Heresy of Dragons

By: Erik Reid

Narrated by: Chris Graves

Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's Summary

Not every man can handle a magitech gauntlet that speaks in floating silver text, or a handful of women with unique...needs.

I’m not every man.

When a bad blind date got worse - like, interdimensional lightning storm worse - I woke up to a realm of dragon women, magical kobolds, and a playful monkey girl with a painful secret. I also accidentally (totally on purpose) stole an ancient artifact in the form of a black gauntlet that bonded with my body and unlocked a series of new abilities.

So what’s the catch? The glove wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for the fabled Hero of Silura, the only man capable of preventing a gnarly blue ice demon and his army of blood-sucking half-breed children from wiping out the kingdom of dragon descendants that took me in.

Now he wants the glove, buckets of blood, and a bridge across the divine veil that separates this realm from Earth. And he’ll be here in three...two..one...

Warning: This book contains violence, snide comments, explicit sexual encounters, litRPG and gamelit elements, and general badassery.

©2019 Erik Reid (P)2020 Podium Publishing

Those low reviews are kooks, seriously you guys

Legitimately speaking, this book, was top shelf. I literally have over 500 something books in my library, most of them in this genre, and I’m here to tell you Erik Reid my friend you knocked it out of the park! Screw those other reviews, you did a fantastic job from character personalities, to a fun and engaging plot with the perfect amount of explicit scenes, well I’ll always take more but the book definitely wasn’t lacking that sense.

Anyways, yes, get the book people if you like this genre and can appreciate a writer at his most creative, then you will enjoy this book.

Narration, as always chris, was fantastic! You can really never go wrong if Chris is narrating your book, he just knows how to make it all flow masterfully.

Obnoxious MC sinks story

==UPDATE Amazon/Audible recently changed how they format their reviews. While you can put paragraph breaks into reviews when composing them, they will no longer be displayed on an audiobook's review screen. So now my reviews have retroactively become barely readable. The only answer I've gotten from support is that this is just how Amazon wants it to be now, and they're sorry for the inconvenience. Since I'm too lazy to abridge my reviews, and our benevolent Amazon overlords don't give a shit, please enjoy the following wall of text. END UPDATE==



I can't help but think that, every time the author wrote dialogue for the protagonist, he asked himself, "what would an asshole say?"

The first thing I need to get out of the way is how grating the main character is—this will probably be pretty long winded, as I'm apparently a masochist and kept listening to this audiobook long after I decided the main character was waaaaaay too irritating. So, if you want the short version, the main character is a jackass.

The long version: I get the feeling that the author was going for a roguish charmer, but gave us an obnoxious asshat instead. He is *constantly* spouting off one-liners with zero moderation in desperate attempts for attention. At least half of his dialogue is intended to be comical, and the author clearly thought that constant and repetitive sarcasm would make for an interesting character. In his first meeting with a queen, for example, he lays on half a dozen pop culture jokes (that get no traction in this alternate fantasy world)—I don't understand what the author was trying to do here, other than perhaps make him look like a moron. And it doesn't end there. The main character makes a few "oh, I guess that wouldn't make sense to them" comments throughout the book, but it just. doesn't. stop. This isn't like the Succubus series, where there was at least genuinely witty writing to balance out the repeat gags. And the shtick isn't even consistent—while the other characters will sometimes be confused by or comment on his references to The Wizard of Oz, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Gremlins, fifty other video games, movies, and books, modern idioms, etc., they will often inexplicably understand what he's saying, as if he were speaking plainly. And, just as inconsistently, the author will let the protagonist's personality randomly bleed into other characters that will sporadically mirror his sarcastic and flippant attitude, or even spout some modern/real-world lingo themselves, only to go back to being put off or confused by his behavior and phrasing again.
But his less-than-endearing qualities don't end with his failed attempts at humor. The book opens with him resenting a woman on his Tinder date for photoshopping her picture. Fair enough, but that doesn't stop him from thinking she's hot and dragging her through a date she does not want to go on, since, surprise surprise, she is uncomfortable with illegal trespassing (which he resents her for). He acts like a complete douche, then gets furious with her for not having sex with him in the first fifteen minutes of meeting. The way it is written, the author clearly wants us to think she's a bitch. But while she comes off as an airhead, the protagonist comes off as a complete asshole (and he can't seem to let it go since he angrily brings her up again long after he was transported into another world).
He is also a bit of a simpleton. When he's whisked away to another world, he does the cliché thing and assumes he's dreaming and immediately decides to be extra skeevy with the first woman he sees since he figures he's dreaming, so he might as well get some with this dream woman. It seems like he goes hours (including trying to bang said woman next to a dead body), still assuming he's dreaming. I understand it can be hard to write a realistic reaction to being transported to a fantasy world, but the dream assumption still felt like it dragged on a bit long. And, of course, he is slow to accept knowledge, advice, and warnings from other characters.
He does have some redeeming qualities. For instance, he takes the controversial stance that slavery is bad. So he cleared that bar. He also turned down sex with a drugged woman, which genuinely surprised me since, up until that point, that seemed like precisely the type of thing he'd rationalize away. He also stepped in to help a woman who was in moderate danger of being raped, but in his words, mostly just to make sure him and his "sidepiece" (his term) could get some sleep. He was probably just trying to channel an inner Han Solo, just not very successfully.

Phew. Got that out of my system.

