 Every now and then you come across something that defies all expectations, either in genre or just from your personal expectation of what that is. For me, very recently, and I know I'm not the first one to talk about this, in fact it's been out for a while and I heard about it from other people, it's just I personally just read it very recently, would be Kings of the Wild. Kings of the Wild is a fantasy book written by Nicholas Eames, and as opposed to following the typical teenager or 20-something who learns that he is magical and has to save the world. Instead, all the main characters in this book are about 50 years old, haven't been adventuring for at least 20 years, and are specifically doing this to save one of the other members of the group's daughter. That's about as spoilery as I'm going to try and get, though again you've probably read this book if you are watching a video on it, or maybe not, and you are for whatever reason watching this random dude, me. Anyway, Kings of the Wild follows in a typical group of adventurers that being a group of retired adventurers from about 20 years prior. Now they did make up the greatest band of all time as stated in this world, but again, been retired for 20 years, but that does not stop them. Seriously, the book is amazing. These characters stop at nothing to achieve their goal. Yes, they're old, their limbs hurt, but Gaby is saving his daughter, Clay is helping him, Clay is getting back home to his family. It's just, it's amazing. I love every minute of the book, and it's so much fun. Now, in terms of characters, we have a kind of typical five-man band setup, where we have Clay as the leader of the group, kind of though I'm going to get into that later, Gabe would be his lancer, Moog, the smart one, who is the best character in the book, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Mattrick, who is their thief, which in this case would kind of make the heart of the group. I don't know, Mattrick's like the most jovial character he does embody the heart of the group, just by the fact that he is a thief. And then we have Ganalan, who is the big guy. The way they work together is really cool, because these are characters that haven't seen each other in near 20 years, yet as soon Gabe shows up being like, yo, can you please help me save my daughter? They're all like, you know what? Yeah, we'll help you save your daughter. You're one of our best friends. Why wouldn't we help you save your kid? What kind of shitheads would we be if we said no? And from there, it's just a lot of fun. It goes through almost every character, their story that we are presented with at the very beginning, and then by the end of it, they pretty much all have a satisfying conclusion. But here's the kicker. We don't know every single thing about every character's past. We don't need to. We need to know the bare essentials. Moog is someone who's trying to cure some massive form of disease, and that he lost someone close to him by. Ganalan is a fighter who hates people being asshole. Mattrick just wants a better life than what he currently thinks he has. And then Gabe just wants to save his kid. You do find out a bit about more of his relationship with his daughter, and that's a lot of fun. But the only character that we truly ever learn their past to any, like, lengthy degree, again, outside of what we probably need to know for the context of the story, would be Clay Cooper. The main character and focal point of this story. Clay is your typical fighter type character. He never considered himself to be the leader of the band that he is in, because Gabe would often be considered the front man, as Gabe is the most charismatic character. But Clay is effectively the leader. The others would follow him into battle. Clay would stop at nothing to protect others. That is Clay's entire fighting style. In fact, for a good majority of this book, Clay's only weapon is a shield. And he uses that specifically to defend his friend. And it's awesome. It's just, I find a lot of fun that the main character isn't some smash and hack, kill everything and go. It's a defensive line. He's a defensive line man who, yeah, can crack skulls if he needs to, but would much rather just block everything with his shield and let his friends do the killing. It's a lot of fun. And actually, for me, it kind of reminds me a little bit of Rising of the Shield hero. An anime series where the main protagonist, his magical weapon, is a shield. Often considered to be shit and very weak, but he has a group of friends that are willing to fight for him and he runs as the ultimate defensive line. It's a lot of fun and I thought it was a great subversion of the main character of a fantasy world. Also, again, the fact that these are 50 year old men kicking the asses of 20 somethings who think they're hot shit. There are a number of great moments that the first time we truly see Mattrick get into a fight in this book is just one of the most amazing scenes ever. It's so much fun and I gotta say, this just, I love this. I really want to see more from this guy. He has another book out called Bloody Rose. I 100% intend on reading that a book myself because it looks like a hell of a lot of fun, but yeah, I'm not sure what more I can truly say here. The book is a lot of fun. It's greatly entertaining, especially if you're sick of a lot of the tropes of modern fantasy with the characters being much older than are generally the adventuring type of heroes with their goal being specifically to save someone and not save the world. Clay and Gabe especially feel like their motivation is specifically save Gabe's daughter as opposed to save the world from whatever this could be. Yeah, the main, like the threat to the world in this book is like an obstacle between them and saving Gabe's daughter. But honestly, I feel like if Gabe had the opportunity, he would just fly over, pick her and everyone they needed out and just fly away. The rest of the world be damned because all he wanted to do is save his little girl. And I loved that. I thought it was a lot of fun because it felt real. It felt like actual human stakes because when these characters are younger, their motivation is obviously what a lot of 20 somethings thing is fame, glory, fortune and women. Or men, if that's what you prefer. Basically it's fame, fortune and glory. Or as Indiana Jones have put it, fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory. Overall, I just thought this book was a lot of fun. The characters felt very human and I honestly cannot wait to read Bloody Rose, the sequel book I believe, to this series and just see where this world keeps going because I'm prepared for a damn fun ride from this entire series. Oh yeah, I should probably rate the book 18 out of 20. What's up guys? I hope that you enjoyed that video from me talking about Kings of the Wild. A phenomenal, greatly entertaining book from Nicholas Eames that if you are a fan of fantasy I suggest you go out and read right now. Or pick it up on Audible, if you have an Audible. This isn't sponsored by Audible, I just use them a lot because I listen to a lot of books. But anyway, that is all I have for now. If you would like to follow me on social media, links to both my Twitter and Instagram will be in the description down below as always. And I hope that you all have a fantastic day and as always guys, peace out.