it

I really enjoyed the first book in this series so I was a little disappointed the story was not focusing on Kevah. I really connected with this character in the first book and in the first few chapters could not get unto the new characters. But wow did they win me over. Cyra and Zedra are just as great of characters as Kevah and Micah from the first book. The side characters were great too and we do eventually get characters from the first book coming back into the story. I could not be more excited for the next book in this series!

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

first audiobook I couldn't finish

if you expect anything like the first book in the series you will be disappointed. very boring intrigue, boring storyline, and the voice actor (who was laughably bad at women voices in the first book) narrates this book which is mostly women.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

love how it's similar but different from our world

Worth the read or thr listen even though the first one of the series was better.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Original world

Honestly liked book 1 a bit more - but still a great listen - will get book 3

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Different but still excellent follow up.

While the first book followed two male warriors, in there battles in an evolving war. This book follows two women in a kingdom on the brink of war. So it is a different type of story, more intrigue and sorcery, than sword fights and battles. You have to be ready for the difference pace. Still I enjoyed following Zedra and Cyra as much as Keva and Malik.

Most of all, I love the Gunmetal Gods world. it is so different from most European based Fantasy. I am enjoying learning the magic, gods, and people of the world.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Worthy sequel to Gunmetal Gods

In a genre heavily influence by Western European history, this book was a breath of fresh air.

Set from the perspective of members of a Shah’s harem. The story doesn’t compromise when it comes to how different the perspective characters are value-wise from their reader. But at the same time it doesn’t needlessly fetishize or exoticize Alanya’s culture.

The Lovecraftian elements combined with Islamic influences are wonderful as well.

The story however was a bit meandering at times. I also question the choice of narrator as both POV characters are women, as opposed to the previous book.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

I struggled with this one.

First off, I really loved the first book in this series, Gunmetal Gods. it was surprising and fresh in all the best ways. I do wish he would stop calling it "progression fantasy," because that makes it sound like a much cheaper story than it is--like it's throwaway copy for a video game or something--but that's a minor issue. Overall, the first installment was great.

My biggest problem with this book is one, it's lack of connection to the events in the first book. It's called a sequel, but beyond the fact that this story takes place in a neighboring country, among members of a dynasty distantly related to important side characters in the first book, it really isn't a sequel. We're not revisiting the story of Micah the Metal or anything. Different cast of characters, different country (in a technological age where that kind of thing is very important), and so on. In fact, I think that a person can probably pick this up without having read the first book and be 100% fine.

That being said, I decided to give it a go. Twice, actually. And this book is very, very different. Whereas the first book involved a lot of travel and fighting, this is more about political and magical intrigue, and doesn't move around as much. That's not necessarily a bad thing, when it's executed well. The problem here is that it isn't. The two main characters are both (apparently) young women who reside in the same palace and interact with a lot of the same people. They are very hard to keep straight, which caused me to get confused and lose interest when trying to listen. They don't have different accents or anything--there were numerous times that I was a half hour into a chapter before I realized the perspective had shifted. And on my second go around, I really made a conscious effort to pay closer attention, because I had enjoyed the first book so much and I remembered having that issue the first time I tried to listen to this one.

Compounding the issue is that neither of the main characters have personalities which are terribly distinct from one another. You might expect one to be feisty and other to be meek or calculating, but no. One's a bit more naive, but basically, they're both cool and scheming, with approximately similar strategies for navigating court life as women in a patriarchal society. The villain almost *has* to have moments where the narration says something along the lines of "but she wasn't really being honest, was she?" in order to show that she's the villain.

I still think Peter Noble did a good job with the narration, but he wasn't given enough to work with to bring it to life. This might be good as a book to read, but I just couldn't get into it as a listen.

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