Kings of Fortune

Leon Zylo has a pretty normal life. He has a job he tolerates, a girlfriend he loves, and an apartment that isn’t great but isn’t wonderful either. Overall, he’s pretty content, and it even looks like things are about to change for the better. His girlfriend rejects his marriage proposal, but she does offer to move in with him to see how things work out that way. Then, the next morning, a strange man arrives at his door, and tells him he has twenty-four hours before a group of assassins called the Baya will hunt him down and kill him. From there, the book becomes a fast-paced, action-packed adventure, filled with memorable characters and jaw-dropping scenery. Leon struggles to fight for his life, and learn why exactly he was chosen to be killed by assassins, when he’s done nothing wrong. In the process, he gains a deeper understanding of who he truly is, something he never bothered to learn before his life changed.

Kings of Fortune is lots of fun to read, and the narration provides a few delightfully sarcastic moments that never feel as though the book is trying too hard to be funny. The only complaints I had with it were that the pacing felt slightly strange, and when the exposition wasn’t about the setting, it felt a little unwieldy, but those are both easy to overlook once you get into the story, and it’s a very easy story to get into. From the first few chapters, I was hooked, first by the fascinating setting (Fortune City is a near-future multicultural city, and both of those elements come across very well without being heavy-handed), and then by the action, and Leon’s desperation to survive. This book would most likely appeal to anime fans, but I think anyone who enjoys science fiction full of combat and quips will enjoy it.