Darphopia: The Godless Land

by R. J. F.

Darphopia is the godless land.

Over a thousand years ago, our world of technology and divided faiths ended. There was a cataclysmic global conflict called the “God War”, and at the end of that war, God fell and Darphopia was born. With His death, God’s power—the Power Omnipotent—became a part of everyone and everything, and so technology was rendered obsolete. Darphopia became a land of monarchies, classes, and a collective disillusionment with God.

In Bladelheim, one of the three reigning kingdoms, there is tension between Prince Riki Yamamoto and his brother Prince Akuni. The kingdom is on the verge of bankruptcy, and while Prince Akuni wishes to free Bladelheim’s Slaves and improve the kingdom’s reputation, Prince Riki acknowledges that the Slave trade is their largest source of income and would rather find another way.

However, when the king steps down and Prince Akuni ascends the throne, he banishes his brother Riki to the wilds of Darphopia to prevent him from interfering with his political plans.

Stripped of his Royal status, forced to reside in the low-class and wild parts of Darphopia, and having to assimilate to cultures altogether different from the one he is used to, will Riki be able to find a way to take his kingdom back from his brother?

Darphopia is a fantasy series about a land based on British and Japanese culture, and it depicts a people who are disenchanted with God and whose ancestors killed God and usurped His power.

This book contains suggestive themes.

This is the second edition of a book originally published in 2019.

Genres: Fantasy

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2019

Reviews

[Sol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had quite a few complaints about this book, to begin with, and what composed of most of my issues, the language they used so badly turned me off from the story from the very beginning. It was old English terms, but the very typical old English not true old English, so ‘the’ and ‘tho’ and ‘ye’ sort of stuff, which then was mixed with Japanese. The reasoning for the language mixture was never really addressed or explained which I felt was actually a really big plot hole, and yes it is semi addressed by having a British influenced/ sudo kingdom but also not. Now the premise of the book being that thousands of years ago the gods fell a technology became obsolete and now there are three ruling kingdoms, the main character is exiled and forced to confront other cultures, in which case I could understand old English being used/ coming into play, however, the old English style was present before that, but despite being three kingdoms only Japanese and British culture are present which make up two of the kingdoms. I also fail to understand that if this society fell from modern times why old English would be used/ present at all, also then wouldn't the Japanese match that time period and the grammatical style reflect that? Instead it was simply just the grammar style of sudo old english. Now some people may think, why focus so much on the langue and grammatical structure, because it was a major part of the book and plot. My second problem was that the book was super simplistic in both explaining terms and world building, and way too complicated in other ways by just tossing in all these terms and spells. Let me be clear it wasn't that the Japanese terminology was the problem, it was that it felt like I kept having to refer to the glossary in order to gain context which is not fun to do when you are trying to enjoy a fantasy book. It felt like it was trying to be almost high fantasy. Lastly, I know I’m harping on the language but it’s important, there were terms/ slang used that were combinations of ‘old language’ plus I guess the modern language, and it was driving me crazy because again there was too much of it, and it made no sense as to why it was used so heavily. If you want someone to be immersed within the world you can not use so much slang that has to be explained each time it used as to what it means.
Aside from the entirety of the language issues, the story was flat. A society disillusioned with gods who killed their gods to obtain their power, making technology obsolete, then having the political strife appear between the brothers inheriting one of the three remaining kingdoms. Firstly, the political strife between the two brothers and the tensions between their kingdom and the rest of the world was interesting and I felt set the stage for a rather intriguing story. Now when the main character was banished, I really didn’t care much about him, did not like him as a character but I thought that this banishment would have him grow and change and become a more empathetic person. While that felt to be the intention, it fell through. I still could not see him as anything other than a spoiled prince and despite him facing the ‘hardships’ of exile he very quickly made it into another royal house/ kingdom. I would say my largest criticism, aside from the language issue which just made the book painful to read, was that a lot of the character development and plot points felt rushed or forced. There could have been an interesting story here, and the premise was interesting, but that was all, the story fell short, and left me with absolutely no desire to find out the rest of the story.

[Clayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received a digital copy through GoodReads giveaway.

[Alaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skeptical at first but really great! I got it as a random giveaway and I’ve got to get my hands on book 2

[Deanna]

This book had everything I like in a story but I just didn’t like the way it was written. The contrast of using Japanese terms/expression along with old English was distracting. I DNF this book.