The Merchant of Tiqpa 2

The Bathrobe Knight, Book 5

By: Charles Dean

Narrated by: Matthew Broadhead

Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

When a diplomatic mission goes off the rails, Locke quickly finds himself between a rock and a hard place as old urges and new desires clash to shape the life-and-death decisions he is forced to make. He soon realizes that a mysterious new organization is pulling everyone’s strings and calling the shots from the shadows, and it seems to have the uncanny ability to anticipate his every move. 

Ultimately, he must choose between saving a friend’s life or a kingdom from the brink of corruption.

©2016 Charles Dean (P)2019 Charles Dean

Another Solid Book

Another great performance by Matthew Broadhead and another great story by Charles Dean. Looking forward to the audiobook for the next book.

Better than the first

I really liked the dungeon scenes and all the cool alchemy stuff they added to this book. He definitely isn't just making potions this book, but using them and exploiting them with special weapons characteristics. Good listen as with the others.

The Merchant of Tiqpa 2

The Bathrobe Knight series is a fun read ,each book leaves you wanting more. I am looking forward to more books by Charles Dean.

Loved this book

Fun book to listen to. Love the series! Good characters, unique storyline, and the person telling the story has a great voice.

Solid Addition to the series

I thought this was a good addition to the series, and I look forward to seeing more!

The bard would love this take on his material

You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! Well, actually, I’m pretty sure you can. I (silly me) had thought that this was going to be a book for the up and soon to be coming, no pun intended, Naughty Special. I mean you have a skeleton popping bones, the name of the book is Histaff, double entendre anyone?, and the lady on the front cover looks sort of like someone from one other Harem books out there. (Show the Ummmmmmm pic here, please) So, I kid. I knew it was none of that but I couldn’t help myself. I see an opening and I take it. See, another joke for the naughty special.

All jokes aside my fist impression of the book was that the first third felt a lot like a dungeon core building itself a dungeon. There is a lot of work that Douglas puts in to go from being a mindless skeleton to becoming an independent animate. A lot of time is spent focusing on him learning how to regrow his body and that had the feel of a dungeon growing its rooms.

He story centers on poor Douglas, a skeleton who is raised from the dead by a vengeance seeking necromancer. Somehow, against all odds, how can I just let you walk away, let you leave without a trace? When I stand here taking every breath with you, ooh ooh; You're the only one who really knew me at all . . .

. . . Sorry, Phil Collins. Just be thankful it wasn’t Pseudeo. So, against all odds, he survives and gets booted into another universe that is sci fi based rather than magic. There, the biggest problem sentient beings have is the Histaff virus that pretty much melts you into goo and rebuilds you into an amalgamation of consisting of yourself and your neighbors. Think the Thing combined with the Blob in space. Dougie boy soon makes a friend. No, he literally makes a friend and they then do everything they can to escape the station they are trapped on.

The pros: I liked Douglas isn’t your typical MC. He is a barely sapient skeleton who pretty much gets by by the skin of his teeth. Sory, nother pun. The magic system is different, and I liked the options offered for classes and races. It actually fits in line with Neven Illiev’s Boxy who goes from being a lesser mimic to a greater mimic and then on to bigger and better monsters. Douglas has a lot of options that he can choose from and they were intriguing. Let’s just say the lesser skelly we start with aint the same guy we end with. Cool magic system, lots of use of stats and characters sheets and leveling. So you get your crunch. I loved the genre mash up of fantasy and sci fi, and I think it was really a fun thing to explore.

The Cons: A lot of stuff is repeated, whether it is healing himself or fighting we always seem to go back to square one. The XP given for some of the monsters is crazy high, but I guess it is needed in order to advance Doug’s leveling. His companion has literally no redeeming qualities. I kept waiting for there to come a part where she flips from being a whiny shrew brat to actually being Doulas’s friend but . . . . .no. I get why from the ending, but she was pretty grating. The story needs some big scenes. Something to feel epic, what we get is an MC who sort of goes where ever the wind blows and has no control over his own destiny. It seems like he has very little agency at all in his story.

Michael Kramer narrates, and the dude has done something in the ballpark of 75 fantasy or scifi novels so I’m not even going to try to critique his work. He knows what he’s doing and does it well. I enjoyed listening to him and am sure that you will too. He is one of theose people you say Holy Cow, how did they get him?

Final score 7.6 stars the book does sort of plod along and has no real big moments that it needs. Still, it held my interest and makes me want to see what happens to Douglas next. I am totally on board for more, but if you are looking for epic battles this isn’t the place. This is more of a thinking man’s tale.

Merchant Tiqpa is quickly becoming a family fav

My Husband and I have really enjoyed the Merchant of Tiqpa series. A lot of times we listen to it together because we love the story, characters, setting, and the narrator! My main issue with the book is that I wish it was longer!

The Sequel Does Not Disappoint!

First of all, I loved the first book. But the next in the series takes the cake. The story, and especially the narrator, had me on the edge of my seat. Bathrobe knight is starting to become one of my favorite series and I cannot wait for the third book!

Weak second book

Main character whines too much and is far too incoherent/ slow on the up take. His behavior just doesn't make sense compared to the first book. The narrator.... I just can't listen to him any more, he makes almost all the dialog sound whiny and wishy washy...