We Are the Dead

The Last War Trilogy

By: Mike Shackle

Narrated by: Nicola Bryant

Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

The first book in The Last War series: a debut epic fantasy full of crunching revolutionary action, twisted magic, and hard choices in dark times.

The war is over. The enemy won.

Jia's people learned the hard way that there are no second chances. The Egril, their ancient enemy, struck with magic so devastating that Jia's armies were wiped out. Now terror reigns in the streets, and friend turns on friend just to live another day.

Somehow Tinnstra - a deserter, a failure, nothing but a coward - survived. She wants no more than to hide from the chaos.

But dragged into a desperate plot to retake Jia, surrounded by people willing to do anything to win the fight, this time Tinnstra will need to do more than hide.

If Jia is to get a second chance after all, this time she will need to be a hero.

With all the grit of Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and Ed McDonald, this is fantasy with the sharpest of edges.

©2019 Mike Shackle (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

"The next Game of Thrones." (Glen Cook, author of The Black Company)

"Tarantino crossed with David Gemmell." (Peter McLean, author of Priest of Bones)

"A powerful debut." (Gavin Smith, author of The Bastard Legion)

excellent

a thouroughly entertaining simple story that is well told and is engaging - excellent voice over

Great Book

great book mike shackle is rising star cant wait to reed his new book that all

loved it

i loved this book...the character arcs were amazing, and the plot kept me hooked. highly recommend

Slow beginning but really turned around.

overall, this exceeded my expectations! Only recommend for people who like dark or gruesome books. This has some tough parts in it.

Stupid Tax is painful. Where is the humor?

This series was recommended to me by people who knew my fondness for The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. Now, that is indeed high praise, perhaps the highest of praise. So I was skeptical. However I bought and listened. The Narrator, Nicola Bryant, does a fantastic job with the performance, however Mike Shackle's series is not like The First Law. Indeed it is dark, very dark. His characters' arcs are complete. Yet, they have almost no humor to them. They are a drain to listen or read. Where Abercrombie's are far more realistic with their ability to cope with stress, despair, and loss, Shackle's are just, 'meh'.

The characters are stupid...very stupid. Some of the dialogue is just as dumb, some of the dialogue is wonderful, but this is rare. It would be pardonable if they ALL were not so dim. I tried to like it, I wanted to like it, but alas I could not bring myself to enjoy the story no matter what was happening. Mainly due to the fact that what the outcome always was... by an large it was always failure. Not the 'chance to learn and grow' kind, rather the useless and painful kind. Pain for pain's sake was the most consistent theme that I took out of the story, especially the first two books. As a Historian and a combat veteran I am aware of that side of war and humanity, yet there is also a since of comradery and humor that develops, which is known as "Trauma Bonding", Shackle's characters display almost none of this.

Shackle's characters seem to lack any identity of the fantasy world he created. They are written as a current western civilization character being placed in an ever increasing horror filled environment where everything goes wrong because they are too stupid to recognize what should be done. Nearly all of the character's are annoying and endlessly complaining about almost the exact same things. Some subtle differences really helped me push through the second book, but that was about it.
So in closing, I will say that if you have not read or listened to The First Law, do so, however, listen or read this first. It might be good to you and you might like the work and not catch the major issues that I had with it. Great concept for story and characters, truly remarkable, but very poorly imagined vision/interpretation of how humanity varies in dealing with loss and hard times. Ultimately, the characters ruin the story for me, but I may be just too spoiled by certain authors.

A rising star in dark fantasy

Shackle is a master of putting his characters in difficult situations. And, since I was with them in every dilemma, every tough choice and every sub-optimal decision, I was constantly on the edge of my seat. The war setting really intensifies the suspense and ads to the hopelessness. However, I was never close to giving up on the characters; I kept rooting for them and hoping they would get out of trouble in something close to one piece. The characters are realistic and well rounded, or actually, more antiheroes than heroes. Not that they are evil, most of them are not…, but they have their good and bad sides. Things they do well and things they do… not so well.

I highly recommend it if you like your books dark and gritty.

I am really looking forward to the next book in the series (A Fool’s Hope).

AMAZING STORY

Amazing story packed with twits and turn.
Highly recommend for anyone that want to drive into a great world.

Curious to see where it goes

Story over all is good and self contained leaving some mystique for where the larger narrative will go. Liked Tinstra as a reluctant hero and good variety of characters.

Thought the performance was solid and enjoyed the German accents.

Will definitely be getting the next volume.

Balanced

an unusual blend of characters easy to relate to, well fleshed out world, the twists and turns kept ylu guessing

Criminally Underrated Gem in a world of Dark Fantasy

The writing is excellent. I’m picky about that. I prefer a well written book over a good plot, or good character development. For a baseline, Robin Hobb has excellent writing and excellent character development but with an overall slower/weaker story. Brandon Sanderson has very very good writing, excellent character development and excellent stories. Leigh Bardugo has average writing, good character development, excellent story). Steven Erickson has excellent writing, excellent character development and good story. These are just my preferences so you’ll understand how i rate this book.
Bad, poor, average, good, very good, excellent.

We are the dead surprised the hell out of me. It is excellently written. Right at the lower boundary of excellent.. like an A-, similar to Joe Abercrombie. Solid descriptions and solid dialogue that don’t leaving you rolling your eyes.

The story… i wasn’t too sure where it was going at first, but the pacing was so good that it kept me engaged. Now that iv finished the book.. i can say the story is on the lower boundary of very good. Solid B.

Character development is very good to excellent. A-

Narration… OH MY GOD, who is Nicola Bryant!?!. Utterly perfect narration in every way. Character voices. Different vocal strain depending on the immediate situation. Clear and precise pronunciation. Perfect speech pacing.. what a joy it was to listen to A++.

The individual parts are superb and their sum is excellent. If Joe Abercrombie is a 100/100, Mike Shackle (for this book), hits right around a 95.. which is somewhat mind blowing.

Be warned.. this is grim dark. It is the grimmest kind of dark (think.. Mark Lawerence kind of dark.. then add an extra splash of ink). I wont spoil anything, but if you’re not ok about the tabooey dark stuff along the lines of murder, rape, torture.. you’ll be ok. Kinda like Richard Morgan (the steel remains).

If you’re still not convinced.. look back at the authors from whom i chose to draw comparisons.. they are all top tier, and masters of their craft. Mike Shackle deserves some praise for this one. ..on to book two…