This recommendation is of a book titled the Chronicles of the Mighty and the Fallen by Richard McHenry (you may know him as Rick Henry from his stories posted in this blog).
According to the product details on the Amazon page, this book has 478 pages in the paperback version, so for me, it is a full length novel. I got the kindle version as soon as I could back in November 2019. I was interested in this book because I used to read some of Richard’s works on Telemachus12’s website (I want to make a recommendation post for this website in the future), in some of his stories describes this novel as a m/m erotic fantasy novel, “Game of Thrones” ambiance.
Richard is very detailed in most of his stories and tries to be very coherent with his ideas and this is reflected in his creation of worlds. It is a solid buy if you want to read about m/m eroticism with a great story, and not just sex without a plot.
Summary:
Garneth is the king from hell, massively built, massively endowed, who grievously rapes his way through the countryside, leaving the bodies of young men and women behind. He then hears of a reclusive, near-matching equal, Jarden, and is determined to ensnare him as his own personal love-slave. But Marco, the young, straight-type stalwart, forcibly trained to seduce, drug, and take the man down… falls in love with his victim, instead. They become soul-mates. Together, they plot how to overthrow the king and bring him to justice.
1st review:
If you like this kind of setting and want to read a powerful gay erotic-romantic fantasy, you will LOVE this book. There are passages of acute tension, scenes of fantastic man-on-man love and sex, and interestingly, all of this is combined with a liberal dash of philosophical wisdom. Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the muscle! There’s plenty of well-built, gorgeous, muscular pulchritude to go around!
At the end of the book I read that McHenry has a deep history in poetry; it all made sense then. His writing is simply eloquent. The story is riveting. I hope there’s a sequel coming!
2nd review:
3rd review:
While the story is told from multiple points of view, Jarden is the hero of the story. Jarden’s road to true love is blocked by many obstacles not the least of which is his own nature. Seeing him work through McHenry’s intricately created fantasy world and a roller coaster of a plot with twists and betrayals is powerful and makes the erotic encounters both a turn on and deeply meaningful adding a deep romantic urgency to his finding love.
I really enjoyed McHenry’s world building, as is appropriate in an erotic fantasy, sex is everywhere, it is used as a bartering tool, as a means to secure political power (the King gains power through sexual domination) and only in rare cases a path to love. This makes for many rousing scenes where the character motivations add a deep layer of interest to the erotic moments.
McHenry’s writing is generally very good and the sex scenes are dripping in sensuality. These are hard men in a brutal world and the wonder of the discovery of love in such a setting is precious and romantic.
I don’t want to spoil the intricacies of McHenry’s plot but I will say I found the journey of the character of Marco to be particularly satisfying. Marco has a deep warmth and likability that rounds out the novel’s strengths.
If you enjoy erotic fantasy with complicated plots and characters in a world fraught with danger and betrayal, this novel is absolutely worth your time.
Final words.
I also intend to write a review for this book, I read it when it was released and right now I don’t have it very fresh in my mind to make a detailed review, but I will surely read it again and post a review here and on Amazon.
Hope you like this kind of posts and thanks to Rick Henry for this book and the stories he shared with all of us.
If you know some page, book, blog, fanpage, movie, game, etc, that you feel deserves a review or a bit of publicity, please let me know. Some of these I probably know, but maybe I will get some very interesting surprises.
Best regards and be safe.
SuperheroFan
I liked Chronicles of the Mighty and the Fallen, when will you publish another story of your own? I love your stories plus the worship of chest and nipples
Hi Check,
Thanks for your kind comment. Hopefully you then wrote a positive review on Amazon, and have told others about the book.
Aside from my many re-vamping of others’ stories on this site, I have also a few others posted on Telemachus12 website. You might start with “SuperiorMan Defeated” and “Wildcat Drillers,” as they are the shortest. The others are quite long. (My two completely original ones were “Extermination of Superman” and “Superman’s Unexpected Massage (taken by his own cock).”
I am kind of mulling over a prequel to CHRONICLES, which would entail the story of the Ashtarians; but it is difficult to do. Since it would supposedly be a saga covering maybe 200 years, I can’t seem to come up with a core character or characters that I could hang the story onto. And don’t exactly want it to be just a series on nip-centric escapades and sex-only adventures — (as Ashtarian men are known to be completely vulnerable to an unexpected assault on their overly large nipples [or their balls], regardless of their mighty strengths and physiques, and thus quite easily conquered [like Superman is, no Kryptonite needed], if caught unawares, by a clever and skillful other. Actually, it’s how they were eventually so easily destroyed, by a much lesser population. Caught alone separately, or in small groups, and attacked by a bunch of determined others.) Not sure this would be of interest to too many others. As it is, almost no one knows of CHRONICLES, and I have not received any royalties in nearly a year.
For CHRONICLES, it only took me about nine months to write it; but four plus years more, with some edits by others, and myself, totaling about 12 run-throughs! A LONG time. And it’s still not as good as it could have been. I found about 30 errors still in it.
However, being in my late 70’s, not sure if I want to expend the time, etc. Will I live that long? Even so, I already have two books of poetry I need to get out there; I’m not rich, and self-publishing is not cheap. Big problem. Anyway, I appreciate your message. We shall see….
Rick