The Blade's Own Truth

Son of the Wilderlands, Book 1

By: Zachary Dugas, Daniel Jones

Narrated by: Connor Brannigan

The Wilderlands are said to contain many dangers. On most maps the area remains blank and only the bravest of travelers will venture beneath its canopy. For monsters roam these woods, which made it the perfect place for a legendary swordmaster to disappear from the world for a time and raise a child.

For seventeen years Holviti of Yuutan raised Duren in those woods, training him in the sword, hunting the creatures that called it home, but as is the case with all young men, there comes a day when one must leave his fathers home and make their own mark on the world.

Duren had no idea what awaited him in the world, but he was definitely looking forward to finding out. Sword in hand and Holviti’s lessons in his head he set out, thinking he was prepared for anything in the world. Up until the point he met her that was…

Author’s note: This book contains an overpowered main character, graphic violence, creative language, sexual innuendos, and quite a few moments that cracked my creative consultant up. You have been warned...

©2024 Zachary Dugas (P)2024 Zachary Dugas

the narrator really brings life to the characters

I loved the narration, he brought the characters to life. he also made the humor much better. the book was very lovely and fun

confused

this audiobook came out back in 2022 which I have in my library but those pops up as being release in 2024. what's going on?

Annd this will stay RIGHT HERE!!!

There are no words grand enough nor imagination vivid enough to express my love for this grand tale. An excellent and amazing listen with perfectly timed comedic one-liners. At times you'll catch yourself acting out the scene. With memorable moments and out loud laughter this truly is a definite 11/10 for me. Let me reiterate the one liners never cease to amaze, if knowing IS half the battle... the other half IS violence. oh where, oh where will this story go from here? Duran of the wildland, the man, the myth and the legend that is "the old man".

NEW NARRATOR IS HORRIBLE

I owned the orioginal that had James Todd as the narrator and his pronunciation and voice was so much darn better. This ruined a great story. I am even more upset that i owned the original Narration from 2022 and it was auto deleted by amazon when it was rereleased in 2024. I had to buy it again but when i bought this book to relisten to it so i could start Book 2, i couldn't be more upset. I am done with this story and author. One crap decision ruined this story!!!!!!!!!!!!! The new narrator cant even get the heroines name correct. WORTHLESS!

Mediocre, Needs a Lot of Work

There are multiple things that are explained many times, despite adding nothing new to the concept or idea. For example, there are 4 or 5 times where it is talked about, as a description of a plot point outside of dialogue, that people who receive magical healing suffer from ghost pains due to the body thinking it should still be hurt. After the first time, each proceeding explanation adds nothing new to the idea, just wastes space by re-phrasing something that has already been explained, as if the listener/reader is too stupid to remember something that has been mentioned in the book before. Another case is the multiple times the MC thinks about how stupid it is for people to cross their arms to try and be intimidating, since it blocks them from easily drawing their weapon.

The MC also seems to have 1/2 their personality be nothing but repeating phrases his adoptive father said to him while growing up. The amount of times the phrase "The old man always said..." or something similar, is repeated almost makes you wonder if the MC is his own person or just a receptacle to vomit out wise sounding phrases from someone else.

A bit more of a potentially biased sore point is that there is a character in the later part of the book, who is a clear reference/insert of Shad M. Brooks, also known on YouTube as Shadiversity, a person known for making content related to weaponry, armor, etc. Unfortunately, they are also someone who has been quite vocal in recent years about supporting the use of AI to create art/images, stealing the hard work of other creative professions to generate something with a few words typed in to an AI. As far as I can tell, the book was originally released before this really became a topic in current issues, but it still makes the entire end of the book hard for me to stomach.

Final fight involved the MC sneaking up on the monster, pommel smashing it in the head, it falling over some battlements and snapping its back, and dying. Entire last quarter or so of the book led up to this as if it would be some intense battle, just to have it be immediately over and something that could have been done by literally anyone. Then the pursuing part about a the entire horde of anger frenzied monsters is also completely skipped. One of the worst endings I have seen in a book.

Overall, bland characters, poor ending, and over use of the "MC is an idiot who doesn't understand basic human interaction" in order to forcefully push the plot forward, even when it makes no logical sense. And such poor editing it can be noticed even in the audio version.

Fantastic Story. Unnecessary Narrator Change!

To start... The story is absolutely Fantastic. The authors did a great job bringing the story and characters to life. Now the rest of the story... The audible version of this book was first released in 2022 with James Todd as the narrator and he did a wonderful job. He was able to provide perspective and life to the characters. As a male narrator he was able to present the female characters of the story well and provide some believability to them. In May/June of 2024 the publishers made a huge asinine mistake and re-released the audiobook version with a different narrator, Connor Brannigan. The new narrator does not provide as good of a job in bringing the characters to life and is absolutely horrible when he performs the female characters parts. His pronunciations of the characters names were off the mark and his portrayals are lifeless. In the previous version James Todd brought the characters to life and gave them their own unique nuances that made them memorable. The change of narration was completely uncalled for. If the publisher really thought they needed to make a change then they should have made the change using dual narration, Male & Female narrators. I have read the book numerous times and I have also listened to the audiobook numerous times as well and I am deeply disappointed in the unneeded change of narration that the publishers poor "lapse in judgement" decided to make to this wonderful story.