Some heroes are born, some are made, and some are willing to fake it for the right pay.Gabe abandoned life as a conman after the disasters in Lincoln, and he managed to carve out a bit of peace with the scraps he had left. Unfortunately, bad guys suck at respecting personal boundaries. So together with Heather and a group of weird new companions, he finds himself shackled to a horrifying cosmic … shackled to a horrifying cosmic game with sky-high stakes, inscrutable goals, and rules that seem to change every five minutes. And when old gods and monsters resurface to make things so much worse, he’s finally forced to admit that he might not be talking his way past any of it.
Fate itself rises to force-feed Gabe a cliché quest, leaving him only to find the artifact, get paid the fortune, and try to make it out alive.
…And, if there’s enough time, maybe save the whole stupid world.
Fate Lashed is the sequel to Hero Forged and the second book in the Ethereal Earth series—an ongoing tale about the nightmares we create, those they create for us, and a few people who refuse to take any of it too seriously.
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And Josh Erikson does it again!
The first thing you need to understand is I’m not normally a fan of urban fantasy. The tropes, protagonists, and lack of world building depth typical of the genre just don’t usually appeal to me.
Similarly, I generally tend to steer clear of fiction audiobooks read by the author. I’ve seen a lot of authors who think they should narrate their own books, and it’s usually because they feel they know how everything (and everyone) is supposed to sound and don’t want an uninvested narrator to “mess it up.”
The thing many of these authors miss is that a big part of the fun of audiobooks is getting to listen to someone else’s interpretation of the book. In some ways (much like a movie), it’s like experiencing an entirely different story.
That said, however, Josh is a fantastic narrator! His voices are top notch, his vocal inflections are almost flawless, and his tempo changes are perfect.
More than that, though, his exact tonal changes don’t always perfectly reflect the text. It’s almost like he has somehow divorced himself from what he knows about the story as the author and has reinterpreted the whole thing as a narrator to provide a whole new experience!
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. If Josh’s books weren’t so damned amazing, he could have a brilliant career as a professional narrator or voice actor!
Now for the story.
I honestly don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but it certainly wasn’t what I got! This is such a fantastic story!
After Hero Forged, I had serious concerns about how he could possibly step it up. The story, the stakes, the scope, the conflict of the first book were so awesome, so epic, I expected that for sure this one would fall short.
Well, in true Josh Erikson fashion, every one of my expectations was blown completely out of the water and shattered into a million pieces.
The sheer epic scope of this story is mind-boggling!
Now, is the prose flawless? Is the grammar perfect?
No.
But with the POV style of the book (very tight third person), it absolutely works and doesn’t detract from the story one little bit.
I’m not normally fond of chapter titles or headings, or bonus text at chapter openings. I find they usually contain spoilers, and I have a hard enough time being surprised without them.
I love the chapter openings in this series, however. Through these excerpts of the main character’s fictional non-fiction book, “Con Science,” we get these wonderful glimpses into Gabe’s psyche and motivations and it adds so much to him as a character!
And speaking of Gabe.
Generally, I don’t appreciate character contradictions and inconsistencies. In most books, these come off as sloppy. They feel like mistakes or writing inconsistencies.
Not so here.
Here we have a protagonist that prides himself on his pragmatic belief that heroes are idiots who get people killed, yet constantly finds himself heroically protecting or saving the people he cares about.
Similarly, he’s this anti-confrontational guy who just wants to find the loophole to get out of every situation, yet has this deep-seated honorable streak (that he almost constantly tries to deny) that brings him to the head of almost every conflict.
On the surface, these contradictions could easily seem like glaring mistakes in the writing. But with how Gabe is written, all of this comes together to create this awesomely complex, conflicted character that (when I don’t want to slap him) I can’t help rooting for, crying for, and laughing with (or in some cases at!).
I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say this. The plot line of this story is hugely epic (absolutely a worthy successor to Hero Forged), the world building gets deeper and more immersive, and we get to see an impressive array of new magical abilities and phenomenal new plot twists that will keep the best of us guessing.
I love the new characters (Um, hello, can you say MINOTAUR!), I love the deeper dive into Gabe and Heather, and I absolutely love the further development of the villains.
To say nothing of those who I’m not actually sure yet if they are villains or not!
And finally, the ending. I mean, wow. Just. Wow.
If you’ve read Brandon Sanderson then you’ve read books by an author who really knows how to stick an ending. And I’m here to tell you that Josh Erikson does it better!
I can’t even imagine where this series is eventually going to go, but I have supreme confidence that when we get there the series finale is going to completely blow my mind!
Now I just have to wait for the next book to be published!
(and the next, and the next)