Rob J. Hayes

Ein is on a mission from God. A God of Death. Time is up for the Emperor of Ten Kings and it falls to a murdered eight year old boy to render the judgement of a God. Ein knows he can't do it alone, but the empire is rife with heroes. The only problem; in order to serve, they must first die. Ein has four legendary heroes in mind, names from story books read to him by his father. Now he must find them and kill them, so he can bring them back to fight the Reaper's war.

Never Die

Sade A

This was my first and quite probably last (for the forseeable future) time i will pick up a Rob J. Hayes book- I was really disappointed with this, especially as it was a highly anticipated read for me.

More than delibrately misleading blurbs, i detest books that have what i refer to as Chicken Licken plots. Plots that basically just repeat the same action over and over and over and goddamn over again. 
This book had strong Kings of the Wyld vibes to it, with slight differences but the crux of plot was basically that book. Like am i the only one who noticed this? 
p.s: Totally not upset with the whole similarities, just pointing it out

So back to the meat of Kings of the Wyld / this story: Heroes have to gather themselves together and fight monsters, on the way, meet a weird monster but not really a monster by the campfire, continue fighting monsters which of course they inevitably defeat- I mean were you holding your breath expecting a different outcome? *smh, amateurs- and finally get to the boss stage at the tail end of the book where they fight the ultimate monster they've been travelling from the start of the book to fight. 

Probably the only thing different Hayes did was that "shock" ending and i use "shock" sparingly because at that point i was like, that's it??? That's what i had to wade through more than 30 chapters of repeat Yōkai fighting and repeat recruiting hero fighting for? That?? Really that??? 

This plot was so insipid it would bore you to tears.

And look i'm not saying the fights weren't cool. At first.  (before you clued on that this was basically all this book was going to offer you). For context this book has 42 chapters, you spend roughly 33 of these chapters either fighting off Yōkai, fighting to recruit new heroes or telling some folktale about a dead hero and for crying out loud i deserved a book with an actual freaking plot.
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Also why did the book have to be told mainly from Cho Itami and The Emerald Wind's perspective. I mean sure maybe i can understand Itami narrating the story (i really can't) but The Emerald Wind?? 
And the fascination with telling us how sculpted a body was or how handsome a man was or how beautiful a woman was, WAS SUPER WEIRD!!!!!

You know what, maybe this author just felt like readers needed to know more about Yōkai from Japanese folklore so he proceeded to cram as much of them as he could find in this book and throw in a shinigami cos dunno the God of Death obviously makes things more interesting. 
Either way, this book sucked so bad and i want to believe that there are way better books i can read about Japanese Yōkai folklore than this.

If you really enjoyed Kings of the Wyld there's a 100% chance you'll probably love this book too. They have the same vibe really.

Me, i'm just going to take my

and scrub the memory of this book from my mind.
 ⭐⭐ for effort & not messing up Japanese folklore. 
Read at your own risk or if you absolutely loved Kings of the Wyld .

Sally Salinas

Lia Yuliana

Update 06/10/2021

Find my reviews on :  An Ode to Fiction
Release Date : 29th January 2019
Buy the book :
 Amazon |  Book Depository 

4/5 ⭐️


  
    Power comes at a price, and you were willing to pay it.
  


Never Die is an Asian inspired story as part of the Mortal Techniques series by Rob J. Hayes. This is the second work by Rob J. Hayes that I've picked up from the deal I got a month ago. Let it be real before I dive into my review that I love adventuring party stories and this is just that. BUT! What makes Never Die a stand out to me is that it is heavily inspired by Shinto mythology, Japanese folklore, and anime. I went into this book completely blind not knowing anything about it prior to reading. From the amazing done by Felix Ortiz, I could only guess that it's a party adventuring story, what adventure? I didn't know. Prior to Never Die I did read the short story that follows a different protagonist and his band of mish mash heroes but that's a different story which I enjoyed. The short story introduced the series and Rob J. Hayes' writing pretty well for me so I got excited going into Never Die. 


  
    "Sometimes peace is no more than oppression in disguise."
  


The story follows Ein, a boy with a mission from the god of death or what is commonly known as Shinigami to kill The Emperor of Ten Kings of Hosa. The Emperor's ambition of conquest and war has angered the very god that has given him the power to do so. In order to kill the Emperor, Ein needs allies that are skilled and equipped with legendary status that could help him succeed this impossible mission. Wandering the land with a needle, thread, and the ability to resurrect the dead Ein assembled a rag tag team of heroes : Itami Cho, Zhihao, Chen Lu, Bingwei Ma, and Roi Astara. In this quest oriented story Ein will recruit his heroes one by one through duels, a showdown of physical prowess, or just plain bargaining. 

Rob J. Hayes writing comes through the explosive action scenes from duels with weapons, hand to hand combat, battles against yokais, a siege that escalated to full on military warfare. I loved every action scene that is graciously spread out through the story. Every scene is well done, vivid, gritty, and bloody in all it's glory! It's been a while since I've read a story with bloody and gory action scenes and Never Die gave me what I didn't know I needed at that time. What made these action scenes all the more entertaining and intense is the abilities of our rag tag team of heroes. One of the scenes that I loved is seeing Zhihao bamf from place to place like a jumper with a magnificent weapon in hand slaying enemies left and right it is truly an experience. The action scenes during the last ~20-30% of the book solidified the story for me overall as it carried so much intensity and grit that I could not put it down. The only gripe I have is the pacing during the middle that fluctuates a lot but it didn't hinder me from enjoying the story.


  
    Tomorrow is just more of yesterday. I'm no one's hero.
  


