 I finally read Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad M. Brooks, a.k.a. Shad of Irciti. It's a lot of shads. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Okay, so I didn't do a whole lot of research into what the consensus on this book was before I read it. However, I didn't get to it until this point because I was very wary of it. I was thinking, yeah, that's not going to be good because, one, it's a first-time novel. Two, it's self-published. And three, it's self-published by a YouTuber. Which, for those of you who don't know, Shad of Irciti is another YouTuber. He talks about medieval weapons and history and such. And the thing is that those three things together do not usually work well in combination. They usually produce some pretty awful stories when that happens. And that being said, I don't think Shad of the Conqueror is awful. I think I just have extremely mixed feelings on it. There's some stuff that's very, very good. And there's some stuff that I would say is great, actually. But then there's a lot of stuff that's just absolutely awful. And just, oh god, it should never have happened. So this is a fantasy novel. It takes place in a world which is like just a giant floating continent. You know, it has airships and stuff that's how people get around. And if you fall off the continent, rather than plummeting towards something, you will actually eventually hit a barrier and they'll teleport you to the top of the world, and then they'll keep falling, so you basically just fall until you die of thirst, which is... Okay, that's kind of interesting. And the main character is also pretty interesting, because he is, unlike most fantasy protagonists, he's not a young kid in his late teens or early 20s. He's actually 82 years old at the beginning. And not only that, he used to be this war hero, and then he became a revolutionary who overthrew his government, and then he became a horrible tyrant, and then he was overthrown, and everyone thought he was dead, and then he went into hiding for 20 some odd years, and that's where we see him at the beginning of the book. And then he attempts suicide, but through some magical shenanigans, which I don't really feel like getting into, he winds up getting magical powers and also becoming young again. And, well, if that sounds a little Mary Sue-ish, it is. You know, he is genuinely just an ultra-Uber-powerful badass the entire book, but it is a super unique concept, and I think it's done very well for the most part. So the world is really good. The main character is genuinely great. There are other characters in here who I think are really good. You know, maybe not as good as Dalen himself, but they are still really good. I liked most of the magic stuff. You know, it got a little too broad, I felt. Like, by the end you could basically do anything with magic, but overall I thought it was cool. I liked the culture and history of the world that it goes into. I liked just... there's a lot of stuff in here that I enjoyed, but the problem, the biggest problem, is that the plot or the story, I should say, is just dog shit. And so what it winds up being is that there are a bunch of good pieces, but they don't tie together well. They don't mesh together well because the story, for the most part, just isn't good. For about the first, I'd say 70 or 80 pages of this book, almost nothing happens. Like, it introduces us to Dalen. It shows us his mental state, which is not good. It shows him try to commit suicide. It shows him get his powers, and then he starts learning about his powers. And most of him learning about his powers is just him walking around, testing stuff out, and then talking out loud to himself about, oh, hey, I just discovered this new thing. And Dalen talks to himself a lot in this book, actually, which wouldn't bother me at all if it weren't for him constantly doing it with his powers and stuff, because I feel like that would be better with an internal monologue, and it just feels a little awkward, but I don't know, that's a small thing in the grand scheme of things. But yeah, it takes about 70 pages for anything to actually happen, and then most of the events after that are pretty disconnected. And part of me feels like that was done deliberately, like this was done as more of a character-based story, but then once you get near the end, it feels like, oh no, this was trying to be plot-driven, this was trying to be heavy, this was trying to have stakes, and have the fate of the world be in the balance, and so it just doesn't work, you know? It's hard to even explain without going into detail on every plot point, but basically they just don't tie together, they don't really lead into each other, they just sort of, one happens, and then it's over, and then another happens, and then it's over, and then when the climax comes, it comes kind of out of nowhere. For that matter, there are like three climaxes in this, and I'll probably do a little bit more detail in the spoiler section, but basically the first climax is, I would say actually pretty good, because it's just very character-focused, it's just about Dalin and his relationship with his new friends, and as the final fighting is happening, you really don't want anyone to get hurt, and you kind of see where everyone's coming from, so it's a good climax, okay? But then the second climax is the one that kind of comes out of nowhere, and it's very... I was about to say plot-driven, but that's not the word, it's like, it just kind of comes out of nowhere, and it's like, oh, fate of the city is in the balance, and it's like, it's hard to care, and then third climax is another one, which is a little bit more character-driven, but it's... I... man, it just... I don't know, there's not enough build-up to it, whereas the first climax had all this build-up to it, and then it had all this tension, and then it was released, the other one just, it didn't have enough tension built up, so there couldn't be a release, and so, yeah, the plot of this book is just... it's a mess, it really is, and, again, Shad is a first-time author, so it didn't really surprise me when that happened, that's actually a pretty common issue with first-time authors, but it does... I mean, that doesn't make it any better. But let's talk about the genuinely the best part of this book, and that is Daelin himself, the protagonist. Now, as I said, the very concept of his character is super unique, but even beyond that, just seeing him be consumed by his own guilt, and seeing him want to try to atone for his crimes, and seeing him realize that he's still not a great person at the beginning, but he slowly becomes better, that is a... I mean, it's a great, great arc to watch, and in fact, there's a pretty huge part of it that is taken up by like, well, can a person like this even be redeemed, or is he worthy of being redeemed? And just... it's... man, it's really fascinating, and I think that the book is definitely trying to say like, yeah, he can be redeemed, but you know, the question is still posed, it's still a good arc to