Revolt

Godsknife, Book 1

By: Timothy C. Ward

Narrated by: Stephanie Neff

The rift between Iowa and the Abyss is thinner than it seems. Modern society meets the power and reality of myth in the new war between Chaos, Order, and Maker. A priestess of Order seeking godhood unleashes a virus to mutate and enslave the human race. Those who survive will face the height of her power, but will they bow before it?

A fleet of enlarged praying mantises has invaded Des Moines, Iowa. Swarms of cicadas are turning survivors into winged soldiers. Orchestrating the warzone is a priestess of Order, who's pursuing godhood, and the nation of followers who'll get her there.

Caroline's new friendship parts the veil between reality and myth, as a recruiter of Order needs her to hide him from capture. In their escape, the boss she's loved like a father reveals his elevator into the Abyss.

In this new world, Caroline finds a usurped god and an angry ghost eager to make her their getaway back to power. What if the person her friends will need is heartbeats away from becoming the real threat?

Evolved Publishing presents a chilling, horrifying look at a world gone mad, with this first book in the Godsknife series.

©2016 Evolved Publishing LLC (P)2017 Evolved Publishing LLC

War in Iowa Between the Real World and the Abyss

An interesting story concerning a priestess' pursuit of godhood and those who would attempt to stop her... and did I mention that this takes place in Iowa? Was a little hard to follow at the beginning, but once I got into it, it was hard to stop... Cicadas turning people into monsters and giant mantis warriors causing havoc on the interstate, as well as other places.... and Caroline, who just want to study at the University, but gets caught in the middle of a battle for power and godhood. Befriended by a recruiter for the priestess who realizes that she is not forthcoming with her plans, the battle follows her to her home town and results in her taking a trip to the Abyss, which is not what you might expect, but terrifying in its own ways....

It just didn't stick with me.

I don't know if it was the story, characters, narrator or something else. But it just didn't grab me.

More Like Surrender

In this first installment of a series, Caroline discovers that the world she hoped to leave behind when she left her family to study medicine under a new father figure has caught up to her. She realizes she never left it behind and gets sucked into helping a recruiter for Order although her family are Chaos. Another faction of Chaos is revealed when Caroline is the elevator to the Abyss. She doesn’t know who to trust and what to do in order to get things back to normal. Praying mantises and giant cicadas are just the first of many horrors awaiting the world if Caroline isn’t successful. Only the Maker can help them now but no one wants to trust in or even believe the Maker exists.

I couldn’t get into this book. The ‘hero’ wasn’t a hero. He was just a weak, abandoned person that chose comfort over honor. The god wannabe Sheila was just cruel, I didn’t see a grand plan in her cruelty. Caroline continues to be confused even after things are explained to her and there were too many storylines about people who ended up dying. There really wasn’t anyone I could get behind and root for.

The narration was decent by Stephanie Neff. She did not distract with her male voices and her female voices were quite good. There was a lot going on in this book and Neff did a good job of keeping things as clear as possible by never confusing the voices for different characters.

I received this audiobook for free through Audiobook Boom! in exchange for an honest review.

An insect-filled romp of weirdness

Admittedly, it’s been a little while since I’ve gone for the whole post-apocalyptic horror-fantasy. It’s not a genre I actively read, though I can’t say I actively avoid it either. I was offered this book by the author in exchange for an honest review, and awesomely, it came in audiobook form. Hooray!

Oh, Iowa. I doubt that the giant insect apocalypse or much else of import will happen in you… because you’re Iowa. Dare to dream though, Iowa. Dare to dream!

Okay, okay, I’ll stop making fun of Iowa and move on…. I guess. *sigh* :)

The first chapter of this one was kind of confusing, only because while it does set up the basis for some of the story, it does it in a way that assumes that we know right at the beginning what Order and Chaos are in the whole grand scheme of things. So, someone being inducted into the army or whatever of Order is not only as weird as it sounds, it makes absolutely no sense. It left me in a weird ‘oh god, am I going to like this?’ sort of funk right from the get-go. Don’t worry though, I eventually got a feel for it, and then it retroactively made sense. Sort of a 4-chapters-later ‘Ooohhhhh, okay, I think I get it now.’

Buckle my weirdness safety belt though, because I’m in for a ride.

Caroline is a character I liked right from the time we meet her. There’s just something about her that I latched on to. Anton (Anthon? No idea. Audiobook, lol) as well, once he and Caroline met. As a team, I rooted for the both of them, most of the time.

The plot went quite quickly once I really got into the story. It’s a pretty quick listen, but goddamn this book gets confusing after the first couple of hours. Lots happens. Giant insects. Order vs Chaos. Weird wormy mages who <3 them some maths. Apparently this is a world in which World War 3 has happened, and yet life appears to be going on as per usual, with the inclusion of at least one alternate dimension. I originally thought of the cults/religions/whatevs as secret, but everyone seems to know at least a little about everyone else, so, not so secret, I guess? There’s also giant mutant plants, and other dimensions. This book is like a David Lynch movie. Seriously.

The magic system was interesting. For Order mages anyway, it’s based on… well… order. Exact dimensions, volumes, measurements, and math. It’s quite complex, and that’s good, but not always great in a shorter novel because it’s hard to effectively get a feel for everything that it can do. I got the gist though, I think. There’s a third religion aside from Order and Chaos that was a little more complicated and I’m not sure that I totally understood it at any point. Some of them can control the weather, I think?

This book gets straight up gross in parts. I knew what I was in for because in any instance of a giant insect apocalypse, you’re going to have nasty giant insect larvae and maggots and so on and so forth. So, if you’ve got a weak stomach for that sort of thing, consider this your heads-up. There’s also sections of this story that are, as I’ve mentioned, bizarre. In one of them, Caroline gets transported to another dimension to… give a German soldier a massage? I’m still not at all sure. The giant insect apocalypse is only a slice of a larger, weirder pie here.

The narrator, Stephanie Neff did a decent job. She’s not super great at accents though, and there are two or three different ones that were… close but no cigar. She did give Caroline an appropriate tone. This is seen right from the first chapter in which Caroline appears. She gave Caroline a likable personality, which only assisted in helping me like her as a character. Anton as well.

So, in conclusion, I have no idea what I just listened to, but I can’t say I didn’t like it. It was weird, but it was rather an enjoyable weird. I give it a solid 3 stars out of 5. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t regret any of my 9 hours of time with it.

But seriously though… what just happened?

Worth your time and credit

Any additional comments?

Wow…how to describe this book? This is one of the most creative, unusual, entertaining and original books I have read in a long time. What a great start a series. The story is well written, interesting and a very engaging. The world the author has created is very complex and unique.

Even though I finished the book I'm not sure I completely understand everything that just happened. This is one of those stories that has so much going on you will listen to it more than once just to understand everything. Honestly, the book blurb gives a better outline of the story than I can.

The story hits the ground running and never lets up. When I say the story is fast paced and constantly moving I'm not kidding. I spent much of this book saying wait, what just happened? There is so much going on you have to pay attention.

I can say I am really looking forward to the next book in the series.

I will never look at cicada's the same way again.

Every time Neegan was said it threw me out of the story. I couldn't help but think of that other Negan.

Stephanie Neff did a fantastic job with the narration. It looks like this is the first book she has narrated. If that is the case, she did an awesome job. She's a natural. Not only the narration but with the numerous sound effect. Pleasant voice easy to listen to for long periods of time. Clearly spoken with a nice even pace. Great character voices. All of them. She brought the story and characters to life through her narration. Very enjoyable

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher.