Forebodings

Conquerors of K'Tara #1

by L.A. DiPaolo

Planet K’Tara, 5000 AD. High Prince Aithen thought he had years of freedom before he'd have to take the throne. But when his father fails to return from a secret mission, the prince must learn the ropes quickly before a long-forgotten creature destroys the kingdom. And that terrifying monster is just a harbinger of what's to come… While his younger brother searches for the missing king, Aithen must move his people to safety and prepare for battle. As he uncovers the truth of things, the prince fears he may have to go to war with a god himself, and with the help of the mystical Elyana--a member of the Sisterhood of Light--he works to gather answers before the enemy strikes again. If he fails, death will meet him, those he loves, and his people… Forebodings is the first book in the exhilarating Conquerors of K'Tara fantasy series. If you like ancient gods, nightmarish monsters, and imaginative storytelling that blurs the line between fantasy and science fiction, then you’ll love L.A. Di Paolo’s out-of-this-world novel.

Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Adult, Ebooks, Science Fiction

531 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2018

About the author

L.A. Di Paolo is a Canadian-Italian-American who lives in Milton, VT. By day–being a biologist–he directs drug development projects. By night, he rides and writes. But his horse is not the source of his inspiration. Rather, the agitation in his mind is. Which led him eventually to publish the first book of his first novel, though writing is not novel to him.

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

A very large scale high fantasy with more characters than could reasonably kept track of. When a legendary serpent comes back from the dead, The King goes missing, and the sons go looking for him.

It's okay, just a bit too involved.

[Gina Metz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book once I started to understand who the people were, etc. I would have given Forebodings a 5 star rating but I had a hard time getting into it and it was a slow start. That is just my personal opinion and others may have had no trouble getting going with the book since I have a lot of distractions (an 8 yr old, 2 dogs, 3 cats and a husband). I do look forward to more books in this series!

[Paul Calhoun · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked:
The world had a lot of potential. I'm a sucker for a fantasy world that is clearly the remnants of a high technology SF epic gone wrong. I'm surprised, however, that the two ecosystems (imported and native) work so well together. Either these people are heavily modified to fit their environment, or whoever sent these colonists are outstandingly lucky to find a planet that has evolved as far as a globe-spanning sapient species and still has life forms that can coexist to the point of being edible to and able to eat humans. Also, reserving judgment so far on the two sun thing. It's a good plot driver in a lot of ways, and I'm sure we've found exoplanets that look to be in a good band in a twin star system, but I feel like it would really mess with Terran plants and animals.

The politics are pretty well done. I'm not sure I buy that the king is so amazeballs that he can do all the things he does politically without using his magic to screw with peoples' minds, though. Also, it's weird that all the religious orders are either crazy or far away from the capital. Suggestive that the reasonable priests know something everybody else doesn't.

I liked the main conflict. It has a lot of potential.

Some faint praise:
For an indy author I bought a book from at a convention, this was really well done! A few mistakes, but it seems like both he and his editor are getting off the ground.

Improvement opportunities:

I don't get why the Serpent was messing around rather than going straight for the capital. I'm sure there's a reason (there were hints it was eating people to get stronger?) but I didn't catch it.

Did the Luxori not leave any records? They're all dead, but the king is so amazingly amazing that he can do AoE fireballs without seeming to expend effort, and is using the Bind to help a Sister without her noticing. He seems remarkably well trained for someone who must have figured it out for himself.

Request that the endnotes either be at the end of the book or be footnotes on the page referenced. Having them at the end of a chapter feels like the worst of both worlds. I'm actually 100% in favor of endnotes rather than a glossary because it makes it easier to look things up based on when they were read, but having them at the end of a chapter means having to flip to the end of the chapter, which isn't as easy as the end of the book.

It was a bit of a rough start. Between the worldbuilding, the "look how great these princes are", and the prologue which takes place - for some reason - about 75% of the way through the story in the main book, it took a bit of waiting for things to settle down and the story to get going at a steady speed. At that point, however, the pacing was even and measured, moving at a speed which kept everything flowing well.

[Blue Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow...just wow. I mean how can someone create such far-flung epic world. The novel is written in beautifully intelligent way and you get the idea from the very first lines . The author knows how to play with words
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The book opens up with the struggle of a prince searching for his father The King. The plot broadens with the progress. There are all sorts of new species,creatures and places
In this high fantasy world. There is an ancient creature which is supposed to be dead but it returns and is symbol of danger and darkness.
Will the Princes(sons) be able to bring back The King(father)?
Will the ancient creature (the serpent) succeed in his dark intentions?
Will the Sons of great King be able to defend their loved ones ?
What's more to come of this destructive beginning?
To what length the Sons of a King have to go to win this war against a lagendary beast or maybe even something more powerful?
Are you ready to be engulfed by this diverse and broad mythical world?
I don't want to give more details because it will spoil you and this book does not deserve even a minor spoiler
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The story is complicated at start and it contains 150+ characters but once you get into the book completely and manage to merge all the pieces together, the adventure starts. You go on a ride with endless joy.
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There are many never read before rituals,powers, species and places that keep you hooked including things like nibblers, hall of light and bind-fusion, and applauds.
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The world building is very strong and powerful and is packed with scary, surprising, adventurous elements
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I definitely loved the book and cant wait for the 2nd installment of the series.
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I would give this book 4 stars🌟🌟🌟🌟. I am deducting one star because the editor had not done its job properly.
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I would trade my life in return to make someone read this book. Its worth a shot. It will keep you at the edge of your seat and will make you want more.

