Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Kings of the Wyld

Rating: A

But life, Clay knew, didn't work out that way. It wasn't a circle; you didn't go round and round again. It was an arc, its course as inexorable as the sun's trek across the sky, destined at its highest, brightest moment to begin to fall.

I had heard things about this book and decided to get myself a copy. Before I had started reading this, I ended up buying the sequel anyway...haha whoops. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames is a last hurrah novel about a group of old, washed-up adventurers getting back together to rescue Rose, the daughter of one of the band. The story has strong vibes of the impending doom in Skyrim and Dragon Age, mixed with the humour levels of Monty Python. Lots of quips, puns and even dick jokes can be found in this book. As well as many, many wholesome moments. Some of which even brought me to tears.

Life was funny, and fickle, and often cruel. Sometimes the unworthy went on living, while those who deserved better were lost.

I think this would be a really popular book amongst a lot of groups. I personally really enjoyed the book and some of the jokes landed with me, but I can't really recall them. I am a bit disappointed that there wasn't really a stand-out female character that was really in the band (except after halfway through). I did like the joke around the bard of the group (looking at you Dandelion...) and how that was handled throughout the book. I really loved the characterisation of Gabriel and Clay particularly around how much they valued their family.
Each moment that Clay reflects on why he's doing this adventure was so touching. I also liked the world-building around the monsters (common D&D monsters that you can look up online), the named weapon trope and how immensely mysterious and powerful the weapons were.

Moog was definitely a great addition to the team, beyond filling in the magical character of the team, he had a lot of creative weapons, a lot of world knowledge and I found his developmental scenes really touching. I really liked Matrick and he was a washed-up old king, similar to Robert Baratheon. What was so interesting to me was that he started as a thief/rogue. I wish we had more information about how he became king.

We will speak of this later, his lower back promised. Oh yes we will.

If I think about what the book was lacking, there were a few things: There was no real amazing battle that swept me in like other books have. I felt like we were more told about the skirmish rather than really saw it. I also felt like the gang weren't really that close - or it kind of showed that they fell out of contact with each other for the past 20 years, and coming back together was pretty easy for them to fall back into. They briefly mentioned the team used to be 6 + the bard, but there was only one line about the team member that had died, and they never brought him up again.

The team also felt like very much overpowered. We start the book going on about how old and grey they are, but several times when Gabriel is fighting, he is practically a god with a hectic AF sword and he seems to shrug off injuries unlike Clay. I especially felt like Ganelon's character was one of the main ways the author solved the aging heroes problem.

I still liked the story and would put it into similar camps as The Cruel Stars (popcorn entertainment) by John Bigmingham and the Warriors of Blood and Shadow series by Andy Peloquin.

"But you would come if it was me, right, Daddy? If I was trapped by bad guys far away? You would come and save me?"
"If it was you," he said in a voice still fierce for how quietly it spoke, "then nothing in the world could stop me."

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