Shadow of the Conqueror

Chronicles of Everfall, Book 1

De: Shad Brooks

Narrado por: Michael Kramer, Kate Reading

Who better to fight back the darkness of the world than the one responsible for most of it?

Daylen, once known as the Great Bastard, the Scourge of Nations, Dayless the Conqueror, has lived in hiding since his presumed death. Burdened by age and tremendous guilt, he thinks his life is coming to an end. Unbeknownst to him he’s about to embark on a journey towards redemption where his ruthless abilities might save the world. Many battles await with friends to be made and a past filled with countless crimes to confront, all the while trying to keep his true identity a secret.

Indeed, it might be too much if not for the fabled power awaiting him.

Everfall is a world of perpetual day where the continents float in an endless sky. If one jumps from the continent they will fall for many hours before returning to the same place from which they fell. Skyships rule the air powered by shining sunstone and industrial darkstone. A legendary order of knights bears mystical powers which they use to hunt out the dreaded shade, monsters that regular people turn into if trapped in darkness for the length of a fall.

It is a world of enchanted swords, merciless monsters, mystical knights, and hard magic, filled with tales of wonder and adventure.

©2019 Shad Brooks (P)2019 Shad Brooks

I NEED MORE!

the feels the friendships, and the world omg the light concept love it all and I want more

Plowed through this in about a day!

I am legally blind, and so I customarily read even books for leisure at 1.25x speed unless the narrator(s) read very quickly. In this case as in most, they don't. This reduces the reading time to about 13.5 hours or so. So when I say I managed to finish the book in 28 hours, that should say something about the book: I enjoyed it.

The book is a little exposition-heavy, in part because Shad is trying to communicate the workings of an alien world, in part because he's a colossal nerd followers of his YouTube channel have come to know and love. I'll say an editor might have helped polish it up a little, but I still found it quite readable and enjoyable. This isn't Eragon here; no need to suffer through clumsy writing and constantly excusing the author's inexperience.

I saw a lot of complaints about the amount of sex in the book in other reviews. By American sensibilities, there's a lot of discussion of it. Sexual depravity was a big part of what made Dayless the Conqueror not just a bad man and a tyrant, but the most evil bastard in the world. This profoundly affects another character in the book, and as it is one of the greatest and most prevalent evils in our own world, it's easy to imagine that it would be likewise in another.

Pirates really are as disgusting as we've seen in this book. As a substantial part of the book deals with them, it's going to be every bit as awful as you think. This is not a book to listen to around the kids unless "the kids" are very mature adolescents who know far too much about the kind of darkness that lives within the hearts of men. Murder, rape, deceit, blackmail, slavery, mass murder, abuse, arrogance, pain, rage, insanity, prejudice, and more. They're all in there somewhere.

But so is kindness, hospitality, love, and joy. Not in equal measure—it's a story about a man who was literally worse than Hitler who "meant well" and went so terribly wrong from there. But it's also a story about that man's attempt to redeem himself.

"A monster like that cannot be redeemed," you say. And y'know what? He's the first person to agree with you. He escaped his death, plotted his revenge, realized that he could not have it right away, and then realized to his astonishment the world was better off with him "dead". In a remote village, he began to face some part of what he'd done and he hated himself as much as everyone else would. He made himself live, in part perhaps because he did not want to die, but in large part because he _did_ want to die.

When his aged body was clearly too weak to sustain him, he set out to commit the most permanent suicide he thought to be possible. And he did not die. He took this as punishment from the Light that he had not suffered enough. And so he determined to accept this punishment if he could.

Only, he was not just not dead, but Cursed With Awesome™. The youth of a man younger than he'd been when he became Dayless the Conqueror, but with all the wisdom of a lifetime of mistakes and regrets, mastery of skills that take a lifetime, and _power_.

Will history repeat itself or will Daylen this time humbly remain simply Daylen? Spoiler alert: Humble ain't his style, and he firmly believes he's got a lot to make up for if he can overcome a lifetime of evil thoughts, habits, and emotion.

A very solid debut novel

The characters and themes are all explored well. Sometimes Shad has a tendency to lean on exposition, but it barely affects the quality. A good read.

clown colored hair with raw human emotion

Shad's book was much better expected. I'm so glad he was put on my radar.

This book doesn't hold back.

I have never felt so conflicted about an character till listening to this book, very well done.

