Read Time: 3 Minutes
The bad puns start at the title and continue throughout the entire audiobook. I mean REALLY bad puns but ones that had me grinning like a skeleton each time Harold, the ancient and all-powerful eldritch lich, got a chance to use one. If you’re powerful enough to kill gods, why not make bad puns to annoy people? Nobody can stop you!
Harold’s rise to ultimate power came during a time where the “system” was active. A standard interface that most people familiar with gameLit / progression type fantasy would be familiar with. Number and stats, skills and abilities, all quantified and measurable. Harold hit max-level, and went on a bit of decline. Upset, he decided to put himself to sleep to await the heat-death of the universe.
Woken just 2,000-ish years later, everything he knew has changed. The system is missing (for everyone except him), and people are now practicing cultivation techniques. If you’re not familiar with cultivation fantasy, it’s basically about training your mind and body to achieve supernatural abilities and powers through enhancing your qi and meditation.
Being a curious type, he sets out to find more of what is going on. He creates an over-powered butler servant who prefers to be a maid, black frilly maid costume and all, and reluctantly, an apprentice. From there, he wanders into the world and starts just ripping through the highest-level cultivators as they stand in his way of knowledge.
And herein lies the problem with this book – where are the stakes? Harold is so immensely over-powered that before his long rest, he killed every major god in the world. Literally nothing can harm him. Nothing even comes close. The gods that have come into being since aren’t nearly as powerful, nor the highest-level cultivation masters.
The story is still fun, even if completely one-sided. Harold is a fun character for a lich. Much like Maud from Liches get Stiches, he’s very polite and is just interested in getting about his day. He’s happy to let people be if they leave him alone but will dismantle anyone that doesn’t.
So it’s more of a low-stakes (no stakes maybe) mystery adventure in a cultivation setting. Follow along with Harold, Alex the maid/butler, and Fenfang Fang (aka the limpet or Harold’s apprentice) as they try to solve the mystery of where the system went, and what happened to some of his phylacteries. Yes, multiple phylacteries, and they’ve gone missing.
Narration by Justin Thomas James and regulars from Soundbooth Theater was excellent as expected. Justin’s voice suits this character exceptionally well, as his voice carries a sort of posh gravitas that the most powerful being in existence should have, with the nonchalance needed when entering any encounter.
So final thoughts? Hurry up, book two! Yes, there are no real stakes, but the story is fun. Having an incredibly polite lich hand out ass-whoopings to people who have been oppressing the peasants make for a fun time.
Bonus! If you like baking, be sure to listen to the end credits where Alex will instruct you on how to make peanut butter cookies! I’ve not made them (yet), but they sound nice!