Dark Wolf Unchained

Alpha Rising, Book 3

By: Ryan Evans

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Emilia is defeated, and the Eastern Territories are once again safe from the corruption of dark magic—but all actions have consequences.

While his home rebuilds, Valian finds himself in chains, headed to the imperial capital, Soltar. There, he's to either die in the sands of the arena or stand trial for the death of an imperial princess.

Not all is as it seems, though. A dark shadow moves while corruption eats away at the heart of the greatest city in the empire.

Can Valian escape the dark machinations in which he finds himself surrounded, or will he become the tool by which the empire falls?

©2023 Ryan Evans (P)2024 Podium Audio

great series

the more of this series I read the more I like it. I can't wait for the next books.

Alpha

These books are by far my favorite in my audio books and the only one that isn’t warhammer a great story and can’t wait for more books

Another great book

What’s not to like about this book? This book has it all! What a great story and the characters are very likable!

Slow moving

The story was weak and relied too heavily on the fights instead of the characters. The switching between the character narrative was hard to follow. I found myself never rooting for the main characters at all. But still a good book.

Love the series, but please "more show, less tell"

I love this series immensely and I highly recommended it, but book three suffers from a few issues:

TL;DR : Love the world and characters, but please "more show, less tell," especially when it comes to character deaths and pivotal moments.

First the positives:

The world is phenomenal. I devour every ounce of beastkind (and the surrounding races) history, culture, politics, and biology I can get my hands on. If you love the idea of anthropomorphic animal shifters with incredible yet grounded abilities, this is the series for you. The characters are amazing, especially Valian, Kyla, Carsem, and Laythian (forgive the spelling, consequences of an audiobook). I am actually interested in the combat scenes, unlike some other titles out there where combat becomes hard to follow and only the outcome matters. Overall, I just love love love this world! And the narrator is wonderful!

Now, because I love this series, I have to share some shortcomings:

1. Book 3's Lack of Setting Variety - This is a consequence of Valian being a prisoner and fighting in the coliseum, but it prevents further world exploration. This could have been balanced better if we saw more of what his allies were doing behind the scenes, but we didn't receive much. This series has great characters, and we hardly heard any of Kyla in this title, with only a little more from characters like Lea and Alexander. Laythian was good though.

2. Less Tell, More Show - This is the biggest one for the series as a whole so far. Two or three times a book we will hear about a pivotal event or a character death, but that's just it. We hear about it. A character will just mention it, or we will see the aftermath of that event while just getting a brief telling of what HAD happened. If something major occurs, please start from the beginning of said event and let it play out. Even if the author feels we ought to know of the outcome first, you should then tell the side-story with detail. Take a chapter, tell it from the top. Character deaths and betrayals or build-ups to them should not be "off-screened."

[Spoilers Book 3] Example from Book 3: Kyla goes to her family's estate in hopes that they will see the wrongdoings of the crown and aid her in freeing Valian. It doesn't go well, but we only hear about halfway through the book that it did. We hear about the actions her family took, but no character interaction, no active scene plays out. We don't get to hear how everything went so wrong except for a brief recounting. Please let us hear stuff like this. I'd still like to hear this, could be a Kyla flashback in the future.

[Spoilers Book 2] Examples from Book 2: The fall of Sylvanti House and the associated deaths, political grooming and later death of Erin, and death of General Zynathus. Each was "off-screened" and we readers/listeners catch wind after the fact and we get a brief "what" happened, but we lose the impact of hearing a scene actually play out. Erin was a fairly large part of Book 1, and General Zynathus in my mind was an antagonist equal to Princess Amelia, only for both to be "off-screened" basically one after the other in Book 2.

3. Dead End Characters - I have said how much I love this series' characters, but some characters depart unceremoniously. There is good character building, but then the characters kinda go nowhere. I understand not every character is designed to be long for the world, but if they are going to die give them some heart! Make us feel it.

[Spoilers Book 2 & 3] Examples: General Zynathus, Droka Ferren, and important Sylvanti House members from Book 2 got "off-screened," the Knight Captain from this title gets absorbed into the Prince's essentially zombified forces so his character may be gone, basically all of Valian's allies in the Coliseum get cut down unceremoniously upon escaping the Coliseum, and critically The Emperor.
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I love this series so so much and I want to see it do well. I give my thoughts with the hope it may benefit the series in the future. Keep it up Ryan Evans! Maybe I was a bit cut-throat, but I do really love this series!

The fights

lots of fighting. it was definitely coming. Now to wait for the next in the series pensively

It was Oak

it was okay. ai hav listened to the first two books and really enjoyed them but, it with this one felt the story did not progress. the narrator was excellent the battle were good the plot so so.

Great

wish it was longer can't wait till the next book hipe it's not to long down the road

Love this series

The story keeps pulling you in and you end up losing track of time.

The story builds up and never let off

I live the flow of the plot never seems like I’m waiting for the interesting plot points or action, great job at peaking interest and maintaining it