Lots of setup; last 40% very enjoyable

“The Wolf King’s Lair 1” suffers from poor incorporation of what are a couple of very good plot devices.

First, in the Afterword, the author states a desire to “write my characters in shades of grey”, rather than being a typical hero-type. He goes too far for my taste, as the first sex scene is a rape. Offering a woman a choice between being f*cked or being killed does not elicit consensual sex. In the rest of the book, the MC and his aggressive inner wolf do tend toward violence and taking what they want - not asking, but the MC keeps his inner beast in check better than he did in Chapter 7.

Second, the MC is being actively targeted by “The Lords”; they do not want him to survive and place significant hurdles in his path. Unfortunately, Book 1 suffers from far too much “set up” and explaining what “The Lords” and the “Divine Accords” are before anything actually happens, and even after things begin to happen, several chapters continue to over-explain detailed rules and procedures. I felt like I was being taught the Dewey Decimal System rather than being allowed to enjoy a book. The author acknowledges taking too long before anything happens, and spending too much time on details, but decided to “leave it in” rather than ruthlessly edit. This book is a great example of why editors help authors; sometimes they need to hit the delete key on their hard-worked prose.

Jonathan Waters provided a very good performance, which is good considering that for much of the book he was the only VA. Maeve York did a fantastic job…once she had parts to perform. She first appears in Chapter 7, and then at 58% into the book, she gets another sentence in Chapter 12. She has much larger roles during the last seven chapters when things finally start happening, and that was the part of the book I most enjoyed.

While the MC and his first disciple Jessamyn often have sex, Chapter 14 was really devoted to it! Forty-five minutes of consensual and well-written fun!

My overall impression is that this story flips the “Star Trek” methodology. Star Trek provided interesting stories built around a core group of characters, rather than starting each episode explaining in detail how phasers work, how the transporter works, how di-lithium crystals work, etc. The tech just existed.

I would rate the first 60% of “The Wolf King’s Lair” as 3* with another * subtracted because of the rape scene. The last 40% of the book has the narration at 5*, the storyline at 4.5* (still too many detours into details of forging etc), and the Epilogue is 5* with a great indication of further conflicts and interesting characters in Book 2. Overall, I rate “The Wolf King’s Lair” as 3.5* rounded to 4*

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. Receiving a review copy did not influence my rating or my review.

7 people found this helpful

have to leave 1 star for a sick and twisted writer

this doesn't deserve 1 star but you have to
the first 2 books aren't the best but they may be decent for others

BUT books 3 and 4 turn to complete sick trash the so called wolf King starts to rape the woman in his guild he and the halfling started together and by book 4 he's basically forcing the halfling / co-guild leader to bring him all the women in the guild for him the have his way with even against there will.

Hopefully this writer is just sick in the head and hasn't acted on his sick fantasies

2 people found this helpful

Not a bad start.

This book was a bit slow to in places but not a bad start to a new series. It had an interesting premise and I enjoyed the world building and was left interested to see where the story would go in the future. The series did get better in book two and was quite good by book 3 I thought.

****

Be warned. The author ends the series in book six without finishing the story.

1 person found this helpful

5 stars

Great book by Devan Drake. You will not be disappointed. Also the dual narration really brings the story to life.

very good

I love this story, the characters are fun. And the character building is good It reminds me of playing DND with my friends.

Fairly Good

Compared to other Dungeon core books, this is fairly good.
Look forward to the second.

Series Review

Not a bad series for the most part gets better as it goes. Never felt "real" a little to much game logic and just feeling contrived. I don't listen for explicit scenes so I appreciate books 4-6 broke out those chapters and made them easy to skip.

Not for me.

I deeply dislike the way the harem works. Join me or go to hell with the dark gods. Just isn't great. There is no romance. It more just seems like collecting women to make them yours. If you like the extreme domination of something like 50 shades of Grey or like the idea of being claimed by a very dominant guy or want to pretend your said guy. This book maybe for you. The dungeon core stuff is fine but nothing crazy.

loved it

great book love it so far, why can't I just say that why's it want more?

Very entertaining.

Really enjoyed this book. Had me grinning and laughing out loud. Will check out rest of the series.