 Hello, I waited too long to film this and now the light is not great in here, but that's not the important part. The important part is that I got an advanced copy of Rebels Creed, which is the second book in the Lawful Time series by Daniel Green, and I'm here to talk about it. So let's do that. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So like I said, this book is written by fellow youtuber Daniel Green. If you're not familiar with him, check out his channel. It's pretty good. It's also about books and stuff, and he talks a lot about fantasy, sci-fi. So if you're into my stuff, you'd probably be into his. And he was originally planning on releasing three books in the Lawful Time series, which were supposed to be a kind of prologue to the main story and the first book, which I reviewed a couple months ago, was Breach of Peace, and I specifically mentioned in that review, like, yeah, this this feels like a prologue, which was just kind of stretched out to a full book. Like, it wasn't bad by any means, but that's what it felt like. Whereas Rebels Creed, you can kind of see from it here, is like much longer and thicker, and I believe that's because he just decided to take the last two parts of that prologue and mash him together. So this is like an actual full-length novel as opposed to a novella, which Breach of Peace was. Not a particularly long novel, but it is a full-length one, which I think is good, because you're getting more bang for your buck that way. In fact, I feel a little bit like Breach of Peace should also have been put in here. Like, if all three of them had been one book, that would have been better. But, you know, it's not a huge problem one way or the other. But just like Breach of Peace, this feels like it is leading into something much bigger and overall, it is pretty good. Like, I don't have a lot of complaints about it. I think it's a good story. I think the characters are decent. I think it's a good intro to this world. I have a couple of minor problems and one medium-sized problem, but nothing really substantial, you know? So if it sounds like at the end, I'm taking a lot of time to talk about complaints and you're thinking, oh wow, James hates this book. No, I still think it's pretty good. I just do have complaints about it. So if you didn't read the last book or you need a refresher, basically there was an aristocratic family which was murdered in a really, really brutal way. And then the police came in and started investigating led by a woman named Cleed, or Clid, excuse me. I was saying Cleed before, but I believe it's supposed to be Clid. But anyways, they investigate, they uncover like this bigger conspiracy going behind everything and it's like, oh, it looks like a faction of the government killed this aristocratic family and then everyone is massacred. Everyone at that police precinct is killed. And that's just, that's where that one ends and this one picks up. And this one is split into two chunks. The first one takes place before the big massacre and it follows one of the policemen from the first book. His name is Chapman. And the second chunk, which I believe is like two thirds of the book, like 60% to 70% of the book I would say, follows another police officer from the first book named Holden and that takes place after the massacre. And I don't want to give away too much other than that because this is, well, not quite as much as the first one, but this one is still about like the mystery of what's going on. And like, again, it's not a super long book, but a lot does happen in it. So it is a little difficult to talk about things that go on without getting into major spoilers. So the main thing I liked here is that the characters are working against the empire from pretty early on, and it feels like just this overwhelming monstrous force. Like even when they meet up with the rebels, they make it pretty clear that, yeah, the rebels are few in number. They're under-equipped. They don't have the popular support necessary to really stage a mass uprising and take down the empire. Like they are the underdogs underdog in this fight. And that makes the empire just seem even bigger and stronger than it already does. And especially as the book goes on and we learn a little bit more about the anointed, which I'll get more into them in a minute, they just make it seem even more powerful, even more overwhelming and monstrous. So that that was the main thing about this I really liked. Like it's there to set up what the villainous force of the series will be, at least what I assume the villainous force of the series will be, and it does an admirable job of that. I also really did enjoy the intro to this world. Like it doesn't go on a deep dive into it, which I was a little disappointed by, but I assume other books will deal with that. But for just an introduction to this world, just a surface level way of looking at it, it is really neat. Like the empire that it takes place in, which I don't believe has a name, it's just the empire, which does irk me. Like it's always irked me when it does that. Like just come up with a name, people. Come on. But it is this theocratic totalitarian regime, but it has a lot of internal power struggles. Like we find a little bit about a couple of different factions in this book and how they're all working against one another, working off one another, which I'm just a sucker for. And plus we also learn it's an expansionist empire. So it's said that they have taken over a lot of other areas lately and just kind of strict them of their culture and their identity, which is obviously unpleasant. And plus in this series, even though it's fantasy, it is, the technology is around 19th century level. You know, it's not medieval fantasy. And I know some people like to be sticklers for certain fantasy series, most notably Wheel of Time, where they say like, oh, it's not medieval. It's Renaissance fantasy. Well, like it doesn't really make a difference for the most part. Like it for the sake of the story, there's not a whole lot of difference between 16th century armor and 14th century armor. So they look, what does it matter? So I liked all of that. The biggest problem I have with this book, which again, is not like the end of the world, but it did really bother me was, we know that the empire is evil way too early in the story. And I mean, I guess we kind of know the empire is evil from like the first book, but excuse me, even then in this one, we just kind of know it's evil very soon, very early on. And that's kind of a shame. Like we don't get a chance to be absorbed in this world the way