Kings of the Wyld Review

Hello! Yesterday I finished Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. While my thoughts on this book fluctuated drastically multiple times over the course of reading this book, by the end I couldn’t deny how much fun I had reading it and how attached I had grown to the characters. I’ll show you all the ins and outs of my changing opinions, and how Eames managed to bring me back around swiftly and decisively. I read this in e-book format via Libby (if you don’t know about Libby, definitely look into it), and I plan on getting them physically once I’m back in the States again. After a few months without writing a blog post, this book has managed to get my butt back in the chair to tell you about it. As always, I’ll warn you well before any spoilers rear their ugly heads.

My Thoughts

Kings of the Wyld follows middle-aged family man and former mercenary Clay “Slowhand” Cooper as he and his old bandmate Gabriel set out to get their old band back together for one last (vitally important) quest. In a genre that is dominated by young, fit protagonists, this concept is a breath of fresh air– we feel every backache along the way, every time Clay longs to be home with his family, and countless recollections of the glory days. The characters are motivated by a force that’s not utilized nearly enough in fantasy: deep familial love, and fierce loyalty to old friends. Not to mention, Eames draws on the 1970’s music scene for inspiration. Surprisingly, this is most clear in his worldbuilding. Clay’s old band, Saga, became truly legendary in the years since they broke up– making him and his bandmates the fantasy equivalent of rockstars. This world is full of fresh upstart bands that tour from city to city, legendary solo acts, and nods to real musicians (my favorite being a mercenary named Neil the Young, who is actually quite old). All of this gives Kings of the Wyld a distinctly dad-rock energy that I never knew questing fantasy needed.

This book is often described as reading like a D&D campaign– this is true. It’s a comparison that I think gets overused, but it is definitely questing fantasy and has the humor of friends around a table shooting-the-shit. In an interview with Youtuber Daniel Greene, Eames says “I have played D&D a couple times with people who are very very serious about it, and it is not enjoyable.” In keeping with this, the story doesn’t take itself too seriously– it feels as though it was written with the “rule of cool” at its heart, and focused on having fun. That said, Eames is great at knowing when an emotional beat will hit, and he hits them all dead-on. When I wasn’t crying from laughing, I was actually crying. Combine this with a fast-paced plot and lovable characters, and it’s a recipe for a great read.

This next paragraph gets mildly (very mildly) spoiler-y to discuss portrayals of women in the book– feel free skip if you want to avoid them.

Here’s where my hesitations began: the motivation for the entire quest is to save Gabriel’s daughter. At the start, I didn’t totally buy into the idea that she needed saving– Eames characterizes her as a capable warrior in her own right, which left me thinking that the protagonists were operating on the false assumption that she needed saving. It’s a pretty male-centric book as a whole, and not all of the women at the beginning are portrayed in the best ways. I considered DNF’ing it for these reasons– if I couldn’t fully get behind their mission, what would be the point? BUT! it got better! As the story progresses, more women are introduced, become important to the plot and are, dare I say, well-written (or better-written at least). The stakes for Gabriel’s daughter also escalated to the point where I could see that even as a very capable warrior, she could use a hand from her dad and his washed up friends. There is also a little bit of LGBTQ+ representation, which is nice to see. All this taken together, it won me back over and allowed me to better enjoy the story. From that point on, I was able to really invest myself in the plot and root for the characters. The story remains fairly male-centric, but most of the issues I had at the start got ironed out over time– I’m glad I stuck with it!

The sequel, Bloody Rose, isn’t available through my library on Libby, so I’m going to have to either wait until I’m back in the US to get it physically, or find another means of getting the e-book. It is inspired by the 80’s music scene, which I’m sure will be a lot of fun as well!

Thank You!

Thank you for reading! I would love to hear if you end up checking out Kings of the Wyld or any other books I’ve reviewed on here. I’m hoping to do more reviews soon– I’ve been reading a lot, so stay tuned!