A Better Man

Egil and Nix #2.5

by Paul S. Kemp

"A Better Man" was published in the anthology Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues.

About this story, author Paul S. Kemp says, "Egil and Nix feature in my sword and sorcery novels, The Hammer and the Blade, A Discourse in Steel, and A Conversation in Blood. Their stories are pacy, filled with action and wit (I hope). I think of them as a cross of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, spiced with a bit of Conan and Indiana Jones. I hope you enjoy listening to their stories as much as I do writing them."

"A Better Man" takes place after the events of A Discourse in Steel, though it is entirely stand-alone.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Audiobook, Short Stories, Sword and Sorcery, Humor

Audiobook

First published August 25, 2015

About the author

Bestselling speculative fiction author, creator of Egil and Nix, Erevis Cale, drinker of scotch, smoker of cigars, amiable dude. :-)

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast paced story of a pair of thieves who are hired to protect a wizard, but they find out things are more complicated.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review of Paul S. Kemp's most recent Egil and Nix novel, A Conversation In Blood.

A fun little vignette of Egil And Nix, on one of their odd jobs and adventures. Some plot twists, lots of humor, and all of the wit I look for in the buddy-rogue style S&S. I actually love this kind of thing - I've waxed poetic many times about the virtues of 'in world' novellas, and how much these 'fill in' pieces can immerse me into the story, and give me MORE of the characters I want and love, without having to push further into the story arc than the author is ready to. This is just one of those - short, sweet, but everything I want it to be.

I could read an entire book of these short stories, these contained missions of Egil and Nix doing their thing, without the weight of the story and all that drama. As it is, this was a nice update and a nice change of pace.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

[Bogdan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our couple of friends are hired to do a job, but not all it`s what it`s seems at the first glance.

I really do hope to see more short stories about these characters in the near future!

Highly underrated writer!

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Egil and Nix. That's all you need to know.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 SHort and sweet!!! Give me more

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in the anthology "Blackguards", edited by J. M. Martin. This was a lot of fun!

[Rhonda Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was another fun story with Egil and Nix. I think he did a good job of throwing the characters into a short story, and I find it easy to imagine that little adventures like these are daily life for the two of them. I'm looking forward to reading more stories in the Blackguards anthology.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't often listen to straight up audio stories. I prefer the full cast audio dramas, the kind with sound effects, a full soundtrack, etc. So, I'm near a novice at listening to a plain reader read a short story as done here. I think it was pretty well done. American accent. The reader used very distinctive voices for each of the several characters.

As for the story itself, it's not on par with the Egil and Nix novels but it's fine. It does slightly reference events from the second novel.

[Faith Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

These anthologies are great. I'm hooked on Egil and Nix.