The Valley of the Gods

By: Phil Tucker

Narrated by: Paul Guyet

Is victory worthwhile if it comes at the expense of everything you love?

To avoid seeing the River Cities destroyed in their efforts to defeat Irella, Acharsis and his friends set forth on a quest that will take them from the darkest depths of hell to the perilous heights of the Gods' Mountain.

A quest that will pit them against the fearsome powers of the daughter of death, a race against time to prevent her from not only conquering the known world, but tearing aside the very veil that separates the spirits of the dead from the land of the living.

A quest whose culmination will force Acharsis and Jarek to decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to save all that they love.

©2019 Phil Tucker (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Great conclusion to a great series!

Oh Acharsis. I love your shenanigans right to the very end. In this volume, everything is coming to a head, as Acharsis and Jarek and their companions finally make a plan to defeat Irella, the one who killed all the gods but her own and set herself up to rule Rekkidu in their place. In this, they’ll have to brave the underworld itself in order to sneak back into the city as quickly as possible.

Acharsis and his companions and the banter between them are what make this series for me. The dialogue is, perhaps a bit more modern sounding than would be expected for a story that takes place in a world not-so-much unlike ancient Sumeria or Egypt, but it gives the characters a real likable quality to me.

The story was well plotted and the dialogue was great. There were plenty of twists and turns to make it interesting, and things happened that I didn’t expect at all. I had a good chuckle more than once as well, because even on his very worst day, Acharsis still makes me laugh. I found myself turning on the audiobook and just letting it play for hours while doing other things. It kept me on task brilliantly, which is always a good thing. ^_^

The narrator, Paul Guyet did a great job with this series. As the series went on, he became Acharsis and Jarek in my mind. His Jarek voice is quite awesome, and he captures the snark from Acharsis beautifully.

So all told, I thought this was a great ending to a great series. The ending even gave me a bit of the feels. More feels than I expected to have from slightly comedic Sumerian Ocean’s Eleven fantasy. Unique and very entertaining and a great set of audiobooks that I think are far, far too underrated. Everyone should read (or listen to) them!