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Nicholas Eames

Kings of the Wyld Paperback – 15 February 2017

by Nicholas Eames (Author)

2,199 ratings

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Paperback, 15 February 2017

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A retired group of legendary mercenaries get the band back together for one last impossible mission in this award-winning debut epic fantasy.

Fantastic, funny, ferocious. -- Sam Sykes

Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best, the most feared and renowned crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.

Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk, or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help -- the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.

It's time to get the band back together.

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Product details

Publisher : Orbit (15 February 2017)
Language : English
Paperback : 544 pages
ISBN-10 : 0316362476
ISBN-13 : 978-0316362474
Dimensions : 13.84 x 4.32 x 20.96 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 45,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 992 in Men's Adventure Fiction
- 1,450 in Fantasy Action & Adventure
- 3,506 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
2,199 ratings

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Review

A fantastic epic fantasy! Just the right smidgen of tongue-in-cheek to work wonderfully. Go read.--Django Wexler

Absolutely awesome. If the Beatles held a concert tomorrow (with all the necromancy required for that to happen), it still wouldn't be as good a 'getting the band back together' story as this. Full of heroes, humor, and heart.--Jon Hollins

Kings of the Wyld is gritty but not grim. It was a blast to read, from start to finish. The boys are getting the band back together, and woe be to anyone who stands in their way. Magic swords, broken promises, and some of the craziest action you're likely to read this side of the Wyld. Reading this book made me want to grab a sword and set off on an epic quest.--Christopher Paolini

Kings of the Wyld took me back to my Dungeons and Dragons days. It has well-crafted characters long past their best but still fighting, non-stop fantasy action and welcome touches of humor. Great reading!--Ian Irvine

A comedy, an adventure tale, a consideration on growing older, and a sendup of fantasy conventions, all at the same time. It also has heart. In short: it rocks....I finished this book in one night. If I could, I'd see the tour, and buy the t-shirt. Instead, I'll have to content myself with waiting for the sequel, and reading it again.--B&N SF & Fantasy Blog

A fantastic read, a rollicking, page-turning, edge-of-your-seat road-trip of a book. Great characters, loveable rogues that I genuinely cared about and all manner of fantastical monsters. All spiced with a sly sense of humour that had me smiling throughout. Wonderful.--John Gwynne

A promising, fast-paced debut that balances classic quest fantasy with modern sensibilities and liberal doses of humor. Huzzah!--Alex Marshall

An absolutely outstanding debut . . . [It has] all the heart and passion that great fantasy can bring in the hands of a master.--Myke Cole

An outstanding debut which will make you laugh and cry and hold your breath. This is a book that has it all.--K. J. Parker

Brilliant debut novel... Eames has cranked the thrills of epic fantasy up to 11... Moreover, the plot is emotionally rewarding, original, and hilarious. Eames clearly set out to write something fun to read, and he has succeeded spectacularly.--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Nicholas Eames was born to parents of infinite patience and unstinting support in Wingham, Ontario. Though he attended college for theatre arts, he gave up acting to pursue the infinitely more attainable profession of 'epic fantasy novelist.' Kings of the Wyld is his first novel. Nicholas loves black coffee, neat whiskey, the month of October, and video games. He currently lives in Ontario, Canada, and is very probably writing at this very moment.

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Top reviews from Australia

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JD (Baen Fan)

I thought this was going to be a Gemmell rip-off, but it's just so much more, in a good way!

Reviewed in Australia on 4 April 2019

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This is not your average fantasy tale... It's the story of a "Band" of Mercenaries, who used to get "booked" by an "Booker" to go and kill monsters. In doing so, they became the biggest, and most famous "Band" in the world. They retired and got married, and settled down. Now one of the band members is getting them abck together, because his little girl is all grown up, and a Mercenary herself. She's trapped in the city of Castia, besieged by the Heartwyld Horde, which is practically every monster that ever lived. Together, Gabriel, Clay, Ganelon, Moog, and Mattrick will shift heaven and earth, and everything in between to help Gabe rescue his little girl.

It's a fun book, with the idea that Mercs get treated like Rock Stars. That they tour "in the wild" or perform in "Arenas", and in a Spinal Tap parody, their bard is always getting killed. There are several villains of differing varieties, and epic battle scenes, funny reminiscing, flying ships, and even a magical Viagra potion. All in all, I'm really looking forward to the next book.

One person found this helpful

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Pigeon

It’s not you, it’s me

Reviewed in Australia on 20 January 2021

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For some reason I didn’t connect with this book. And I don’t know why.

