Son of a Liche / Dragonfired by J. Zachary Pike

Bjørn reviews Son of a Liche and Dragonfired, books 2 and 3 of J. Zachary Pike‘s satirical fantasy series, The Dark Profit Saga.

A doubly disgraced Dwarven hero. A band of accident-prone adventurers. Giving redemption a second shot may have been a grave mistake…

Still bruised and heartbroken from their last calamitous quest, Gorm Ingerson and his band of washed-up heroes try to make amends for the Orcs they accidentally betrayed. But justice is put on hold when an old foe marches to the city gates. Gorm is horrified to discover a liche pitching the frightened city-dwellers on the merits of the undead lifestyle… at the head of a corpse army.

To save the city from high-pressure sales tactics and an inevitable siege, the Dwarf warrior and his misfit band hatch a harebrained scheme that lands them at the top of the king’s kill list. With death and dark magic on his heels, Gorm must craft his own pitch to round up the troops and put the undead snake-oil salesman and his army of pushers permanently out of business.

Gorm Ingerson and the king of Andarun both have a problem: each other. While the Freedlands are plagued with market turmoil, civil unrest, and dire portents, Gorm is convinced he’s found the heart of the king’s dark conspiracy. But the powers that be, Arthly and otherwise, are watching Gorm, and if he’s not careful he’ll wind up terminated in every sense of the word.

Dragonfired will be the epic conclusion to The Dark Profit Saga.

“The following is a wish of a good morning between myself, Brother Atticus, hereafter ‘I’ or ‘me,’ and Duine Poldo, hereafter ‘you.’ This is a non-binding greeting that does not guarantee or obligate either party to provide a morning of any quality, good or otherwise…”

– a quote from Dragonfired

Son of a Liche and Dragonfired fix all (both) of the complaints I had after finishing Orconomics. I felt that J. Zachary Pike wasn’t entirely certain of what he was doing in Orconomics – now he knows exactly what he’s doing and how to do it best. The prose sparkles with Pratchett-esque wit (not something I say lightly). Who knew an American could be so good at being British? The social commentary no longer feels on the nose and the satire works by itself, underscoring rather than force-feeding the message. While the infodumps that interrupted the flow of Orconomics are still here, this time they’re lighter and add rather than distract from the plot. And the plot itself is much more important than in the first book.

Son of a Liche introduces a new group of characters – of which there are many and, unusually, I never had problems remembering who was who – the Undead Horde. Their Head of Marketing, who is a literal head, works very hard on making them so terrifying and amazing at once that those still alive will actually volunteer to become dead, so that they can no longer suffer and instead get great names! While I loved our main group of heroes the most, the parts where the Undead Horde tried to deal with itself were, um, also my favourites. I know, it looks like everything was my favourite part. Sure, those books are loooong, but they don’t feel loooong. Except… I’ll get there.

The sequels feel unleashed in comparison to Orconomics, crammed with references to classic satire, RPGs, and Tolkien, a smuggled Game of Thrones here or there. The worldbuilding and character development are richer, never losing the strangely absent from Orconomics ‘orconomics’ theme – which gives one of my favourite side characters a chance to truly shine in Dragonfired. Some people are not fans of anachronisms in fantasy; I am, and those present here are delicious. Another thing I was blown away by was the mastery of transitions between scenes. When I am excited every time the POV switches (you really have to read the books to understand what I am talking about…) I know I am in the presence of a comedy genius. 

Both books suffer from the same problem, though. Some books have a soggy middle. Those have a hilarious middle. But their endings are looong. Son of a Liche in particular really takes a while to end, and at 618 pages total, that really is a noticeable while. But I’m nitpicking, because I was given an opportunity to spend lots of time with near-perfection, and that is a rare wonder. I enjoyed the books very much and even though Dragonfired doesn’t have a witty title and also takes quite a while to end, I wouldn’t have minded if it continued in book four. Because, yes, Orconomics is really good, but the two sequels are great. Those books work on every level. They’re funny, exciting, biting. Anyone who enjoyed Orconomics is bound to love the sequels. Don’t stop with book one, seriously. You have no clue how much you’ll miss.