Book Review: Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad Brooks
One of the most (in)famous titles to come out of the indie fantasy zeitgeist of the past decade has to be Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad Brooks of the youtube channel Shadiversity and its second channel Knights Watch. Shad took the best way to get an indie fantasy book well known: become prominent at something else and then publish your book.
It shouldn’t be any sort of surprise that Shad would love fantasy enough to write his own. His channel’s content has been built around swords and castles and taking the examination of real and fictional swords to an almost autistic level of detail. Its invited no small share of detractors, but that is just how it goes online when you reach certain levels of prominence. Keep this in mind for later.
Thus back in 2019 Shad dropped his first foray into indie publication: Shadow of the Conqueror. Far more than a bog-standard fantasy, the book dares to ask the reader to confront a question:
Can the most evil man to ever live redeem himself? Is he worthy of redemption even if he agrees that he deserves to die for what he did?
Its a fantastic premise for a story and one that takes a lot of guts to delve into the black depths which such a narrative would require. I admire Shad for having the sheer balls to try and tackle the subject matter that this kind of premise requires. I’ve read a lot of grimdark books that delve into such material and do so in a much more dark, visceral manner. The Hellborn King by Christopher Brenning comes to mind. A lot of the works of Sara Douglass dealt with very dark topics as well. Not for the faint of heart.
Right away it must be said that Shad spared no expense in the production of the book. The cover art is as professional level as it can possible get and the editing has polished the story to a mirror sheen without losing any of Shad’s authorial voice. So much of the book felt like Shad that throughout reading it, I found it impossible not to read it in his voice.
SotC follows Daylen Namaran aka Dayless the Conqueror at the “end” of his life. The book starts with Daylen writing an apologetic screed before throwing himself off the side of the world to die, only for magic circumstances to restore him to youth and thus give him a sort of second chance. Daylen previously conquered the world as retribution for the death of his wife and children and became the worst kind of monster imaginable: a murdering, raping, war-mongering communist dictator. After overstretching his conquest and the whole world retaliating, he was driven into exile and spent 20 years bitter and busted before coming to the same conclusion as everyone else: he was dick and deserved to die.
But he didn’t die. Through story means he gained powers, and decides to take this second chance to try and make the world better after previously making it considerably worse. Soon after which he gains a traveling companion named Ahrek, a Lightbringer who is the equivalent of a paladin-cleric that believes he was given a vision to follow Daylen and aid him. At the same time, An Archknight named Lyrah and her culturally confused companion Cueseg are in pursuit of them. Thus the book goes for much of its run with Daylen and Ahrek in a series of do-gooding adventures and the Archknights in pursuit until they finally collide. When they do, it delivers in an epic way.
The book is very much a “your mileage may vary” type of book. It doesn’t follow a standard fantasy formula or tale structure. In fact, at times, it can feel a touch scattershot with its narrative, but credit to Shad for only seeming that way until several elements that seem out of sync with the story finally come together in a big way towards the end. The book has a lot of darker elements, specifically situations, memories and discussions of sexual objectification and rape. Daylen committed no small amount of it himself and ends up stopping a number of rapists and human traffickers as penance. It’s hard to weave these elements into a book and still have that book be an enjoyable read. I’m no stranger to the topic, as children of war was a topic that came up in the writing of my own book The Black Crown.
Plenty of violence and action inhabit the narrative and thanks to the prevalence of magical superpowers, we often get fights that wouldn’t feel out of place in a marvel movie or shonen anime. Daylen spends an incredible amount of time experimenting with the inner workings of his “bonds” to figure out how his powers work. There are a lot of pages of his technical analysis of the book’s magic system, just him figuring out what works, how, and why. I get the sense this stems from Shad’s own nature, as his youtube videos often do the same with regards to weaponry. Remember what I said about him going into autistic detail about weapons? Daylen does the same with his powers as well as technology. This results in him figuring out well kept secret powers just by observation and trial. It borders on Mary Sue at times, but although Daylen definitely comes across as a guy living life with cheat codes, its also abundantly clear that he’s not so strong that he can’t be overpowered or defeated.
His delving deeply into the workings of the magic system also feels as if Shad is trying to develop a magic system in the vein of something akin to Brandon Sanderson so well that it won’t have holes poked in it under a reader’s microscope. I’m not big on magic systems or learning their inner workings to such a level, so it won’t be me trying to poke holes in the system, if they exist. Shad knows how the magic works and that’s good enough for me.