I enjoyed the writing - clever. I enjoyed the characters, mostly - likeable. I sniggered at the humour, though no really laugh out loud moments. I may even read the next - which is a commendation of sorts.

I just didn’t really feel invested. It was almost like it was all too much. It seemed to have every monster imaginable, which made creatures meant to be extraordinary all too ordinary. It seemed to have a plethora of magical items, which made the priceless seem worthless. The plot kept bouncing along, but never seemed to have me invested, or caring about the place or the people who were the reason for the rescue. And the characters were strong, but maybe just too incredible and so never really at risk.

Maybe, I’m just in a funk at the moment, and a reader shouldn’t write a review when in a funk. 3.5 stars.

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Cameron Blair

Fantastic and Fun Adventure

Reviewed in Australia on 13 December 2018

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What an epic ride. This book was so much fun to read - it made me laugh, it made me cry in - the characters all all so much fun and it was really easy to read. The combats were great to read and even the lessor characters were fun to read about When I am sad that I have completed a book, I know I had fun reading it. Would definitely recommend this book it you like a fun romping adventure that draws you and keeps you engrossed.

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Thiago Malta Fernandes

Fun story

Reviewed in Australia on 9 October 2020

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I have had a great time with this book. It is a good sword-and-sorcery adventure, along the lines of a mini D&D campaign, and it is packed with rock-and-roll references and good jokes. I also have some criticism, though. There are some narrative options which I felt not so appropriate, such as the band being mugged twice by the same culprit (which seemed as a repeated scene), the main character loosing his hand only to have it back again on the next chapter, among others. But overall this is a nice action story and a light reading. I recommend it!

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Jamie D. Munro

Needs a lot of work

Reviewed in Australia on 19 December 2020

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This book may be fine if you haven’t yet had enough of generic male dominated grim-dark sword and sorcery, and if you don’t notice the story stops at least once a page for massive info dumps and backstory, or if the forced analogies don’t grate you.

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Adam Windsor

Reviewed in Australia on 5 March 2018

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This was recommended as "the most D&D novel ever" and it's a good summation, as the gonzo world building and over the top characters certainly feel more like a home RPG campaign than most of the official tie-in fiction I've unwisely read. It makes for a fun romp, blemished only slightly by the author's occasional over-indulgence in pop culture references. I'll definitely be checking out the sequel once it is out.

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Sammy L

Wow, just Woy

Reviewed in Australia on 21 April 2020

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Absolutely loved this book. I love everyone of the main characters. Fast action, great and humorous dialogue. The characters work really well together. I could bang on and about it, so just do yourself a favour and get this book!

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JBO

Cracking read

Reviewed in Australia on 17 March 2020

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Best book I have read in ages. Just good fun. Full of action and wonder. I now follow Eames and like to read all the books he recommends.

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Adrian

Bring with you rock music, a sense of humour, and a loaded D20 (20 sided dice, not a gun!)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 June 2018

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Kings of the Wyld could be described as the genetically engineered offspring of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, David Gemmell novels (Winter Warriors springs to mind), and the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual.

A quick note: If you are offended by the frequent use of the "F" word and similar, this book is not for you. It comes up a lot in character dialogue. Considering the setting and characters, it does not feel excessive.

Kings of the Wyld presses my buttons on many levels. Let me start by saying I'm 47 and a portion of my youth was spent playing and "dungeon mastering" the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. I have a few minor aches and pains, and I'll never fit in those clothes I wore as a teenager again. This is relevant because...

Kings of the Wyld is about a band (Dungeons and Dragons style adventuring party) of middle-aged overweight and often drunk ex-mercenaries that emerge from what passes as normal retirement to get the band back together.
Their mission - rescue their frontman Gabriel's daughter from inevitable evisceration by almost the entire contents of the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual besieging the city of Castia where she is trapped.
The monstrous ensemble is called the Heartwyld Horde led by the sympathetically tragic Lastleaf - a Druin who seems to be a bit like an elf except with bunny ears. And he rides a Wyvern. I should point out here that this book does not take itself at all seriously except for a few genuinely poignant moments (wipes tear from eye at the memory of the closing scenes). This book has given me so many laughs!

Who are the band?

The hero of this tale is Clay whose inner monster was tamed by a loving wife and a darling daughter. He has long since hung up Blackheart – a wooden shield made out of a Treant – and retired. Then Gabriel comes calling.

