Synopsis:
In a land surrounded by a frontier populated with powerful monsters, three nations stand alone. Their continued existence is owed to their relationship with seven dungeons and the mystical warriors that are bound in service to them - the Khanri.
Many eager hopefuls volunteer every year to undergo the trials to join the ranks of the secretive Khanri. The handful that are chosen find that the path to becoming one of the vaunted warriors is paved with the bones of countless dead.
The newest hopefuls Afton and Marty are embarking on their journey to fulfill their lifelong ambition of joining the ranks of the Khanri that serve the Dungeon Akashi. Along the way, a startling truth will be afforded them that will shake their understanding of their world to their very core. They will find out why the Khanri are always recruiting.
Review: Akashi's WIll by Kaden Reed 25/10/20
Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this audiobook free of charge in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
Dungeon Cores. Just 5 years ago I'd never heard of that term and yet now I've read about 10 such books and found that, while the basics remain constant (a sentient dungeon), the settings and perspective vary considerably.
Here we follow Afton and Marty, two friends living in a world where nations exist around sentient, almost God-like cores who provide immortality and mystic powers to those who swear allegiance to them. These young men have grown watching their nations mythical warriors, The Khanri, battle the denizens of the dungeon and defending against incursions by neighbouring nations, earning them an almost celebrity status for their people.
Finally, being old enough to enter the trials to be chosen as new Khanri for their nations dungeon Akashi, we follow their initial journey into the ranks of the warriors and discover that Akashi is more than a simple monster generator.
For me, this was a mixed bag as, being a book sitting at over 10-hours long, I felt very little actually happened. The journey from starstruck teens to Khanri felt very easy and somewhat muddled but I really did enjoy the characters and especially Akashi itself. There's not an awful lot of exciting combat but it's well described but again lacks any real sense of flair and the narration by C J McAllister is perfectly fine but I felt he was maybe a little bit flat, especially during action sequences.
I'm aware that this is meant to be book 1 of a series but I do have to ask myself if I feel there is enough here to want me to revisit when book 2 comes about and currently, with such a heavily saturated market, I do feel it is unlikely that I would.
In all though, it is well written with some interesting characters but lacks a sense of depth or world-building that many other Dungeon Core series have when there is clearly a great story here waiting to be told. If in the future, when several more are published, I would like to see an anthology of several of the books together as this on its own is just a bit unsatisfying.