Great story! Was far more graphic than anticipated

The story is great, and explores some very deep topics in regards to justice, right and wrong, redemption, and forgiveness. It dips into some pretty deeply ethical issues that many creators tend to shy away from in fear of the potential of pubic backlash.

I enjoyed the story, and the understanding of science and engineering on the part of the author. It was a little disappointing to not get to see that knowledge put to use in a fantasy version of a world similar to our own, but entertaining to see that knowledge put to use in the creation of a world that operated functionally but still completely different. Most authors take the first approach, and are not as knowledgeable as Shad on the topic, so there was some genuine eagerness and anticipation to get a more accurate feel of what life in a "medieval" setting might be like. At no point did he ever insinuate that would be the approach he intended to take with this book, and the approach of creating a setting with fundamental laws completely different than our own was pretty refreshing.

All in all it was a pretty entertaining and engaging book, filled with wit and humor. His main character was perhaps just a bit more almighty than I generally prefer in my stories, but his mental and emotional challenges were fairly devasting for him, and he still ran into physical challenges that made him sweat and struggle to pull out a victory.

Now that being said ...

I've been watching the YouTube channel of the author for a while now (Shadiversity) and I really enjoy his content. I often watch it with my wife and my 6 year old daughter. It is family friendly and doesn't even contain so much as a single word that would be considered a swear word in Australia (at least not in any of the videos that I have seen).

This book is not like it. It contains graphic descriptions of violence, mutilation, torture and rape, and also contains a bit of mild swearing. I very quickly learned that I cannot listen to this audio book with my child present, and would make sure that she was completely asleep before resuming the story.

If you are pretty sensitive to material like that, then this might be a pretty difficult read for you. There was a scene, (and an aftermath scene) in particular, involving a very young girl, that was difficult to read. As someone who has a little girl that is likely around the same age as the one in the story, and someone who has loved ones that have endured some of the things that were described in this story it made it pretty unpleasant to get through.

I plan on reading a sequel if one comes out, as I did enjoy the first book. I think the scene I listed above was my limit however, and if it gets much worse than that one I don't know that I'll be able to get through it it. I don't shy away from dark stuff like this because I am trying to pretend that is doesn't exist, shelter myself from it or even ignore it, but because I have personal familiarity with it, and know just how deeply black dark stuff like this is when you actually experience or come across it real life.

In consideration of everything that I have said, I would say overall though that Shad has done a fantastic job on a book that was his first published novel, and an looking forward to seeing what else he comes out with next.

Amazing

this is an amazing book. i loved every moment with it and i am going to listen to it again right now. Shad, thank you for this great ride.

It was and wasn't what I expected.

So I really liked the premise of the book. Can an individual who has commited atrocities truely ever be redeemed? Even by the end of the book the question still hangs which is great in my opinion. learning about the magic system of the world was good fun. seeing the characters around the main character develope was a bit more interesting than the main character himself. I would have to say the most interesting part of the main character was the journal excerpts at the beginning of each chapter.
Now for the one thing that bothered me the most. The constant circling back to rape. I am not saying subject wasn't worth delving into or that it shouldn't have been addressed by the author by all means it should have. However I feel it could have been delivered and dealt with in a more impactful way. it comes up so much in the telling of the story that the reader will either be turned from book altogether or will become numb to its importance. Again this is my opinion. I feel it could have been delivered as a sucker punch to the audience when the main character runs into his persuer.
All in all it was a good story and I enjoyed the sucker punch moments we do get. The suspense of how long can he keep up the scharade and when will it all come tumbling down was one of the best things about the story. I can't wait to see how things develope from here now that the truth is known world wide.

Absolutely fantastic but confusing at points and a little intense.

I absolutely loved the book and especially the main character. It was refreshing to have a character who was knowledgeable and wise as apposed to the klutzy child usually portrayed by the main character. The intense scenes and language did catch me off guard and personally I don’t really like the realistic violence but overall I loved the book and am a little sad that it’s over, for now.

Entertaining!

An easy listen. Big credit to the narration duo, giving life to each character presented. The world building and explanations of magic systems is great. The repetition and detailed explanations might bother some but I enjoyed those aspects. The only reasons for this not being flat out five stars is because I think there's even more that can be done with this concept. So I look forward to the next book with the hope that it can reach that height!