Gabriel – divorced father of the damsel in distress and would be wielder of a potent magic sword except that he sold it to the cad now married to his ex-wife.

Then there is the wizard Moog who mourns the loss of his husband to the incurable “rot” disease from which he also suffers. One of the hazards of wandering the Heartwyld. He makes a living as an alchemist selling “Phylactery” which is best described as Viagra in gaseous form. And he lives in a tower that is almost exactly the same shape as a “thingy.” If you wonder what I mean by “thingy” just go back to that Viagra reference and I’m sure you’ll get it. The knocker on the door to his tower is a particularly amusing character named Steve who struggles to speak due to the brass ring in his mouth... and I thought I was cool having a brass dolphin on my front door.

Matrick is the band's drummer, sorry, knife-wielding warrior thief that somehow became King. The Queen has managed to produce 5 heirs to the throne, none of them fathered by Matrick himself and, oh yes, the Queen wants him dead. Extracting him from his former life to reform the band is trickier than you might think…

Lastly, there is Ganelon who is remarkably forgiving of the fact his former bandmates left him in a quarry turned to stone by a Basilisk for 20 years.

Other characters help and hinder them on the way, and I shall always remember the Ettin, Dane and Gregor with fondness. (An Ettin is a two-headed giant in case you’re wondering).

After suffering the indignity of being robbed by a band of girls named the Silk Arrows (twice!), the band’s expedition takes them through the Heartwyld that is still remarkably full of trouble considering so many of its denizens surround Castia for the whole story. The trip is complicated by the fact Matrick’s wife (the Queen) hired a bounty hunter to assassinate him. Is the bounty hunter a shadowy figure in a hooded cloak? Bobba Fett's twin brother? Nope. A bad-ass Daeva - false god nightmare of a winged woman with her own band of red-robed monks held in her thrall all riding in a skyship!

This story is chock full of humour, monsters, magic and magical weaponry, more monsters and touching moments. And touching moments with monsters (some of them wielding magical weaponry). If you’ve ever wished you could read a story with a wondrous variety of monsters all doing their worst, Kings of the Wyld is like a bowl of every flavour ice cream with a chocolate flake stuck in it plus syrup and those little coloured sugar tubes on top (I know them as hundreds and thousands). There are probably some marshmallows jammed in there somewhere too. Pure indulgence.

Of course, none of this would be worth our reading time or the 5th star if it were not woven into a compelling story. Make no mistake; this is not a regurgitated video or role-playing game. As a student of story craft myself, I know a well-structured story when I read one, and they are not found in the fantasy genre often enough. Nicholas Eames knows his stuff – the story twists, turns and pinches in all the places it must to cast its spell over any fantasy fan even if they never played Dungeons and Dragons. It's been a very long time since I last enjoyed reading a book this much. Count me in for the sequels.

If all this were not enough, Kings of the Wyld asks one of life’s most compelling questions. The answer to which the wizard Moog and every child under the age of 8 already knows…
Do owlbears actually exist?

26 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

None more front-loaded comedy with no sustain

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2018

Verified Purchase

If it had been full price I'd have sent it back. Luckily I found it on a daily deal.
There's one joke, that it's a world where D and D adventure parties are treated like old school rock stars, which runs out of steam by about 20%.
It never fully grasps the comedy nettle. There are a lot of po-faced fantasy tropes served straight, including what should have been a highly parody-able, none more creaky fantasy cod religion.
I like being in on the joke, and once I'd spotted that point of view character Clay lives in a village called Coverdale I realised the book is an Easter egg hunt. There was - ironically - something about rain on a wedding day, and a bit with a bloke selling rats on a stick. I spent the whole first night lying chortling up at my kindle. Sadly, this feature goes on hiatus for a long stretch and when it comes back at the end it's just a highly arbitrary carpet bomb.
As a story it's what youthful indiscretions in the David Eddings canon led me to call a "then they went" book. It follows what's now known as the “save the cat” structure - derived from bad movies, but now applied relentlessly to books. A McGuffin character in danger sparks a long, plot free plod through a series of sideshows on a journey. Kind of like a D and D campaign. One real weak spot, especially if you’ve read “Bored of the Rings” – and if not, then track it down – is the repeated arrival of Deus Ex Machina airways.
There’s a very heavy debt to Discworld, mainly from all the obvious fantasy fiction jokes, plus a cloying layer of the STP schmaltz that other reviews have described as “heart”. For a book that trades a lot on old school rock references, the character development is a lot more Michael Bolton than Whitesnake.
S,o from 20 per cent to the end the book got harder and harder to push uphill, and truthfully I don't think I could eat another whole one.
Plus, it’s an Orbit book, so only 95 per cent of it is actually this book, with 5 per cent of some other writer’s book I’m not interested in. Can I get my 4p back?