watch. I still really liked it, okay? I really liked Daelin, and the only real issue is that he's just way too much of a Mary Sue. Like, as soon as he gets his powers, he figures out how to use them almost instantly, perfectly, and then as it goes on, he only gets better and better at it, and till by the end, he's just almost like a god, and it's just... it's kind of dumb, and that aside, he's also just like a super smart dude. He kind of knows everything on how to get out of crisis. He is generally a pretty nice guy throughout most of the book, like, not always, but even when he isn't, they kind of try and justify his acts, so it's... yeah, he's not a perfect character, but like, just the concept and the arc of seeing him grow and change is... it's genuinely amazing. And there's not a lot of other characters, like there's an Arch Knight, who is basically just a magical good guy, night guy, named Aurek, who is... he runs into Daelin pretty early on and starts journeying with him, and as time goes on, he starts to suspect more and more that Daelin isn't who he says he is, and I'm not gonna go into detail here, but like, seeing his relationship with Daelin grow and change is... I mean, that's really good, and Aurek is also just like a good guy on his own. He's pretty badass, so I... I like seeing all that stuff. And then there's another major character named Lyra, who has a unique relationship with Daelin. That's not funny, I shouldn't be laughing, but yeah, she has a unique relationship with him, but even beyond that, she is pretty good as a character. I don't know why I hesitate so much to say that, but yeah, she is a pretty good character as well. Like, she has her own personality and goals and all that, which are separate from his, but she also has her own relationship with him, and she has her own growth and change throughout the story as well. So overall, character cast of this book is pretty great. I think that's about it for the non-spoiler section. Would I recommend this book? I don't know, because like I said, it's first-time author and it's self-published, so there's a lot of amateur mistakes in there, like the prose isn't that great, the story kind of goes all over the place. There's a few typos I noticed. It's not perfect, and well, if you're really, really looking for some fantasy fare, which is a little bit closer to modern technology without having like gunpowder and everything, then I guess check it out for everybody else. I don't think this really has anything that great to offer. Okay, so spoilers. First things first, there's a lot of talk of rape in this, and I would say that it's handled pretty well for the most part, because it's always treated as a horrible thing that happens, and it's never tried to... It's never downplayed or justified at all. And it's also brought up that like, even if you aren't physically coercing someone or threatening them in the moment, it can still be rape, so yeah, I liked how that was handled. The only thing about it is with Lyra. Now, at the beginning, it's made clear that talk of sex makes her really nervous, and it's kind of played for laughs. At least it feels like it's played for laughs at the beginning. And then later you find out that it's because when she was 14, she got forced into Daylan's harem, I guess you'd call it, so she got raped by him a bunch of times, and then she wound up pregnant, and then she got an abortion, which left her unable to have children. And so, yeah, it makes sense that she would be traumatized by that, obviously, and how it would change her as a person so much. And it's just that having it be treated for comedy at the beginning just feels, I guess, poor taste. It feels like it's in poor taste, and I mean, I'm not like getting mad at Shad or anything about this. I'm just saying like, this is a heavy subject, and if you're gonna handle it, handle it well. And he does that for the most part. It's just that one bit later on, I look back on that. That did bother me a lot. Now, as for the first climax that I was talking about, where Daelyn and Aurek are talking, and Aurek finally figures out that Daelyn is actually Daelus the Conqueror, well, he goes ballistic and tries to kill Daelyn, because it turns out that not only did Daelyn kill his family years ago, but Aurek was actually the leader of the revolution that deposed him, that brought him out of power. And so as they're fighting, you realize, man, yeah, Aurek has very good reason to kill this dude, but by this point, we realize that Daelyn has changed, and we realize that he wants to actually do good in the world, and he has done some good in the world, and so we really don't want either of them to be killed. So it's actually a very, very good fight scene. It's very impactful. And so, like I said, this is the best of the climaxes. So I mean, I don't have a lot to say about it. It's just like, yes, that's a great character moment from both of them. And then I want to talk about the Daunists a little bit. Now, the Daunists are basically just dudes who want to bring back the Daun Empire, which is what Daelyn ruled over, and they don't go into a lot of detail about what exactly that means. Now, it's definitely mentioned how there's a lot of poverty in their country at this point, and how the Daun Empire was kind of this proto-socialist empire. They don't go into a lot of detail about it, but it definitely has some socialist ideas in there, and so they're definitely arguing for that. But beyond that, it doesn't really go into detail about what sort of government they'd have, would it still be an absolute dictatorship the way it was when Daelyn was in charge, and if they had gone into stuff like that, it would have been better. And even beyond that, the Daunists try to bring an island to crash into the capital city at the end and only saved by Daelyn at the last second, and it just makes them seem way too crazy. This book is definitely siding against the Daunists, and I'm not saying that the book is in the wrong for siding against the Daunists because Daelyn did do some genuinely horrible things. He was a dictator, that's just what happens, but it would be much more interesting if the Daunists had one or two legitimate points, because at one point they bring up poverty, and Daelyn says, well, you were even poorer during the Daun Empire, and I'm like, oh, okay, I guess they were. That was never mentioned until now. And so if they just had one or two good points that were actually brought up, then that would make them much better as villains, because as it stands, they don't even really have that much screen time, so there's just not much we can do with them, and well, that's just disappointing. In a book that has a couple of other really good characters that we didn't really get a good villain. So that's all I got for you. I just wanted to thank my patrons, Jo Savilainen, Abrahaj Singh, Christopher Hawkins, Joseph Pendergraft, and Melanie Austin, you guys are great, as well as all the other names here, you know, they're great too. 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