The book, for me, shines with its characters. Daylen is a risky character, and I would know. I made the second POV character of The Black Crown a vulgar, fiery-tempered, fist-fighting farmboy with a chip on his shoulder, but a heart of gold. It takes investment in time to have a character like that endear themselves to the reader and some readers have shown they don’t like to take that investment. Daylen is much the same, but with a smart mouth and a quick wit. He’s what you’d expect a repentant powermonger dictator would be at the end of his life: awash with regret, anger, guilt, and bitterness at what has become of his life and the knowledge that he made the world infinitely worse despite his original intentions. Though he is repentant in his wrongdoing, there were times when he enjoyed his second chance far too much. Shad does rectify this with several scenes of Daylen overcome with the weight of his wrongdoing. It goes a long way to show that even with his second chance, he cannot escape his guilt and consistently reaffirms his desire to do what is right. He is battered over and over with the consequences of his crimes to an almost suicidal degree. In fact, at one point he magically boosts his memory so much that he relives his entire life in an instant and it kills him. (his powers also heal him so he comes back to life a moment later). Even at the end of the book, he is forced to face the consequences of his crimes and whether or not you agree with what happens to him will be up to the individual reader. For me, it waffles between feeling as though he escaped actual judgement and accepting that his true penance is living with his guilt in indentured servitude of others.
More than most books, it asks the reader to think, to look into their idea of what justice is and what he deserves or doesn’t deserve. Even Daylen knows he deserves to die and is ready to face that eventuality. Its a lot deeper than it feels as you’re reading it. If not for some of the subject material, there are times the book has an almost light novel feel only to come down to earth with brutal violence that Daylen feels vindicated in committing.
The other characters play their roles well. Ahrek is a much more lighthearted counter to Daylen’s quick-to-violence snark. He tells bad jokes intentionally, anchors Daylen in his darker moments, and becomes a friend that Daylen never knew he needed. Much of their interactions are fun and the dialogue can be a bit snappy between them. Moments of levity keep the book from feeling too overburdened by melodrama. Daylen masks a lot of pain with snark, ego, and wit.
Lyrah, a victim of Daylen during his reign and now an Archknight, shares a similar relationship with her partner Cueseg. Much of their part of the book feels like a buddy cop adventure with Cueseq’s cultural ignorance clashing humorously with Lyrah’s overreactive nature. By the end of the book, Cueseg was a favorite.
All these characters collide like a bomb in a very fast paced and satisfying finale which lends itself to a potential sequel, but feels finished enough that one could read the book and be done with the series (if it continues).
Long after I finished the book, I was still thinking about it. That’s a good thing, I think. I would adore more books with these characters. The world is richly detailed enough that it made sense. This world of flying continents, perpetual sunlight, and super-powered knights was unique and interesting, eschewing a lot of fantasy standards for something daring and unique. It paid off in many areas, though admittedly there will be a lot of people for whom this book will not work. Considering the book is six years old now, most of the larger voices on booktube, booktok, and such have already weighted in on the book. I am a bit late to it, though not for any malicious reasons. I simply looked at it and decided it had been on my TBR long enough.
In perusing other reviews, one thing becomes very apparent. Remember what I said about prominence brings out inevitable detractors? Shad has no small share of people who don’t like him for his opinions, be it cultural or political. Many of their reviews are very obvious that they didn’t want to read the book to read the book, they wanted to review the book for the algorithmic bump they would get from reviewing his book on youtube.
His book is divisive, no two ways about it. Would I have liked there to be a little less focus on the gaming mechanics of the power and magic system? Yes. Ditto so much focus and attention on sexual content. As funny as Lyrah and Cueseg are together, their casual conversations consistently revolving around Cueseq misinterpreting her intentions for sexual advances wore out its welcome long before they actually stopped. Not a dealbreaker for me, but it was for some. A lot of the reviews for the book swing into the territory of how they would have written it, which is not how I review a book. If I wanted to write Shadow of the Conqueror how I wanted to write it, I’d just write fanfiction. Unhelpful.
The hilarious thing to me is that a lot of voices complaining about the book’s frequent discussion or use of rape and sexual assault were decried by reviewers who gush over the darkest romantasy books. If Shad had given the book an artisanal cover, made Lyrah fall in love with Daylen, and had him forcefully marry her, he’d probably have a best selling Romantasy on his hands.
Your boos mean nothing, girls. I’ve seen what you cheer for.
At the end of the day, the only way for one to tell if SotC is a book they want is to grab it and decide for themselves. It won’t hit for everyone, but for some of us it was an interesting and, at times, fun read. As far as debuts, it’s an impressive first go and I am excited to see where Shad goes from here. It gave me a lot to talk about and to think about. I see that as a good thing.