7 people found this helpful

FallenGrace

Getting the band back together.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2018

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Clay Cooper is retired, working as a guard in a small sleepy village with his loving wife and daughter. Gone are his adventuring days, fighting and monster killing. That is until his oldest friend Gabriel appears on his doorstep pleading for his help. Gabriel's only daughter Rose became and adventurer like her father, in doing so she has become trapped behind the walls of the city of Castia which is currently under siege by the largest monster horde in recent memory, there is no help being sent, no hope but Gabriel won't abandon her, and he need's Clay's help to unite one of the most famous mercenary bands there ever was, Saga. Legendary as they are though, what can five old men hope to do against thousands?

This is a pretty good book. Clay is a pretty well written hero, he's cool headed, pragmatic and fights his battles defensively looking after his friends. The rest of Saga is fairly diverse too each with their own history, their own reasons for being there. The world is well realised if a little generic for my liking in some regards though the characters do raise the bar. I think I actually like the idea of the book rather than the actual book itself, that said, the writing is decent, at times it's genuinely laugh out loud funny and it's certainly a page turner. My biggest problem I think was the ending felt pretty rushed with a quick run down of what happened to various characters, it was a bit disappointing.

Overall it's pretty good and i'll give the recently released sequel a go when I get the chance but it didn't blow me away. It has some nice ideas, some funny lines and was certainly entertaining but I doubt i'll really remember it much in a year or so. Worth a read if you like fantasy with a slight twist.

+ The idea of old overweight, drunken mercenaries getting together for a last outing is pretty cool.
+ Clay is a decent protagonist.
+ Fairly well written, sometimes laugh out loud funny.

- The world feels a little fantasy generic.
- Ending was a little bit TV character round up for my liking.

2 people found this helpful

Mr The Beard

The Boys Are Back In Town

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2018

Verified Purchase

It's not often you pick up an author's first foray into the world of fiction and leave with the same smile this book provides.

Nicholas Eames has seemlessly blended the "after years" of a rock-and-roll band, long past their prime with the fantasy world of magic and dragons.

The titular Kings of the Wyld were once the greatest mercenary band in the world, but now their name can go completely unknown as the world of bands has changed. No longer is glory wrought from lives in danger, in this modern age of mercenary bands, glory is won in structured combat - arenas and the like. However, threat is looming and the world needs someone to step up and once again put their lives on the line - step in Kings of the Wyld, a lot older and now with something to lose.

5 people found this helpful

Barry Mulvany

Fun, fast paced, old school swords and sorcery.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2019

Verified Purchase

This was a fun and entertaining book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The gimmick is that in this world, mercenary companies are called bands and are treated like 60's/70's rock bands. Saga were the biggest of them all but they all went their own separate ways and have grown old and out of touch with the new scene. That is all until Gabe the frontman tries to get the band back together to help rescue his daughter who formed her own band and is being besieged by a huge army of monsters.

I was a bit wary of this going in, as though I had heard a lot of good things about it I thought the gimmick might get a bit much after a while and take away from the story. I was wrong. Though some of the band names made me roll my eyes a few times, at heart this is an old school swords and sorcery novel with magic, monsters and battles galore. Magic is of the old school unexplained variety and generally takes the form of objects. The battles are short and intense (except for the end which is long and intense) but what really stood out were the characters. The whole book is told from the POV of Clay, the rock steady shieldman (bassist) of the company and his is a nice head to inhabit. All of the band are done well, and though conforming to some archetypes (of both fantasy novels and rock bands) they are so likeable that it just all adds to the story.

I'm notorious for not noting the writing much when reading but I did notice it here, there were some beautiful paragraphs of description and observations and it fitted well with the story. This book is definitely tongue in cheek in places but I was surprised by how emotional parts of it were, I was expecting full on parody but half the time I forgot about the whole 'band' thing and was just reading a really good book with all the moments you want from one. It takes half the book to get the band back together but in no way does it feel drawn out, it moves well and the action scenes are really well done. I recommend this to anybody looking for something a little different, a little same, and while not deep it has depth and is just plain fun.

2 people found this helpful

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