Kimber Grey's The Chosen One's Assistant: Never Meet Your Heroes

Before I even get started reviewing Kimber Grey's The Chosen One's Assistant: Never Meet Your Heroes, I would like to point out that, not only was it based on Mikey Mason's  (Not Quite) The Chosen One. His music is epic and I highly recommend listening to it either on Spotify or Bandcamp. I loved the track the first time I heard it and I love it still. 

The Chosen One's Assistant is every bit as good as the song except better. There is a lot here and that makes it more fun. As opposed to five minutes of music we get over three hundred pages of story. And it's a lot more of a developed story in the book. There's just more time for it. 

And time is something that Tiberius (that's our main character) and The Chosen One (Who has no name. He's just The Chosen One.) don't have as something seems to have gone wrong and is causing the appearance of vampire stoats in an few days away and we're not sure where they're coming from but this can't be good and we need to put a stop to this...

And Tiberius, who has only been Tiberius for a short while (his gave up his old name when he signed on to be the Chosen One's Assistant. Now he is Tiberius like all of the other assistants before him and all of the ones who will come after.) and he's still learning. And listen, there's a lot to this whole Tiberius thing. He's got to handle all of the chores and all of the healing, meet with people, pray a lot...

And there's no training period. He just has to learn everything all at once. With no real help, since the Chosen One is rather self centered and apparently not overly fond of breaking in a new Tiberius every two years. There is a bit of hostility there. 

It's awesome though, because it makes sense. There is a bit of drill sergeant to The Chosen One who doesn't always have time to screw around explaining things. He's a man of action. He kills things for a living. He makes good money doing it, as does Tiberius, but there is a lot to it.

Tiberius has a lot to do outside of cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. He's the one that's in charge of anything academic. He has to research the route to travel, research the threat once they get there, etc. He also has to meet with the townspeople to coordinate the big party when they get there and to figure out where to stay and whatever else. Tiberius works harder than I do and that's saying something. I respect this character. 

I respect the Chosen One too because, although he can be a bit arrogant at times, he is a true hero and he cares. He doesn't just face down threats for the glory or the loot. He does it to protect the people he serves. He does it because he is indeed the Chosen One and it is his duty.

He's also a goofball. There is some serious humor in this book and it comes from the Chosen One more or less wimping out. This is where the book is the most like the song, which was a comedy tune about how badly life sucked for the Chosen One's Assistant (he's not referred to as Tiberius in the song.) There's nothing here that you would have to read the book to get per se, but if you've listened to the song a few times (like I told you to earlier) then it goes from hilariously funny to "Oops, I think I dislocated a rib laughing at that one. Bonus points if you listen to the song after you read the book and realize all the stuff you missed the first time and start laughing all over again. 

The Chosen One is also a man of faith. Now, it's not a real world religion. Grey created a fantasy pantheon which she has done a fairly decent job of fleshing out and assigning roles to. There aren't a whole lot of interactions directly with gods, but I like what I see so far. I wouldn't mind seeing more about both the gods and their servants, but there are more books coming, so I guess I'll have to wait. 

But it's the actual exploration of faith in the book that has me hooked. Pretty much every fantasy universe has its pantheon. Most even have clerics or paladins. Very few (The Chosen One's Assistant and R.A. Salvatore's The Cleric Quintet are all that come to mind in High Fantasy. Declan Finn's St Tommy NYPD series is an urban fantasy that shows faith as well but that's about all that I've got in the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy literature.) that actually show acts of faith. Not just praying, but believing and trusting in the god you serve to see you through whatever it is that you're going through. There is strength in faith in the real world and for the Chosen One. Tiberius is working on his. I love the Chosen One's belief and his act of sharing it with others. That's not to say that this is a preachy book. It merely shows the champion and his faith and how he shares it with others to encourage them. Major Kira would be proud. 

There are some really awesome action sequences in the book, too. Tiberius isn't really up to snuff with all of this hand to hand combat stuff, but he's got balls. Big brass ones. I don't think I'd want to go into combat armed with the level of knowledge Tiberius has. I mean, it's good to have a dagger but it's better if you know how to use it properly. The Chosen One is, of course, a badass. Except when he's not. Nice foot guy. But, for the most part, the Chosen One can deliver a beatdown like few others. 

Grey's worldbuilding is first rate as well. She's got a good grasp of what is needed to make a fantasy town work and how trails worked in the Medieval world. She throws in just enough gut wrenching awful to make the totally awesome work even better and I like that about her. This is the first of her books that I've read, but it won't be the last. 

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Cramped Toes

The Chosen One's Assistant
Kimber Grey
Greywhisper Graphics Productions, 2022

The Chosen One's Assistant is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

The Chosen One's Assistant