The world is at war. Government titans use sports heroes known as Centauri for political influence. Oryan Jeckstadt is born a slave. His father, a disgraced general, raises him alone in the prison he doomed his son to. With the promise of securing his father’s freedom, Oryan is ripped from the Quarter and forced into the Centauri Games. Eleysa Celeste has been orphaned. Loving grandparents do their best but her anger is only flamed by the cruelty of the children around her. A local Centauri training facility owner takes her under his wing. She and Oryan are on a crash course that could decide the fate of billions. Meanwhile, warriors from another time known as Archides are backed into a corner. The man who brought down their galaxy-spanning empire is taking advantage of the turmoil and threatens to conquer this world as he did their ancient home. Desperate for victory, the Archides try to recruit Oryan to their cause yet his only desire is to protect the woman he loves and their young son. 100+ five star Reviews! Over 700 pages and five books in this complete series! What Amazon Readers are ★★★★★ I dont give 5 stars often, but this series deserves it. Well written, held my interest from first to last. ★★★★★ This series is non-stop. I couldn’t leave it alone! ★★★★★ Best set of books I've read in awhile! ★★★★★ Lots of action and thrill it was awesome! ★★★★★ Filled with lots of twists and turns! ★★★★★ Sweeping storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat. ★★★★★ The author is able to find a nice blend of science fiction with historical context. ★★★★★ Truly epic! ★★★★★ Groundbreaking! ★★★★★ I can't wait for the movie! ★★★★★ First book grabs you!! Then the rest of the books won’t let you go!!! ★★★★★ Many fine tales woven in this one to reach an unexpected destination. ★★★★★ Be warned, once ya start its real hard to put it down! ★★★★★ Evolving storyline and transformations of the character's held me in thrall. ★★★★★ Waiting for more... ★★★★★ I didn't want to put my Kindle down. ★★★★★ The author did an amazing job telling a great story with fascinating characters. ★★★★★ Well written, action packed, with sound military feeling to it. Great read from start to finish. ★★★★★ Outstanding series. In depth hidden plots, multilevel scenarios and character driven action.
Chad Odom was born in June 1982 in St. Charles, Missouri. He spent much of his childhood building Legos and watching all things science-fiction. At the age of 8, he read The Hobbit for the first time and was hooked on both reading and epic fantasy. For two decades after, he read The Lord of the Rings at least once every year.
His love of reading branched off into Star Wars fan fiction as well as science-fiction from Orson Scott Card, Phillip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, and others. Combined with Saturday morning cartoons, Chad developed a love for all things super hero, which spurred him onto his first experiences in character and world building.
Generally unpopular in school, he spent his time reading books, studying history and religion, and creating his own stories. He earned his Eagle Scout at fifteen, picked up wrestling while in high school, and went into the Army at seventeen.
From 2001-2003, Chad served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Las Vegas, Nevada. During that time, in a set of $.99 notebooks, he scratched notes, character names, and plot points for a fantasy story of his own. With accompanying sketches, this laid the foundation for what would become The Last Archide.
Chad began formally writing The Last Archide in 2006. The first book, Warlord of Navarus was published by Tate Publishing in 2010. By his own admission, it wasn’t a very strong start and failed to gain any traction amongst readers.
Chad reworked the entire series and completed it in 2015. Tate Publishing folded the following year before it could be released. He took to self-publishing in 2018.
When he’s not writing, Chad loves to watch and play sports. He enjoys board and card games. He’s still an avid reader and movie watcher. As an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he volunteers his time in various activities in his local community.
In 2003, Chad met Kathrine Jones who he would marry in the same year. He adopted her daughter, Melissa in 2005, the same year that the twins Brandon and Lucas were born. The final addition to the family, Ethan, was born in 2006. The family currently lives outside St. Louis, Missouri.
The world is at war but there is a much greater danger that they don't even realize. Warriors from another time and place, the Archides have been protecting humans from a threat that once destroyed their own planet. Now the monster has his eyes set on conquering this world. Oryan Jeckstadt has been born into this fight. A slave turned Centauri turned soldier now is the final hope for their savior. He will fight. He will not lose. He made a promise to the love of his life, Celeste to protect their son and keep him safe. If he has to destroy everyone along the way, he will not break his promise.
This is a complicated well thought out series. Intensity. Intrigue. Intelligence. The writing is solid, the detailing elaborate. It doesn't always go the way it's expected or the way you want it to. The descriptions are so vivid, that you take Oryan's journey with him. You are on the dusty stage of the Centauri, the bloody battlefields, and enjoying the much too brief times with Celeste and Asher. I will warn you, this series requires your full attention or it can become confusing. The names are unusual and complicated.
Scott Hart gives this series life. I can't imagine it without his narration. The music adds another level of drama and combined with his voice, it's easy to get swept away by this wonderfully complicated series.
