By the Sword: A World Conquest Isekai

Empress, Book 2

De: J. V. Simms

Narrado por: Hollie Jackson

Duración: 15 h y 35 m

Resumen del Editor

In this follow-up to the hit isekai, a villain continues to find her power—and develop her sadism—even as she's haunted by her ex-love.

Seventeen years after her rebirth into a magical medieval world, Everly Vae Balsar, the Empress, has made it. With her exceptionally potent earth magic and powers of spiritual manipulation, she stands poised to conquer a kingdom that lives in fear of her and her dangerous servants: Carter the goblin assassin, the marauding General Grail, and her elementals, the sadistic Eris and ditzy Titania. She's a villain and proud of it.

Well, she's not a fan of cannibalistic monsters. Villainy is her domain, not the presumptuous Mister Whisper's. But at the moment, Everly is experiencing something she's never felt before: genuine regret over killing someone. Specifically, her mage maybe-love Fenneth.

As she reconnects with her conniving father and impetuous sister and continues to grow her power, Everly's schemes slowly become more complex. But she's still haunted by her actions—and maybe by Fenneth as well . . .

The second volume of the hit portal fantasy series—with more than 400,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2024 J. V. Simms (P)2024 Podium Audio

Meh. Starting to get boring halfway through.

Pretty much stop listening to it with four hours left. Started out strong. Too bad.

Love the new and storylines, but…

Tons of new ideas and characters, but definitely felt more like episodic events brought up and resolved in tv-show like installments, instead of one big escalating adventure like the first novel.

Also, Asher SUCKS. Please god let future segments with her be less brain-meltingly repetitive and uninteresting.

And the new “Big Good” looming threat seems to be really dragging their feet, just a minor story issue, but they really could have been doing what they set out to do instead of playing around all book.

If you liked the first book you'll like this

same stuff as the first, very enjoyable. only down side would be the 1 1/2-2 hours at the end that set up the next book and has an extended story made by Tatiana. Not saying I didnt like the story but it felt like padding to increase the Length of time shown on audible.

Can't get enough!

Seriously addicted to this story and Everly! She's just way too entertaining and the way the narrator brings her to life is just perfect!! I can't wait to see how the story evolves and im already dying for the next audiobook!!

Extremely uneven pacing and inconsistent narrative

TLDR: I recommend the Salvos series instead - although she's more of a chaotic anti-hero, where as Everly is a true chaotic, psychotic villain (which I actually like about the series as it is refreshing). The author was more ambitious his scope... with several plotlines and more characters, but really fumbles the execution.

The first book was pretty decent for the genre. However, this book really could have used an editor to help the author organize the the story arcs and characterization and pacing - it was the last few chapters that pulled the book out me giving it one-star. The author clearly was trying to be more ambitious, with multiple plotlines and story arcs and at a high-level I thought they were decent ideas... but the execution of those ideas was extremely inconsistent.

The books suffers from pacing issue with basically nothing happening in the first half and there being an entire chapter or two of the MC having a long random debate with herself that had as many nerd pop culture reference as Ready Player One. I mean I got basically of the references, so I don't mind them in general as a sort of flavor-text and Deadpool-like witty banter... but not when they were didn't advance the plotline, weren't funny, and you culd have deleted the entire chapter or two without missing. a beat on the rest of the story. Then the book gets decent in the third quarter of the book... and then over-corrects, with plotlines that literally could have had an entire separate book to explore, but was resolved "off-camera" between chapters.

The side characters are noticeable limited in depth, with many of them almost being interchangeable and having overly similar dialogue styles (to be fair John Scalzi, who I like, also tends to have all his character either be snarky misathropes, pompous assholes, or random template people reacting to the first two types - and I'm ok with that). Annoyingly, the author was so interested in exploring some story ideas, that he's basically willing to retcon characters between book 1 and 2 (and sometimes between the early and later chapters) just to fit into his vignettes and ideas. Even the general theme of the series is thrown for a huge curve... only to bring itself right back to where it started in the end (making the detour feel somewhat pointless).

I loved it!

I can't wait for the next entry. Five stars all around. I highly recommend it to anyone!

Gotta love Everly!

A great addition to the story of Everly! A bit slower and maybe a bit milder than the first book but a fantastic read regardless. Can’t wait for book 3!

love the crazy

nothing better then a crazy main character doing crazy things all the time. love the crazy

A Shambling Mess

This tries hard but it never gets there. It reminds me of a Lovecraftian abomination as it flails its slimy tentacles around aimlessly in anger. It does well in making you feel like something cool is around the corner and that the story might actually be going somewhere interesting soon, but it never really pays off. It's just 50 shades of crazy from cover to cover. If you were on the fence after the first one, I'd give this one a miss.

Not As Good As the First

This book has most of the same qualities that everyone might have loved about the first one. It goes on and on with subplot story lines and different indulging fantasies of Everly, but unlike Dexter, who is referenced by the way, she becomes so erratic and heinous that she loses sight of her so-called principles. Her behavior is indeed villainous, but it gets so bad and the language also gets worse to the point that it's just not entertaining anymore.