DeadLands Freedom

By: James Allen

Narrated by: Richard Reed

FOUR PEOPLE, TWO ANGELS, ONE CITY

The world has been baptised in nuclear fire. Arcadia, the sole bastion of humanity, is all that is left. Under perpetual dark clouds, none still live who have ever seen the sun, the moon or the stars. In the cramped neon-drenched streets dreams lay scattered like trash. Violence, depravity and a desperate need for self-preservation infests every crack and crevice of the stagnant city.

John Kendrix, adopted son of Billionaire Alexander Kendrix and Dominus Carnifex of the Novus Vaticana walks a thin line between righteous and damned. When his home comes under attack from forces unknown, everything John ever knew and loved becomes twisted by lies and corruption.

A Cyberpunk thriller drenched in Edlritch Mystery and Cyber-Catholicism.

©2024 James Allen (P)2024 James Allen

Setting

3 thoughts
1. I came to this book for alternate history, I liked the idea of an alternate future based on a few major changes to religious history.
2. I'm pretty sure this started out as Warhammer 40k fan fiction, with a little too much, "edgy, trench coat guy" vibe.
3. As a early effort from this author, I hope to see him grow the way I've seen Larry Correia grow.

Amazing

Great story and feel to the overall world. The narration is also really well done.

good bones but bad book

there's just so much wrong with this book that I can't even begin to start. it's annoying because the premise itself is a very interesting one. to begin with, one of the obvious problems is that there's so many scenes that I can point to and go and this is what he is referring to. the opening scene of the book is a shot for shot retread of the opening of the cowboy Bebop movie. on top of that, every single character is a satellite character for the main character. They keep talking about him like he's the second coming of Christ but he's just this boring character. they keep telling us how interesting he is, but they never show us how interesting he is. there's never any sense of mystery as to what's going on. we immediately find out what all of the twists and turns are, and the one that we aren't immediately told are quite blatantly obvious. there's a point in the novel where a very brutal man shows up in a mask and it took me a grand total of 10 seconds to figure out who it was. It also doesn't help that they switch premises mid novel. it's suddenly goes from being one type of novel to a completely different type of novel. like ok it's not uninteresting but that's not the kind of novel I showed up for. and the ending is just the absolute worst, a pointless time jump, and some vague cliff hanger that makes me go ok well now you're jumping the shark even more.