[Kitty_ranma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Other world. Wheel of timeish
It strikes me that there doesn't seem to be a explanation for the stars that are given. So I thought I'd start giving my take on it.
1 horrible no redeeming qualities.
2 there are redeeming qualities.
3 good worth reading, or well written but not my cup of tea.
4 great but there's something off.
5 loved it.

Has a lot of the same elements of the wheel of time series. Argg, everything else I started to write becomes a spoiler. I HATE spoilers so I think I'll just go on to say that the narration gives the story life.
Reasons I enjoyed this audio book:
Wonderful characters, Great world building, Entertaining, Action-packed, Twisted, Scary.
Bookshelves/tags:
adventure, aliens, angst, another-world, dragon, fantasy, fighting-war, griffin, nonhuman, paranormal, recorded, science-fiction, series.
This Audiobook was given to me for free at my request from the publisher, author or narrator and I provided this unbiased voluntary review.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

To start, be aware that this is a true Book 1 of the series, and though it is fairly sizable, you don't get a conclusion at the end, it just ends and continues in the next book. It was a little slow starting out, not that the story was necessarily slow, it was just sorting everything out (the appendices helped a lot). I really enjoyed it once I had a little bit of a grasp on everything. There were a few things that didn't make sense to me (I believe they were flashbacks to the far past to explain why something was happening), though I don't think they were really necessary to get what was going on.

The characters were great, as well as their personal relationships. The action was good, but sometimes an attack seemed to just end for no reason. Overall glad I read it and may give the next book a look.

[Honza Prchal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world building is on par with The Wheel of Time, the characterization weaker, but the action a bit tighter, if less initially terrifying.
I am of two minds about that series, but I read all but two side works in the series, and I intend to read the successor to this novel. Do Paolo got me invested in the plot and politics and several of the people.
I was frustrated by how close to the best the main characters keep their information, and how little time they have on a day to share what they know even with those they want to share with.

[neisha grams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but I did have a hard time getting started. I found it difficult to keep track of everything that was going on. I also thought that to much time was spent on the older prince and how he felt about his father’s councilor. I get he had feelings for her no need to remind me every time his character appeared. Other than that I thought it was interesting and I do find myself wanting to know what is going to happen next.

[Jana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this on Goodreads and was excited to start it. I got thru about 10% and marked it as DNF. It was way too slow, too descriptive, and too long.
Last week, I learned that Alexa could read my Kindle book for me, and I gave it another try. It was still too slow, but at least I didn't have to pay attention to every word. And the fact that the story doesn't really even end, so the series could continue, didn't really help. I'd give the audio version 2 stars, hence 1 star overall.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Sure it took me a while. I started reading it, had to stop, and then when I picked it up again, I had to start over because a couple months had passed... but once I got back into it, I couldn't put it down! I look forward to reading more of the series.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book and was very happy to take on a new read.
This was an interesting story and took a bit for me to get familiar with new language. Appreciated the definitions to help along.
There was one incident that got my skin crawling... Thanks for the experience of your writing.

[Morgan Pennington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this read. It honestly gave me Lord of the Rings vibes with the pacing and descriptions of the world. Very interesting and unique concepts throughout the book. Glad I picked this one up.🤓📚

[C. Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world-building caught my attention and kept my interest in the different life forms. The plot moved along well but like many multiple-volume stories, it left me wanting more at the end.

[Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great world building! If you like the Wheel of Time you might like this book.

[Shanon Whitfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

If your into fantasy this is a great read

[Dagmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very exciting.
So many twists and turns.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Take Away- Forbodings is an epic fantasy story that attempts to combine all the necessary ingredients for an excellent story. While had some very interesting elements and had the potential to be truly great, it was unable to bring these together in a way that truly achieved this end. For the author's first book this is really good, meaning that if the author sticks with writing he could easily become one of the greats. (3 stars)

Stats:

Plot- The plot, simply speaking, does not pull you into the story. In many cases, it seemed to be sacrificed for the sake of worldbuilding which led to the climax of the book being underwhelming. (2 stars)

Characters - The characters were engaging and often enjoyable. Overall they were well written and while lacking in some complexity, this will likely improve in future books. (3 stars)

Storytelling – The author's style is slow paced, broad-stroked and can sometimes seem scattered. (3 stars)

World Building – This world is massive, unique, vibrant, and utterly fascinating. It seems that a page doesn't turn without discovering more of this remarkable place. (4.5 stars)

Magic – The magic system in this book is interesting and complex. I did find it frustrating that how the magic works and what it can do was still unclear after finishing the book, however, I realize that this may be done for a purpose.

I received this title for free in exchange for an unbiased review

Morality rating- Some violence.

[Joab Stieglitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Chronicles of K’Tara is an amazing example of world building at its best. Vivid descriptions, three-dimensional characters, and a engaging plot make this an outstanding tale. I listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator did an excellent job of differentiating the hundreds of characters DiPaolo has introduced us to. Can’t wait for the next installment!

[Jessica Vogler · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.
I really enjoyed this book. It was a longer book then I'm used to, but the characters and the story kept my interest peaked. The author wrote it very well, easy to read, the characters and their importance were fleshed out and told very well. I will definitely keep my eye out for book 2, since book 1 leads you up to a very important part of the story that I want to see the outcome.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting take on a new world. I like where it is going. I like Eylana and Aiethen together they have some good chemistry.