The world created by Rob J. Hayes is vivid, expansive, and well written. The many elements of East Asian culture and mythology is done wonderfully. Everything about the world is cinematic as our party of heroes travel across the world to kill the Emperor. Travelling stories like this really gives a chance for writers to show off how big their world are giving readers multiple settings and battle grounds that can immerse you fully into the story. Rob J. Hayes did just that. I loved every town, village, and even the roads that the heroes travel through which got me excited to see more of it in Rob J. Hayes' other works. The characterization are done spectacularly as every character in Never Die is distinct, well fleshed out, and has good development. Though I'd say out of all the characters in the party Itami Cho and Zhihao has a more meaningful development that left an impression on me more than the other characters. 


  
    Honour can be lost a dozen times, and regained. Life can only be lost once, and never regained.
  


Final thoughts, Never Die is an exciting quest adventuring party story that is short and light hearted immersive and full of action packed explosive sequences that will leave you in awe dying to see it adapted into an anime. I highly recommend for readers who love anime, D&D, and travelling party stories to pick this book up! It is also a good book that's perfect for readers that want to start reading adult fantasy as it is short, got good characterization, and accessible world building. Bonus points it is also a self pub!

Celeste Richardson

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions. 

Never Die is hands down the best book Rob Hayes has written to date, and this is coming from someone who has really enjoyed everything I’ve read from him. It’s been a while since a book was so addictive that it kept me up late into the night because I needed to read just one more chapter, and it was an experience I relished with this book. It’s undoubtedly one of the best Asian-inspired fantasies I’ve read, as well as one of the best self-published works I’ve come across. His title as winner of SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off) 2017 is well deserved.

“Sometimes peace is no more than oppression in disguise.”

Admittedly, I haven’t read loads of Asian-inspired fantasy, but some of those I have read felt a bit gangly, as though the author wanted a different setting from your run-of-the-mill medieval European fantasy, but failed to put in the research to make the story feel natural. That was so not the case with Never Die. I could tell as I was reading that Rob had spent so much time and put so much research into making this story a believable one within its setting. The dress, the mannerisms, the names, and the mythology were all lovingly rendered and (in my humble opinion) very credible. 

One of the stand-out elements for me was the mythological aspect. I’ve always been fascinated by mythology, but have had little exposure to any ancient mythology outside of the commonly presented Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, and Celtic mythologies. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Japanese mythology as I read this book. (Side note: How cool are electronic books? The ability to highlight a term and dig into its meaning without actually putting said book down to do so is so insanely convenient.) Not only did I get to experience a very enjoyable story, I actually came away from it knowing more about a particular topic. That’s an amazing bonus. One additional thing I’d like to recognize Hayes for is his utilization of short chapters. Again, this is something more noticeable when reading the book in electronic format, but there’s something about finishing a chapter and then seeing that the next is only a few minutes long that makes it almost impossible to stop reading. He takes the theory of “just one more chapter” and really runs with it.

While I really love Hayes’ Best Laid Plans pirate duology, and enjoyed his most recent standalone, City of Kings, set in the same world, all three of these books went to very dark places that made me a bit uncomfortable. Again, I very much enjoyed them, but I had to distance myself from them a bit in my mind because of their content. Not so with Never Die. While still very much in keeping with Hayes’ signature violent action scenes that I came to love in Where Loyalties Lie, this book was remarkably clean in other respects. There was no real romance, which resulted in no sex scenes. There was very little vulgarity as compared to the other work I’ve read from Hayes. And best of all, there was no rape! Yay! 

You saved yourself, woman. All I did was pass you a sword.

Also, while I loved the pirate-riddled world I first visited in the Best Laid Plans duology, I found this new Japanese-inspired world of Never Die a refreshing change. As I stated above, it was impeccably researched. This mixed with Hayes’ laid back prose to create a world that I could see and hear and smell as if the book was a portal to an enticing foreign land. It’s a world I would love to revisit. Also, there was an important addition made to this world not present in Best Laid Plans: honor. There was this respectable vein of honor running through this motley group of characters, even those who don’t view themselves as heroes. It was a refreshing change.

“Immortality is subjective. Your stories will always be told. Your legend will never die. But your body can.”

Speaking of characters, Hayes did a phenomenal job crafting this ragtag crew. We introduced to these heroes one by one, as they are unwillingly drafted into a seemingly impossible quest. As they don’t really know each other, we learn about them as they reveal things to the group. Very rarely is a team assembled like this where there are no core relationships already developed that are brought to the table, so I thought it was an interesting decision. I enjoyed how varied these characters were, in personality and physicality and fighting style. And the names! I love the titles awarded to each character based on some tactical strength they had developed and were famous for harnessing. We have characters with names like The Whispering Blade and The Emerald Breeze and Iron Gut and Death’s Echo. They’re such rich, evocative titles, and say such deep things about those who carry them. While I found all of the characters enjoyable, my absolute favorite was Itami Cho, the Whispering Blade. She was stoic but caring, badass but kind, and you could tell that she knew or suspected far more than she let on about their mission, their physical state, and the boy who had drafted them for this endeavor. She’s an incredibly strong female character and in my opinion was the shining star of the story.

What starts with a whisper, must end with a roar.

In case you haven’t noticed by now, I have nothing negative to say about this book. Never Die is the most compelling, addictive blaze-of-glory story I have ever had the pleasure of reading. If you’re a fan of anime and/or manga, you’re going to love this story. If you want more Asian fantasy in your life, you definitely won’t be disappointed if you pick this one up. If you love motley crews and epic action scenes, you’ll find fantastic examples of both here. And if you’re just looking for something absorbing and hard to put down, you’ll enjoy Never Die until the very last page.

Never Die

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