The big secret was the power of love. I’m not kidding, that is actually verbatim the entire point of the series.
It’s a decent piece of mixed dystopian/sci-fi literature. But nothing here is particularly earth-shattering. Twists are relatively predictable, he tries very hard to make you think the big bad is “Evil” so there’s stuff that’s unnecessary but just to show how mean he is. I won’t be recommending it to people but I would not recommend against reading it. A good read for not having to think too hard and get carried away with war porn. Could have used a better editor, quite a few malapropisms and other minor errors.
The plot falls apart toward the end, and some of the supposedly invincible things had very obvious solutions that were only stumbled upon last minute, somehow missed for thousands of years.
Im changing things to not give spoilers but here’s a typical scene from the book: our ayran soldier man hero defeats an entire enemy base himself, shot numerous times with wounds that we are told repeatedly would stop a normal man. But our hero is driven by his rage which is like a dragon, and his anger at his sad backstory drive him on. Finally he remembers who he is and wonders if he’s losing his humanity by being so badass all the time. Then he sees a cat gracefully walking through rubble…. She used to walk gracefully. He collapses to the ground with a scream that would let anyone who heard it know he has a way worse backstory than them and we are treated to 1-2 paragraphs describing his indescribable pain and anguish until he passes out in the fetal position. This happens numerous times throughout the series.
Just wow. For the good: This was a very intense and interesting story. Had a hard time putting it down. I was really invested in everything Oryan had to go through. He was pretty awesome. The characters were fleshed out really well. And you really felt like you were there a lot of the time. Which leads me to the bad: These books need a good editing. There were also times when the books got pretty confusing. Hard to keep track of the people, even when you knew what was going on. So many names for one person was made so much more confusing by calling them by first names, then changing to last names. Happened so often wasn’t sure I was ever going to get it straight. Understandably, this was a violent story. The violence was much too graphic for my liking though. Overall, I really enjoyed this series and hope to see more from this author.
I met the author at a comic con and he was polite, professional, and very excited to present his novel. I found his energy infectious and immediately bought the book on Audible. I got home that night and started the book. It wasn't what I expected. The narration was awful and it made listening to the story a slog. Getting beyond the poor narration was very difficult.
Aside from the narration, it felt like about 90% of the novel was exposition. I would have enjoyed it much more if things were presented organically. Every chapter seemed to begin with a tedious exposition about the character, their motivations and obstacles.
I really wanted to enjoy this book. I feel like Mr. Odom has tremendous potential and imagination. I just found too many problems in this particular book. I will give some of his other works a try.
There's not a lot I can say without adding spoilers to the mix. Chad's done an excellent job of character development in both the antagonist and protagonist positions that both capture your attention. Supporting characters also have a depth to them that fully flushes out the storyline.
Chad, thanks for sharing your story and it's journey...I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It starts off good, then it's just plot holes, followed by supposed smart characters making dumb decisions. Like the MC supposedly loving a girl more than anything then going half a decade and not even checking up on her? And he is some military genius that basically acts like a kid hopping in random vans for candy? He is a billionaire with unlimited resources but can't make phone calls or take a visit to check on people.....
All you need to know is I finished this book in about a week, and didn’t read any of it for several day because of work. Well thought out deep story, riveting till the end. One of those kind of books that you find hard to put down and lose some sleep over because you want to see what is going to happen next. Very well written, and I look forward to reading more books from this author.
A very good story that actually makes you feel the emotions. There were a number of things to jerk you out of the story at times, wrong words, missing words, military things that created cognitive dissonance for someone who spent time in the military, but even with those issues, the story was good enough to overlook them. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes alternate universe stories.
I started this book not expecting much from just the description, I was captivated and drawn into the storyline and the characters very quickly. Soon I was unable to put the book down for very long and just had to finish the book. Evolving storyline and transformations of the character's held me in thrall.
This is not my normal genre, but I was in the mood for something different. I am lucky than this series is what caught my attention. The characters are well drawn with understandable motivations and logical actions. The plot seemed like it would be predictable, but there plenty of twists. Highly recommend!
I thought this series was pretty cool! Wasn’t perfect but was an interesting blend with aliens, advanced tech, going back to primitive tech but still influencing civilization. Some good action and characters. The way the hero’s kid risked himself at the end was fairly dumb but … brave. I enjoyed it and I read it over a weekend of camping.
Good character development, nicely moving plot line and I liked the ending. (Spoiler alert) Sometimes the hero is not really appreciated by everyone as much as he is needed.
I wasn't too sure as I started the series, but by the end of the first book I enjoyed it enough to read them all. Editing was good until the last two books, where typos and incorrect words started popping up.
Curious how the story would unfold. Some secrets revealed and some not. Characters came and characters went. Plot twist after plot twist a couple that surprised me. The end was a bit of a surprise and in a way it wasn't.