the characters supposedly are before the story starts and think like, yeah, this empire is the greatest thing that's ever existed. It's doing great things for the world. And I am super glad that I'm a part of this and I want to help it. Like we don't really get the chance to do that. So we don't get to see why it has support because I mean, they do talk about how the population is thoroughly propagandized, but we don't get much beyond that. You know, like usually when empires have support, it's because they tangibly made people's lives better. So if we could have seen a little bit of that, it would have made some sense. We also don't get to sympathize with the villains at all, at least not yet, because you know, they're just out for their own power, you know, we don't really get to see them think like, oh, okay, they're just trying to protect the people of the empire, but they're going about it in a nasty way or anything like that. So we don't get that. And we also just don't get to be surprised when bad things start happening and the government's behind it. I also just wish we could have learned more about the magic system. Like, again, I know the later books will probably go more in depth on this sort of thing, but like this is supposed to be an introduction to the world. And we get like barely anything. So there's basically two types of magic users, at least two types that have been introduced so far. There's grips who basically just have telekinesis, except the more they use it, the more it poisons them. Like they release this substance, which I believe is kind of implied to be radiation or at least similar to radiation. And so the more they use their powers, the worse it gets. And they're neat. And then we have the anointed who we learn very little about in this book. They're just supposedly chosen by God. And I believe each of them is supposed to have their own unique powers, but I don't remember for certain. And we do see in this book that they're extremely difficult to kill, and they're extremely powerful, though. The problem is that I kind of only know all of this because Daniel has brought it up in his videos, and I've watched those. Like, if I hadn't seen those before reading this, I would probably be very lost. So it could have used just a little bit more time devoted to that, just explaining like, Oh, yeah, the grips work this way a little bit, you know, and I get it, exposition can sometimes be something that writers want to avoid at all costs, but sometimes you just got to do it. There's also just some writing in here that's iffy, you know, nothing really terrible, just like it uses passive voice a few too many times, like it often enough that I noticed it. And granted, this is an advanced copy. So there are supposed to be one or two typos in here, which should be fixed in the final one. But either way, I don't know if the passive voice is going to be fixed. And I don't know if some of the other writing issues are going to be there. Like, for example, there's one sentence I remember where he used the word rifle twice in a sentence, which just feels awkward. There's points where I could use some more description, particularly with the action scenes, which I thought were good overall, but I did want some more. And just like what this city looks like, what people look like, that sort of thing. But I mean, overall, I don't have issues with it. It's just there's a need to sand off the edges, let's say. And I also just wish we could have gotten to know this area better. Like, I know I did mention before that like this is just a surface level exploration of this world. Yes, but I do wish we had gone deeper than surface level for this one area, you know, this capital city that they're exploring, because as it is, I don't really know that much about it, other than like, it's just it's a city, you know, it's supposedly a really big city. It's the seat of imperial power. They do mention that different neighborhoods have their own character as well. But I just didn't really feel like I knew this world all that much. And plus, there's no map. I hope there's a map in the later books just because it's difficult for me to get my bearings sometimes when, well, you know, it's a fictional world, and I don't know where anything is in relation to anything else. So I do hope there's a map in later ones, just because if you're going to have a fantasy world, you should have a map. Overall, though, pretty good, like I said, you know, that by the standards of YouTuber books or celebrity books in general, this is basically unparalleled, because for a variety of reasons, which I've talked about a little bit in the past, it's pretty much impossible for famous people to write decent books. So the fact that it's gone this far is great. And I do know that Daniel wants to progress more and learn more as time goes on. So I'm sure the later books will also be great. And yeah, I would recommend checking out both Breach of Peace and Ribble's Creed. And if he ever releases like the two of them together in one book, then definitely go for that, because it's kind of important to read both of them. But whatever the case is, yeah, check it out. And I don't really have enough for a spoiler section, but I do have this one minor spoiler gripe. So click away if you don't want to hear it. But if the government's trying to create super soldiers and they turn click into a super soldier and then she just breaks out of her cell and starts killing people, like why didn't they have a plan to deal with that? You know, like if you're going to create super soldiers, shouldn't you also do something to make sure they're under your control, like hypnosis or magical mind control, or even just blackmailing them? But I mean, this is far from the only series to do something like that. So, yeah, whatever. Goodbye. A huge thanks to everyone who bothered to watch this far for whatever reason. I don't know who would want to listen to me talk for half an hour, but especially a huge thanks to all my patrons whose names are on here, including the $10 and up patrons, Oppo Savilainen, Olivia Ray, and Brother Santotys, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Christopher Quinton, Dan Antsiliovic, Echo Joel, Carcat Kitsune, Liza Rudikova, Lord Tiebreaker, Madison Lewis Bennett, Marilyn Roxy, Microphone, Sad Martigan, Tobacco Crow, Tom Beanie, and of course, as always, Vei Victis. Y'all are the best, really? Let me tell you that. Like, if you were here, I'd kiss you. I wouldn't actually kiss you, but you know, you're all pretty cool anyways, so just don't take my... Okay, yeah, goodbye.