I could go on about the things that annoy me about the protagonist, but it really just comes down to poor writing (at least, it comes across to me as poor writing—your mileage may vary). And the thing that's a bummer is that I feel like the author could do a lot better, as I feel like there are a lot of genuine good points to the narrative, even if there are some other weak points. The basic premise and other characters show a lot of promise, and it is possible to slog through the asinine dialogue and enjoy a fun story about a man coming from another world that finds himself in control of interesting abilities and a group of interesting women to travel with. The world and love interests are better than many I've seen in harem-lit.

I also value length in my books. This one is pretty good, at over thirteen hours for an audiobook, but I'm a little less enthused about it in this case just because of the sheer volume of wisecracks that take up so much of that space.

The narrator, Chris Graves, did a good job as well with his pacing and voice differentiation. It definitely feels like an actual voice actor was involved. I didn't quite "love" it, but that might have been impossible with this one.

The story had potential outside of the one-liners, and I'd actually like to see more of this, if only the main character would grow up. Sure, it might be jarring to suddenly have an adult in the lead role, but I'd gladly accept some unrealistic character development if it meant he was less of a man-child. And I hope the author continues to write—I'd really like to see what he could do with a lower pop-culture reference density, and double down on fun and interesting characters and narratives. But that's just my opinion.

waste of a credit

couldn't even get thru a single chapter. the mc is a 2d misogynist. I must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel for this crap to get on my list of recommendations. harem novels aren't the classiest genre but less than a chapter of this made my skin crawl

MC is just terrible

Writing is above high school level, characters are pretty weak and uninteresting, story wasn't the worst. Everything about this book is just bland, definitely have read better by writers on the same level.

The only good thing I can say about this is the story was kind of OK. The MC was a dick and that gets annoying really quickly. If he was just a dick that would be fine, but he just doesn't stop being a hypocritical idiot and that makes him predictable. There isn't really anything interesting about him.

I just have to mention how much I enjoyed the scene where Norman Bates gets mad at Jasmine and takes her into a creepy abandoned amusement part for a blind date. I'm just surprised she didn't run away and call the cops and end the book right then and there. She might be a bitch but he is creepy as hell.

Another MC I dislike to the point I won't get book

It seems in most of the new series today the male MC has to be a beta or an a**. In this case he his just an a**. This makes the story hard to enjoy. The only saving grace are the secondary characters which provide a balance. With that said given the attitude of the MC I could care less what happens to him so I doubt I will be getting the next book.

meh I was hopping this would be good.

to me this is one of those stories that could of been good but it is to blatant in its pandering to the mental illness known has being a "progressive" for example a scene where the mc uses are habitual cursing at god and one of his women is like why are you referring to the goddess has if she is a man hes then like we are sexist here on earth and your goddess is a crossdreser to appease us. if I wrote that scene after the woman asked why am I referring to the goddess has a he the MC would of explained that its my worlds culture and ingrained from childhood just like the rest of his nonsensical pop culture references shes learned to just except.

this was the last straw I read fantasy to leave this worlds corruption and problems behind not to be reminded of them some authors can explore issues with both sides being fairly represented without it being dumd down it was common place about 20 years ago but seems like a lost art these days.

at this point I decided to return the book, the other review that makes the character out to be a incel has no idea what its like to be above average in the hormone department.

not for me

Need work on this story but you try it. I hope that you try and make it better

I'm Sorry I had to hear this.

I would like you to imagine, if you would. The most irritating, deadpool wannabe, immature f--- boy in existence. Then picture this person getting the adventure of a lifetime on a would without other humans.
Here's an example for those old enough for the reference. Imagine the Avatar (blue people) movie, starring Gaston (Beauty and The Beast), or Stifler (American Pie). Splice in a libido that only 15yo who hasn't figured out his technique yet and you get this MC (or Main Character).
It got to the point were I started wishing for him to loose a limb, or torture, or something equally harsh to get this guy's head far enough out his own butt that he can stop hitting his own funny bone.
Don't get me wrong I love other world harem fantasy, and own a lot of them, but this MC just really rubs me the wrong way and make me want to apologize to a fictional world about what they have to represent humanity as a whole.
My MC hate aside there are a few inconsistencies that also peeve me but no spoilers right?
I'll end with this, GREAT IDEA; this story had great potential to be a real contender in the fantasy harem genre. Poor execution; most stories in this genre make you want to be the MC because he's living the dream and is someone you can respect or understand. This MC doesn't, he literally had only one redeeming factor in my opinion and that was his stance on slavery. Also yes, most men would be very attracted to beautiful women and attempt to get closure, but his technique is somewhere along the lines Zap Brannigan (futurama) trying to use pick up lines at 5 star hotel bar at the beginning of the night...to the hostess.

Awesome performance

Struggled to finish the story, a bit too much for my tastes
Loved the ending though.
Performance was top notch, worth the read at least for that alone.

Boring!!!!!

Main character is cliche and obnoxious, no real character development. Plot holes galore. Hated this book

that was a roar

enjoyed every minute of this book.
it was nothing ground breaking, but what it has was great.
fun characters, interesting world and the sexy time is tasteful.
all in all a great time, totally recommend...

Chris does an excellent job of giving the characters emotions and help us feel like we are right now there in the action.
never are you in doubt who is who

DNF

MC is a proper letching creep, even for a harem novel. Ick.

Only made it 15 minutes.