Review: Paternus: War of Gods by Dyrk Ashton

I’ve actually been waiting a long while to get this one into my brain, but with an overwhelming amount of physical books, I haven’t been able. So, I said I’d wait for the audiobook. And so when I was offered a review copy of the audio as it came out, I cleared my schedule to get started as soon as I could!

So thanks to Dyrk for the review copy of the audiobook!

From Africa to Asgard, to an invisible island in the Pacific and the Bone Road of a forgotten world, Fi and Zeke must come to grips with not only their newfound abilities but also who they are – and accept what they are becoming: wielders of ancient and dangerous powers, warriors, and maybe even heroes. But the end of worlds is coming, and time is short.

Titans will clash. Gods will battle. Monsters will swarm.

Can Peter and the Deva possibly defeat their age-old enemy in the face of overwhelming odds against them? There’s only one way to find out.

CRY HAVOC, AND LET SLIP THE GODS OF WAR.

Oh Paternus. It is and will continue to be one of those books that just tickles every single bit of the myth nerd in me. This one was absolutely no exception. This is the longest in the Paternus trilogy, by a not-small amount. The audiobook is broken into three parts. It is 28 hours long. And yet, it very much was the type of audiobook that I turned on, and just listened to for hours at a time. Entire workdays flew by. It’s one of those.

This is the continuing story of… well a lot of different characters at this point. It’s a bit difficult to sum up the first two books. I should also point out that this one has a recap of the first two books in the series, and that recap itself is nearly half an hour long. Some of you are probably like ‘omg no’ at that, but let me tell you, that was a pretty awesome half an hour. I have so many books and audiobooks go into my brain in a given year, that sometimes it’s just awesome to have a nice, detailed recap. It worked too. I remembered more and more details as the recap went on. 

But yeah, this is the continuing story of… uh, the gods? The gods are all real, some of them are evil and others are good, and things are really coming to a head here. It’s a real good vs. evil throwdown and everyone in the universe is invited. Some of the Firstborn, as they’re called, represent more than one figure from different mythologies, religions, and folklore around the world. Some of my favorites are on the good side and others are on the evil side, and some are somewhere vaguely in the middle. Tanuki, for example, is one of my favorite characters, and at this point, he’s just sort of… gotten a bit caught up with one of his… uh, less reputable brothers. That said, I spent most of this book just hoping that The Goat would defy everyone’s expectations of him. 

This world is huge, and having a general interest in some of the different mythologies in it makes it seem even larger in many ways. It’s well described, and the links between characters and their various mythological counterparts are usually well explained. Some people might be turned off by the level of detail that goes into explaining who exactly someone is in the grand scheme of things, but as I said, as a myth nerd, this was like pushing the squee button.

As the title suggests, there is a pretty big war between the gods for a lot of the latter half of the book, which isn’t always my favorite thing to read about. But the terrors of war were interspersed with good bits here and there, so that was nice. 

Nik Magill has a very soothing voice, and he is very easy to listen to for 28 hours. This book, just by its very nature, has so many accents in it that it’s sort of amazing that any one person could be expected to perform all of them, but he does. They’re not all the best representations, perhaps, but they’re all recognizable. None were annoying or cringey to me. The narration made the book more enjoyable, and considering this is one of my favorite series ever, that’s kind of saying something. 

So, all told… well, if you liked Paternus 1 & 2, you’re very likely going to like 3. It closed out the trilogy very nicely. I was satisfied with the conclusion of everyone’s story, and I can’t wait to see what Dyrk will come up with next! 5/5 stars~

Goodreads
Amazon
Audible

My audible peeps: you can get the entire trilogy all in one audiobook HERE and so, save yourself a couple credits and go for the whole 61 hours in a go.