Gods of the Wyrdwood

By: RJ Barker

Narrated by: Jude Owusu

In a land of gods and wars, a brave forester encounters prophets, warrior monks, and mysterious magic in this exciting fantasy novel.

Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester—a man who can navigate the dangerous Deepforest like no one else. But once he was more. Once he belonged to the god of fire.

Udinny serves the goddess of the lost, a goddess of small things; when she ventures into the Deepforest to find a lost child, Cahan will be her guide. But in a land where territory is won and lost for uncaring gods, where temples of warrior monks pit one prophet against another—Cahan will need to choose the forest or the fire—and his choice will have consequences for his entire world.

©2023 RJ Barker (P)2023 Orbit

Dark take

Nice fantasy tale that contrasts good with evil. Hierarchies are shown to be the evil here as they are in life.

Better to read

Some of these long epics are better read than listened to. Generally I find a narrator adds to the experience, but this one was too mesmerizing. Great when I was trying to fall asleep, but not good unless I was paying close attention. Since I listen to books while doing other things, my mind kept wandering. Hard to keep up with who is who and what is going on. I suspect this is just an isolated problem with me and the book is great

Slow to start but this is a truly unique and creative novel

I love the concepts behind the author's world and really enjoy the unique 'magic' system behind the cows. It's a cool experience to learn about the alien Crua and it's mysteries.

Definitely Different, I'm on the Fence

So, I was in the mood for a fantasy read, gave this one a run. I liked the beginning and the setup, main character developed well but then when I expected certain actions- nada.... That happened a little too often for me. Nice world building, definitely different- reminds me of that movie with the blue folks in it.... with evil earthers trying to destroy the nature. This was different in that the evil ones were native, but it seemed so was the natural world, so? I am not sure I will continue, I really wanted the main character to take a better stand earlier on, which would have been more predictable, and better for me.

Amazing book

The author shows skillful characterization of the main character, especially and the book is character driven.

Another great new world by this author

Great read and amazing narrator!

Another unique vision, this time of Forrest’s. It’s a different spin than I’ve read before and just the few small details made such a big difference in the big picture.

Loved it. Highly recommend

not enough world building for a first novel for my taste

this book was all right though I did find it frustrating pretty frequently. the main character being extremely resistant to using his powers throughout the book was quite frustrating. well I'm sure some people like a book that has you trying to figure out what's going on to the very end, I'm not that person. I don't mind someone leaving questions to be explained in future books, but this book seemingly has an interesting world and a fairly interesting magic system and by the end of the book we still know so little about it. Perhaps it gets explained more in the second book, but I'm not going to beat my head against the wall for that.

the narration was all right but monotonous and droning at times.

Simply (but not solely) good

This most rcent addition to my favorite authors once again wrote a story without obvious flaws.
As I reach ever closer to my 1000th audiobook, that has become my lodestone. The difference between a good and great fiction author, in my opinion, is allowing for conflict to develop without forcing it with
inexplicable stupidity.
Good (and great) authors come up with great story ideas, but story ideas don't come with perfect timelines. The author has to fill in the blanks.
I think "good" fiction authors work to fill these blanks until the chain of events is "good enough." That chain may allow some plotholes and require some inexplicable decisions to be made, or characters to simply have a character flaw of massive stubbornness to "explain" the inexplicable, but once they've reach what to the undiscerning reader is a likely to be a tolerable level of cohesion, they move on to the next part of the story they were originally planning.

In my opinion, very good and great fiction authors, on the other hand, search for plotholes and do not stop working until those gaps are filled by a logical storyline, no matter how long it takes.

A "very good" fiction author will work until those plotholes are filled, but may resort to acknowledging them and simply explaining afterwards that what LOOKED like a plothole really wasn't, because of something we didn't know yet.

A truly great fiction author, however, pokes and prods the road and stress-tests it for anything that could POSSIBLY turn into a plothole, then has others do the same, and then doesn't simply fill them, but tears up that portion of the road and rebuilds it so the plothole never existed.

There's more, but my brain is tired…

RJ’s Books Have a Hold of My Heart

As always, unique, wonderful, heartbreaking, and endearing. I love his flawed but ever evolving characters. They are lovable in their gruffness and to be cherished as they grow into themselves. I appreciate his voice for the marginalized in real world ways even though his worlds are so surreal. The books he writes are cerebral in a 1000 ways but so full of heart in a Million other ways.

Lot of potential but..

it is never explored. The high points are the world creation through the ecosystem around the characters. The Flora and fauna are interesting and the history is intriguing. The magic system is also interesting enough.

That being said the writing is very average and action on the dull side. I really wish the author went into some depth on the unique components of the world. a lot of hints are dropped, but it comes off more as something they plan to figure out later then a cohesive addition to the story.

The narrator did a really good job at narration. The narrator also has about two and a half different voices. outside of the main character and one other everyone more or less sounded the same. Didn't subtract from a story but didn't add to it either.