 Hello there. Today, we're here to talk about a book called The Shadow of Hades, or rather, I'm here to talk about it. You're a camera. You can't say anything to me. I suppose commenters can say things to me, but that's not until much later. Right now I'm kind of just in a room talking about myself. But the point is I'm here to talk about The Shadow of Hades by Paul Williams. This one was a patron request. And I know that some people have gone around saying that because they're paying me for the review that I'm going easy on them, that is not even kind of true. Like, you can go back and see some of my other patron reviews. They, I've been harsh on some of them. Like, some of them have not been all that good and I've said as much in the review. So, believe me when I say this one's pretty good. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. This one is an ensemble story, which makes it a little difficult to explain the plot of it. Like, you know, it has a couple of different characters who are all doing their own thing and then it does kind of tie together into a big story, but it's much more difficult to just come out and say, yeah, it's about this, but I'll do my best. Basically, it is a world. It's our modern world, but witches are real. And more than that, witches being real is public knowledge. And so people are kind of freaked out by that a little bit because it's only been revealed relatively recently. And all the four main characters are dealing with this issue how there's something wrong with death, like the spirit of death or the God of death, however you want to put that. And so spirits and corpses and stuff are coming back to life. Well, not corpses coming back, but, you know, spirits are coming back, causing trouble. They can't really find rest and it's causing a lot of things to go wrong. And obviously all the main characters are out doing their own thing, like I said, but it does come together. Now, I'll say right now, the story is pretty good. Like I said, it's hard to describe. And I'll admit at first I wasn't a super big fan of it, but it did get better over time because every character did eventually grow on me. See, at first I was just thinking like, okay, AL is pretty good, but the other characters are kind of boring. And then, excuse me, after a while I started thinking, okay, Blake's storyline is picking up a little, so I guess he's a little better now, but the others are still dull. And then around halfway through I started thinking that Carlos's story was better. And by the end, they were all pretty good. I would still say that Pam's storyline is the weakest, but it's really not the worst thing I've ever read. And a while, or part of the way through the book, I realized that this book feels too long, but it really isn't. And I had to think about it for a little bit before I realized, oh, it's because of the chapter length. Like the chapters are too short when they should be longer. And what basically the way you would fix that would be, okay, each character, you know, has one chapter from like AL's point of view, and then after that will be a Blake chapter, and then Carlos, and then Pam, and then back to ALA. Basically, what you should do is you should take like two or three of those ALA chapters, combine them into one, and put them up front, then take two or three Blake chapters, combine them up front. That way, every chapter has like something going on in it, and they don't feel like they're wasting your time as much. And that's not to say that long chapters are inherently bad, good, or that short chapters are inherently bad. It's a tool. You know, it's a tool that you use to give the story some sort of theme or some sort of tone, and you have to know how to use that tool if you want to use it properly. So with this, when we have a chapter where it feels like not a lot happens, and then another chapter where it feels like not a lot happens, and another, it feels like it takes forever for things to happen, even if it's really not taking that long. So by combining them like that, I think that would fix a lot of issues. I don't have a lot to say about the characters, because none of them are really like odd people. None of them really stand out that much. None of them are that like extreme. They don't have notable personalities. But I liked all of them well enough, at least eventually I started to like them all well enough. At first they were kind of interchangeable and generic, but as time went on, they all got better. And some things I think could have been a little quicker, and that would have helped with characters. And I don't mean like you cut things out and make the story go faster. I mean that there are some events which like they built up to and built up to and built up to, and then so when it happens it like it's a release of tension and you think oh man this was this was kind of crazy, and you didn't really need to build up to it. Like for example Aella's first chapter is her just going about her morning routine and thinking man my husband has been in bed for a long time and eventually she goes to get him and he's dead. And then the second chapter is about her at his funeral and dealing with the immediate aftermath of his death. Honestly I think this would have been better if you had just like skipped over most of that first chapter and had it be like oh my husband's dead and just throw us right into the middle of things. And there's a couple of events like that that I just it would have worked out better had we done it that way. Now the world is a little bit odd or at least it felt a little bit odd at first because like I said it's witches in the modern world where everyone knows about them. They aren't like a secret society or anything. And at first that annoyed me because I've mentioned once or twice that it just really irks me when people just like throw magic or something into our world and then somehow history all happens exactly the same until you get to our modern world and everything's the same as it used to be. But in this case that works out okay because magic was only revealed recently so it it makes sense that things wouldn't have had the chance to change or alter all that much so I was all right with that. I liked the way that magic even by the end of the story always felt like this mysterious odd dangerous even force because a lot of the characters there are not a lot of characters but people who use magic over time it has consequences on their body so they'll like grow wings or fangs or something which I thought was neat that's like a consequence for using magic that you don't often see like it's a a permanent thing that you can never get rid of so I was I was happy with that I thought that was kind of cool and the whole spirit world and everything also felt like I don't want to talk about it too much because I feel like I'd be giving away too much stuff and then people who read it wouldn't have the chance to experience it the way I did. But the spirit world stuff is really odd but you can tell from pretty early on that something's wrong and then when characters come along who exposit about it and say like yeah there's something wrong here and this is what's going on this is how we need to fix it is like okay I was into it and a benefit to this book is that it is a standalone you know it's not like part one of 17 as far as I know like maybe there's sequels in the works somewhere down the line but for the time being it is a standalone book you don't need to read like eight more after this to know what happens or to find out all the mysteries it's I don't know I just appreciated that you know I'm a guy who reads a lot and sometimes I have to power through stuff for my job and everything so it's nice to find something that I like and is just there I got it it's done and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way but overall the shadow of Hades I I actually thought was pretty good you know it I swear I'm really not being paid to say that I think there are flaws in there yeah like there are some bits where the writing got a little iffy but you know just practice a little more and that it solves itself uh there were a few bits that like I said could have been tightened up or cleaned up the characters while they aren't bad could have stood out a little more but overall I think yeah this is a fun little fantasy adventure book or I say fun little fantasy adventure book makes it sound kind of like it's for kids it's really not this one is a little bit more mature than that I'd say like teenagers and adults would have more fun with this but whatever the case it's an enjoyable book I liked it uh you probably will too if any of that sounded appealing and just thanks to Paul Williams for suggesting this uh thanks to all all the names on here those are my patrons and thanks to ten dollar and up uh aposavalanan olivia rea and brother santotes christopher quintan embiss joel carcat kitsune lyza rudakova madison luis benet microphone paul williams sad martigan tobacco crow tom beanie and va victus you're all you're all really cool all the names on here uh they they they gave me money uh and they get stuff like early access to videos and voting on future video topics um if you want to be one then do that if you don't want to do that then um join join join my channel become a channel member that's great or um just you know subscribe like video comment um spread this around I need help