 Kings of the Wild except it's spelled with a Y because it's like cool and edgy and stuff This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long Okay, so Kings of the Wild this one has been requested a lot recently and Actually going back a while. It's been requested a lot But anyways the point is this one I really liked, you know It's not a traditional epic fantasy the way I was thinking it might have been and it's not really a traditional heroic fantasy either it is for the most part a pretty light-hearted story about Some dudes who have already gone on a lot of adventures and this is sort of their last hurrah and While there is some stuff, especially in the latter part of the book that is all about like, you know Saving the world saving this city and all that it is for the most part pretty light-hearted and pretty funny and Well just fun so the story follows this guy named clay or it mostly follows clay at least and He is an old retired mercenary He used to be part of this mercenary band called Saga and it was him and four other dudes and What mercenaries do in this world is they usually like go off into this big wilderness called the Heart Wild Which is full of monsters, you know goblins and ogres and Cyclops trolls like all sorts of stuff that you can imagine and They go in and clear out troublesome spots in there and You know saga was this big famous very successful mercenary band and about 20 years before the story starts They broke up and now clay is just a guard in a small town, you know, he's married has a daughter keeps in Somewhat contact with some of his old bandmates, but not that many and when the story starts this one named Gabriel who is One that he actually does still keep contact with comes up to him and he basically says hey my daughter's in a lot of trouble She could die soon. If I don't go save her. I need your guys's help and Eventually clay agrees to it. He's kind of reluctant at first, but in the end he's like well I can't Leave you and your daughter hanging so I'll go and then the story unfolds from there they get the rest of the band back together and then they go have to cross the heart wild and go to the city that's under siege in order to rescue his daughter and Yeah, it's it's a pretty simple story overall Now the best part of the story is just how fun and lighthearted it is Like there are a lot of little jokes not only in the narration but also in the characters talking to one another and you really do get the feeling that for these guys a Lot of what they do is banal like to us seeing A bunch of mercenaries cut through like a horde of goblins or something that should be exciting or cool But to them it's just like yeah, we've done this sort of thing a million times And even though they're kind of old and you know in a lot of cases fat out of shape Like they're in their late 40s early 50s at this point. So, you know, they they're they're getting they're getting up there in age But you know, even though they're kind of out of shape and they're not fighting as well as they could have 20 years earlier they're still Not that intimidated by a lot of this I guess that's the best way of putting it and that is pretty funny And then they also make jokes about stuff like how clay had sex with mermaids and stuff like, you know just little things like that spread throughout are genuinely really funny and really great and then as Clay and Gabriel start gathering up more members of the band they Each of them has their own issues that they're dealing with that they need to help out with real quick before they can go off on their adventure and then the adventure itself is I'd say it's about half the book because like the first half is just getting everyone together and the second half is Going off and doing it. What I will say is that the second half of the book is a little bit weaker because while the first half does introduce a villain actually more than one villain really and it does Sort of hint at okay. Yeah, there's bigger forces at play. There's gonna be More stuff going on. It's not a simple battle that we're going into It also feels like that's kind of a sideshow and the main story is still just these couple of guys trying to say it one person and Then the second half it brings all that political war stuff into the forefront and While it's not complicated or anything. It's still pretty simple it the story never really evolves beyond Go here kill the bad guys save the good guys It is still kind of a well How should I put this it's um it feels more traditional? I guess is the way I should put it like the second half feels more like a regular epic fantasy and While it's done. Well, don't get me wrong. It's not bad by any means. I was never bored or anything I do wish that it had stayed with the totally lighthearted fun tone Because the first half you're not really supposed to take it all that seriously and even in the second half There's still jokes and stuff like they repeatedly refer to Getting all the mercenaries together as getting the band back together And then there's a chapter near the end of the book That's literally called the battle of the bands like the author knew what he was doing, you know It's a pretty silly book for the most part and I just wish it had stayed that way But again, the dark bits aren't bad You know, there is a the backstory of the main villain last leaf is Genuinely pretty great. I haven't seen anything like that before but it's also really twisted and Had that been in a book that was just more dark overall Then I think it would have been fantastic as it is here It's still good, but it feels just a little out of place as for other stuff I should complain about um, I think there are a few too many characters in this like I mean, it's a basically a heroic fantasy at the end of the day Which means you should just focus on this small cast and all the main characters are great by the way Like all the mercenaries clay and Gabriel are kind of the straight men like they're pretty normal And so at the beginning of the book you might be thinking okay The rest of the characters aren't gonna stand out that much, but no they do They're they're all kind of weird and unusual in their own ways, which is which is great But yeah beyond the mercenary band There are a lot of other characters some of whom stand out and a lot of whom don't and so after a while when it starts Introducing new people they kind of just blend together as oh, this is one of saga's old friends And this is also one of saga's old friends and this is also one of saga's old friends And then this is somebody who's after them for this reason and this is somebody who hates them for this reason And so there are just a few too many particularly with the villains because I think if they were gonna have Like they basically have three main villains or hell you could say four main villains in this book and I think Two or three of them could have just been combined together But you know, it's not a big deal I'm really just looking for things to complain about at this point and I will say that while the climax is really good You know, it's this big battle. It's a whole lot of fun. There's crazy stuff happening They're killing monsters killing people all sorts of neat crazy stuff And it does end in a way where it's like, okay I know there are sequels to this but you don't have to read them like this wraps up the story very well And I'm actually not sure what they do with the sequels It might be like a generational sequel where it's just their kids going off doing stuff. I don't know but anyways It ends that way, which is great But then there's an epilogue and the epilogue is honestly kind of depressing like I feel this book Either should have just left the epilogue out and ended on a little bit of a higher note or It should have rewritten the epilogue so it was a little less well Sad honestly Like I get that a big part of this book is that their heyday is over and they have to step aside Let the young ins come in and do their thing while saga just enjoys retirement and Enjoys the rest of their lives, but at the same time it just I Don't know it left me Leaving the book on the downer note rather than a happy one But despite all the complaining I was just doing this really is a fantastic book like Absolutely phenomenal like one of the best ones I've read in a while or I guess technically not read because I got this as an audio book But whatever it is fantastic. It is funny. It has a bunch of action-packed stuff It has a bunch of characters that are all really likeable. It has one really good villain and Even though it gets a little too deep into the epic fantasy saving the world type stuff That was done fairly well and for the most part the focus was kept small it was kept on just this one group of characters trying to save one person and in the end Yeah, I would recommend this to fans of pretty much all types of fantasy really like if you Enjoy heroic fantasy go ahead and check it out. If you enjoy White-hearted stories check it out if you enjoy epic fantasy check it out like if you enjoy dark fantasy I don't know how much this would intrigue you But there are some parts that you would probably like and yeah overall just really great book you should check it out Thanks for watching and thanks to all my patrons whose names are here But especially thanks to Appo Savalainen brother Santobes Christopher Quinton Christopher Hawkins Joseph Pendergraft and Tobacco crow you guys are you guys are great if you want to get your name on here then consider donating to my page You also get stuff like early access to my videos and voting on future video topics So you know if that if that interests you then go ahead and check it out And if you can't do that then like the video comments on the video subscribe to my channel If you haven't already and I will Yeah, bye