Devouring Gods

The Barbaric Ledgers #2

by Jedediah Berry

The barbarian Gotchimus returns for the heist of the century! Gotch and his crew will face battle-nuns, drunk aristocrats, and murderous frogs in evening wear.

They’re off to steal a wizard!

The Festival of Keys offers the rich and powerful a chance to dine on choice morsels and amuse themselves with age-old sorceries. This year’s special guest is a spectacle like no Gotchimus, the great barbarian, the wizard slayer.

While his hosts debauch themselves, Gotch has bigger plans. Trapped in a divine prison realm is a wizard with knowledge Gotch needs. To free him, the barbarian will have to outwit the nobles, protect his own dark secret, and turn the party of the year into the heist of the century.

And this time he has to pull it all off without killing the wizard.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Novella

176 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 2, 2027

About the author

Jedediah Berry's latest book is Kill All Wizards, the first in the Barbaric Ledgers series. His novel The Naming Song won the Massachusetts Book Award for fiction and was an LA Times Book Prize finalist. His first novel, The Manual of Detection, won the Crawford Award and the Hammett Prize, and was adapted for broadcast by BBC Radio 4.

He is the author of numerous stories and interactive works, including The Family Arcana. He is the co-creator, with Andrew McAlpine, of the Wildendrem adventure game setting, which began with the Ennie Award-winning The Valley of Flowers.

Together with his partner, writer Emily Houk, he runs Ninepin Press, an independent publisher of fiction, poetry, and games in unusual shapes. He lives in Western Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Ashley]

i was iffy on reading this sequel, but they had me at "battle-nuns"

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sequel to Kill All Wizards, Devouring Gods follows Gotchimus, a barbarian dressed for high tea, as he participates in an Ocean 11 style heist. The writing continues to have delightful prose and characters with plenty of whimsy to them. But it does suffer by being a bit short, with beats just happening and little time for anything to develop meaningfully.

Thank you TOR for the ARC.