Distopia

Land of Dis, Book 2

By: Robert Kroese

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Set a thousand years (give or take) before the events of Disenchanted, Distopia tells the story of Wyngalf the Bold, the legendary hero renowned for ridding the land of Dis of the scourge of dragons. The story begins as Wyngalf, a young missionary for an obscure religious sect, arrives in the port city of Skuldred. Desperate to prove his worth to his superiors, Wyngalf finds himself drafted into leading a missionary voyage across the sea to the semilegendary land of Dis. Accompanied by a beautiful stowaway named Evena and an oddball goblin who has been shunned by his clan, Wyngalf is continually thwarted in his attempts to proselytize by various practical concerns - chief among these being the fact that the land of Dis is being terrorized by a fearsome dragon. Wyngalf realizes that in order to prove his faith and get Evena home, he must summon the courage and resourcefulness to defeat the dragon. But what if his faith isn't enough?

©2015 Robert Kroese (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

A good listen, though not as funny as the first

If you listened to Disenchanted (the preceding book, which is actually not entirely required in order to listen to this one as it occurs long before the first chronologically), you would come into this book expecting something hilarious. It's not quite that.

This story was a bit more serious than the first. It had its moments of humor, though, evoking thoughts of Monty Python's Life of Brian. The "unlikely prophet" was an interesting take, and the cerebral goblin who had to constantly apologize for interrupting and for having an intellect of his own was definitely good for some grins. Still, they're no Boric the Implacable, and the story didn't quite have the same...zaniness? I'm not sure. It was good, overall; it just wasn't quite like the first one.

Phil Gigante turned in an absolutely excellent performance, though. He's one of a scant few narrators that I'm convinced could read me the dictionary and make it entertaining.

Fun and on point.

I'm a fan of high fantasy and the Dis series fuses modern real world social, political, and economical climates with funny D&D type characters and settings. Very entertaining while presenting objectivity to an otherwise cut and dry genre.

more stories from the land dis

the land of dis has many stories to share with us and this is one of them. pretty fun book well-written characters and great narration

Another Entertaining Tale of Dis

I loved "Disenchanted," the first book in the Land of Dis series, and I wanted to love this one equally as much. Unfortunately, while still entertaining and at times exceedingly amusing, I don't think "Distopia" lives up to its predecessor. I quite enjoyed Evena and Tobalt, and even found the dragon, Vern, was a delight every time he made an appearance, but I simply couldn't get into the character of Wyngalf. In the first book, the protagonist, Boric, was often aggravating, but his willingness to partake in the adventure was at least redeeming, considering the audience is being asked to invest in his story. In this one, Wyngalf is simply... aggravating. I don't have a lot of patience for reluctant heroes who resist taking personal responsibility, and so his nay-saying and self pity quickly became obnoxious. Fortunately, he ultimately had little choice in the matter, and forces beyond his control kept the story moving because otherwise if it had been his choice, this book would have been a whole lot of nothing.

The story was still quite humorous, the overall plot interesting enough, and Phil Gigante's narration phenomenal, that I generally feel positively towards the book. I only wish the main character was marginally less unpleasant. In the end I'd still recommend this one, if for no other reason than listening to Phil Gigante is always a treat, with the strong caveat that the main character kinda sucks at being a hero.

[spoiler below]

Also, I HATED that Wyngalf and Evena end up together in the end - he made such a point early in the book about describing her as a child, that I was supremely disturbed when he later decides "oh, I guess I'm into her." Even if she's 16-18 (I can't remember if it said exactly how old she was beyond "a teenager") and acts mature enough to set out on her own, the switch from an adult looking down on a child to an adult interested in a romantic partner was unsettling for me, especially considering the book takes place over the course of less than two weeks. Of course, there really aren't any other women in the story, so if you want your hero to get a happily ever after with a love interest, the options are pretty limited in this one.

Good story, excellent narration

Book 2 of the series. Fantasy with a good bit of conedy. A good read and well worth it.

hilarious fantasy with clever characters & dragons

Simply Wyngalf.
Wyngalf.
Simply Wyngalf.
I don't know how I could say it more simply...
hahahaha.

Very clever philosophy packed in a funny tale of a traveling preacher of a silly religion who meets a smart young woman and a troll who's intelligent and bashful. All must prove to be heroes as they accidently tip a dragon to the location of the girl's home and family. The first book was good, but this one was better, but in keeping the humor and plot engagement more consistent from beginning to end. I enjoyed the audiobook presentation. If you like light hearted stories with humor and strong story surprises, this is a series to pick up.

Action Packed

This is the story of a young missionary, Wyngalf, who really just wants to travel and spread the story of his obscure religion. When in the port town he finds himself in a awesome position to spread his word farther by leading a voyage across the sea to the legendary land of Dis. When things go bad he finds himself accompanied by a stowaway girl named, Evena, and a odd goblin who was thrown out of his own clan. Wyngalf must use all his faith to keep the three alive and try to get Evena home, but will his faith hold true, will it be enough?

This is a action packed, suspense filled, dragons, knights in shining armor, and sometimes not so shining armor kind of story. What you thought you knew about dragons, goblins, and other mythical beings might not hold true in Dis as this land can turn everything on it's ear, but that makes things much more interesting. This is a very interesting, wonderful book, with well thought out, in depth characters. Narrator Phil Gigante lending his voice to the audio version just made it that much better. He is a awesome narrator and made this book a joy to listen too. I can't wait to hear what adventures these friends go on next, and also catch up as I came in on book 2 and need to go back and catch up on book 1.

Hardcore meh

Only reason I finished it was because of my love for the first book, and the narrator made the story tolerable with his A+ voice acting. Characters were hardly likeable except the main villain, (I very much liked the main villain). Goblin got an anoyyyyyingly long amount of script, and I was only happy he was there when someone would tell him to shut up, as it took him 45+ seconds to say literally anything that could've been summarized with something like, "Let's go, gang." I thought he was just a funny side character at first but then he stuck around. I wish I looked at the reviews before I bought the book, I just thought it was gonna be somewhat like the first book with comedy and action so I bought it without hesitation, but there was rarely any. The characters talked much about how annoying and boring politics were, and then talked about nothing but annoying and boring politics for a very unnecessary amount of time. The concepts and ideologies really weren't that hard to grasp, yet the author dove into the details like a highschool college class. It's medieval adventure fantasy, just get to the dragon slaying.

Dis-Interested

I enjoyed the first book in the Dis series enough to get this one but I found the author's desire to tell me his political views through dull exposition to be off putting. There was very little story to the book and I had to give up with several hours remaining.