The City Stained Red

By: Sam Sykes

Narrated by: David DeSantos

Step up to the gates.

After years in the wilds, Lenk and his companions have come to the city that serves as the world's beating heart. The great charnel house where men die surer than any wilderness. They've come to claim payment for creatures slain, blood spilled at the behest of a powerful holy man. And Lenk has come to lay down his sword for good. But this is no place to escape demons.

©2015 Sam Sykes (P)2014 Hachette Audio

superb start to a fantasy series

i enjoy the more modern style of characters as they interact and speak with each other. This isn't Tolkien. This is Mickey Spillane playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Chaos and Characters

The City Stained Red is a fantasy novel, but only in an aesthetic sense. Sure, there's magic, monsters, demons, and swordfights, but the author has chosen to subvert standard fantasy storytelling tropes like heavy exposition, heroic protagonists, or even a clear division between good and evil. These subversions all feed perfectly into the central theme of the novel: chaos. The world of The City Stained Red is dirty, disorderly, and cruel; and the protagonists (I hesitate to call them “the good guys”) are not here to fix it.

The story opens in medias res (kind of), so instead of learning about the protagonists via exposition, their characters are revealed through their actions and interaction with each other and the world. Each has a unique way of coping with the immense chaos of the setting, so any reader will be able to identify well with at least one of them: whether the reader would just want to leave the chaos behind, try to find personal connection in the chaos, try to help others in the chaos, be at home in the chaos, look down on the chaos through a lens of simple axiomatic truths, or try to control the chaos by (literally) burning it all down.

The structure of the story eschews standard fantasy arcs like redemption or ordained quests, instead choosing to follow this scenario to fruition: what if six uniquely powerful people with various levels of decision-making skills entered a city like Jerusalem at the peak of Roman occupation? “Powder keg” is an understatement. The protagonists are broken people in a broken world, so of course their stories can come across as dirty and disjointed. One character is revealed to be a terrible (almost vile) human being, but instead of being given a chance for redemption, his arc completes when he realizes and accepts that he is a monster.

I do not want to leave the impression that this book is overall dower or dreary; it is actually a very fun read. The author often portrays the most chaotic moments as whacky hijinks; the dialogue and descriptions are freckled with wit and hilarious analogies. David DeSantos’ performance is fantastic: despite the large number of main characters, he is able to make each voice instantly recognizable and characteristically appropriate. Bravo! I sincerely hope that Audible commissions his performance for the other novels in this series.

If you enjoy fantasy novels, read this book. If you enjoy wit and humor, read this book. If you are in the mood for something unusual, read this book.

Awesome

Fantastic world building, coupled with plenty of high paced action. This book reminded me a lot of a game of D&D.

Witty, trope turning book. Need more from Sykes!

An awesome first book in a series, I wish there were more audiobooks from Sykes!

Narrator does a great job of presenting Sykes unique witty writing in a way that flows very well.

This series takes some fantasy tropes and turns them up on their head - a great thing for a genre that can become saturated with predictability.

Moments of laughter, confusion (the good kind), action, and sadness all happen organically, leaving you wanting more. definitely worth a listen.

Disappointing

Given how enthusiastic Sykes' fans on Twitter are, I expected far better. Perhaps if you have a PhD in maths or physics this would be entertaining but I have neither and found it altertantely dull, waiting to get through the maths, and pretentious.

came for the humor stayed for the characters

Wandering through the desert a man stuggles but constantly moves on
in the distance there's an oasis
he doesn't remember the journey just the thirst in his thoat
when he bent over to take a drink a reflection not his own was in the water
it's me
buy Sam Sykes book

Average story, reasonably interesting characters.

Not bad but I'm getting bored with stories with actual god like characters in them with end of humanity implications.

A Fantasy Must!

After having read the Aeon's Gate Trilogy a few years back I wanted to know the rest of Lenk's story. I really enjoyed the performance of David DeSantos. Audiobooks, especially fantasy novels, with unfamiliar names and words can really throw me. But David has a great voice and tone that is like Roman Mars meets George Clooney. I really enjoyed the audiobook.

Sam Sykes continues on with the antics of what real adventurers are like. Spoiler alert, they can be terrible. From the humor to fighting to witty banter, I loved listening to Sam Syke's City Stained Red. I can't wait to jump into Mortal Tally. Would recommend if you like:
-Fantasy
-Irreverent Humor
-Fast witty conversations
-Sword fighting
-Imperfect protagonists

Where are the rest ?

there are 2 more in the series where are they? Granted the 3rd comes out in a month so there is that , but where is number 2 ?

I'm not wild about it.

First thing's first: Sam Sykes is a great writer. The prose, the dialogue, and the characters in this book are all great; there's nothing to complain about there. The issue I have with this book is purely with regards to the story. There was never a moment, a definitive scene that grabbed me and held me wanting more. This story feels like someone took a unique D&D world with mostly unique races and a party of well developed characters and just plopped the reader into the middle of a campaign without much to capture the reader's attention. The context is thin and Sam assumes that there's enough of it to keep you going until finally something interesting happens. When the end finally came I needed to think "what actually happened in that book?"

Now for the good stuff. The characters are compelling, interesting, complex, and fun. The world is diverse and well built. The writing is caddy and cynical, in a good way. There's so much depth that this is what kept me going aside from the fact that I have a penchant for finishing what I start no matter what. The ending scratches the surface of the story that's actually being told. This book is not good as a stand alone story in my opinion, but will hopefully serve as a springboard for a truly epic tale.