Son of a Liche is the sequel to Orconomics by J Zachary Pike, which I loved and thought was great satire. My only real issue with Orconomics was that the story itself seemed a bit generic. Well, Son of Liche has that taken care of. The story is great in this one, there’s lots of threads, lots of characters getting lots of development and opportunity to shine. I though Orconomics had a good amount of soul, but Son of a Liche really brings it.

Everything I loved about Orconomics was still going strong. All of the socio-economic criticism, the funny banter and the thought provoking satire.

There are some great comedic moments. The head of marketing made me laugh my head off numerous times. There’s Ned and Ted, a comedy pair that I found a mix of the old men in the muppets and the guy in Monty Python and The Holy Grail that goes on about the basis of a system of government. There’s one character who’s name kept getting dropped and I was thinking, something’s gonna be up with this dude, I see what you’re doing here. I did not see what he was doing there, lost it at the reveal.

I really love the scene switches, where one person says a thing, and then a character from a completely different scene says something that sounds like an answer. Very clever Mr. Pike.

The audiobook is split into two parts, only I didn’t know this. So when it got to the end of part one I thought well that was a good book, cause it cut off somewhere that could be an ending. And then there was so much more, in fact I’d say there was a bit of a Sanderstorm situation going on.

(I mention a few story points here, but nothing really to do with the main plot or that I’d consider a spoiler, another reviewer around here was kind enough to read and say that it’s not giving much of anything away.)

Son of a Liche feels less about a party of people, and more about each individual person. There’s lots of side characters that have so much going on and so much growth:

An undead commander that starts questioning the so called free will granted by the necromancer

A scene in the begining with 3 knoll puppies that are starving despite their mama doing anything she can to get them food, the feels, ouch

Mr. Poldo who realizes the consequences of his past banking actions and becomes a generous person

There’s enough going on with the internal politics of the tribe of orcs we met earlier to make its own story

The main party characters shine as well. Grom really struggles with his role as leader, and we finally get to see him go berserk, it’s worth the wait. Jin is just on a constant journey of personal discovery and coming to terms with who he is. Kaitha (spelling is optional as I listen on audio) has a lot of highs and lows.