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Mike Shel
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Aching God (Iconoclasts Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Mike Shel (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 out of 5 stars 1,438 ratings
“CLOSER, MORTAL. YOU ARE HERE, FINALLY, TO FEED THE ACHING GOD…” The days of adventure are passed for Auric Manteo. Retired to the countryside and isolated with his scars and riches, he no longer delves into forbidden ruins seeking dark wisdom and treasure. But just as old nightmares begin plaguing his sleep, he receives an urgent summons back to that old life. To save his only daughter, he must return to the place of his greatest trauma: the haunted Barrowlands. Along with a group of inexperienced companions and an old soldier, he must confront the dangers of the ancient and wicked Djao civilization. He has survived fell beasts, insidious traps, and deadly hazards before. But how can he contend with the malice of a bloodthirsty living god? First volume in the dark fantasy trilogy Iconoclasts and a 2018 SPFBO finalist, Aching God is the debut novel by RPG adventure designer Mike Shel.
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  1. Book 1 of 3
    Iconoclasts
  2. Print length
    416 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    April 9, 2018
  6. File size
    4.9 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Great adventure fantasy with excellent world building." - Django Wexler, author of The Thousand Names

"If, like me, you like your books like you like your games: full of harrowing adventures, magic swords, cursed relics, and terribly hazardous dungeon-crawls, then this book is not to be missed." - Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld

"Well-crafted fantasy for adults...This is the novel that kids who played D&D 20 years ago deserve." - Alec Hutson, author of The Raveling Trilogy

"Bloody brilliant!" - Demi Harper, author of God of Gnomes & co-founder of The Fantasy Hive

"On the face of it this is a classic D&D-styled quest but really it's so much more. It's a wise, thoughtful exploration of what such experiences do to people, the prices they pay, how it breaks them down and then leaves them to decide whether they stay broken or somehow stand back up." - Phil Tucker, author of Chronicles of the Black Gate

"This novel was a pure joy from the first page to the last." - Cameron Scaggs, The Nerd Book Review

"I plan to devour the next volume as soon as it's released. Shel has created an intriguing world of high, epic fantasy that delivers on all fronts." - Adam Weller, Fantasy Book Review

"A thoroughly engrossing debut novel that I enjoyed immensely...it's certainly one of my favorite books of 2018. It feels like sword & sorcery Indiana Jones." - The Speculative Shelf

"This is the best quest-fantasy book I've read in a long time." - Songwind @ r/fantasy

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07C9DBKB6
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 9, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.9 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1985746152
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Book 1 of 3 ‏ : ‎ Iconoclasts
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,438 ratings

About the author

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Mike Shel

Mike Shel

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Author Website: www.mikeshel.com

Mike was born in Detroit and raised in Dearborn, Michigan, oldest of three boys, the son of a firefighter and homemaker. He has practiced as a psychotherapist for over 25 years. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife Tracy, son Leo, and dog Neko. Mike began freelancing for Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in 2010. He released his first novel, ACHING GOD, in 2018. Its sequel, SIN EATER, followed in 2019. IDOLS FALL is his third novel and completes the ICONOCLASTS trilogy. He is at work on several projects. Be patient.

Mike's short stories set in the ICONOCLASTS world can be found in two free fantasy anthologies, LOST LORE and HEROES WANTED.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,438 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find this dark fantasy novel to be an exciting adventure with well-developed characters and intriguing world-building. The writing is smooth and engaging, with one customer noting how it captures the dread of the created world spectacularly. Customers appreciate the pacing, with one describing it as moving forward with little downtime, and the mystery elements, particularly the unique take on trauma. They value the intelligent storytelling, with one review highlighting the detailed religious system, while another notes the comfortable familiarity of the world-building.

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ReadabilityCharacter developmentWriting qualityPacingDark fantasyIntelligenceMysteryFamiliarity
83 customers mention "Readability"80 positive3 negative

Customers find the book to be an exciting and fun adventure, with one customer noting it's an excellent D&D-style dungeon-crawler, while another describes it as an extremely well-paced dark fantasy.

"...each with a different skill set; there are monsters to slay and dungeons to explore; there are strange religions of differing morality; and it takes..." Read more

"...as well as deep, intriguing worldbuilding but Shel has produced the rare story that does both well. The world of Aching God is deep and detailed...." Read more

"...were interesting and distinct, the story epic, and the narrative clear and urgent. Packed with weird beasts, horrors, and foul magicks...." Read more

"...Mike Shel does a fantastic job with teasing out the story and adding layers to the world as the book progresses...." Read more

40 customers mention "Character development"38 positive2 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, with one review noting how each character has its own distinctive voice, and another highlighting how Mike uses iconic fantasy archetypes.

"...This is a horror novel, a story about post-traumatic stress, a character study, and a world-building opener that screams at more secrets and things..." Read more

"...might imagine that with deep worldbuilding and fascinating, well developed characters the plot took a back seat. That’s not the case here...." Read more

"...The characters were interesting and distinct, the story epic, and the narrative clear and urgent...." Read more

"...Its full of characters and personalities that all contribute something unique and he fleshes them out well and you really grow to care for the main..." Read more

32 customers mention "Writing quality"32 positive0 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, noting its well-crafted story and descriptive passages, with one customer highlighting how it captures the dread of the created world spectacularly.

"...However, Aching God, by virtue of Shel's ability with the written word and his talent for diving deep into a character’s psyche, is so much more..." Read more

"...The world of Aching God is deep and detailed...." Read more

"...This book is well written, it has the right pace and it managed to surprise me a few times. It's obvious how much time the author spent polishing it...." Read more

"...The book was very well written, and had plenty of twists and turns in the plot to keep it engaging enough, but I found that I had a very hard time..." Read more

14 customers mention "Pacing"14 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's pacing, describing it as well-paced and quick-moving, with one customer noting its page-turning intensity.

"...That’s not the case here. The plot and pacing are very well done, moving forward with little downtime and coming to a satisfying conclusion...." Read more

"...This book is well written, it has the right pace and it managed to surprise me a few times. It's obvious how much time the author spent polishing it...." Read more

"...Aching God is well paced, well written, and highly immersive...." Read more

"...It's fast paced, always dangerous, with really tight squeezes to escape from, the villains are really scary, and you are never bored...." Read more

13 customers mention "Dark fantasy"13 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the dark fantasy elements of the book, with one describing it as an excellent grim dark tale.

"...The result is a rich, textured, genuine approach to dark fantasy and the ways our horrors change us...." Read more

"...It's a dark and exciting read. The audiobook didn't let me down...." Read more

"...It is a thrilling, dark, cleverly written debut novel which deserves all the attention it can get. Read it people, because it's good!..." Read more

"...The dark themes and dynamic characters (to varying degrees) mean this never felt at all like a standard D&D adventure turned into a book...." Read more

10 customers mention "Intelligence"7 positive3 negative

Customers appreciate the book's intelligence, with one review highlighting its detailed religious system and complex mixture of simple and philosophical elements.

"...monsters to slay and dungeons to explore; there are strange religions of differing morality; and it takes its characters from one side of a map to..." Read more

"...The religious system is detailed, more so than many other fantasy novels, which is saying something as religion often plays an important role in..." Read more

"...order given, obeyed every law, fell into every trap and used no critical thinking skills...." Read more

"...She is kind, brave, intelligent and a bit of a rebel. I like that combination...." Read more

8 customers mention "Mystery"8 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the mystery elements of the book, particularly its unique take on trauma, and one customer notes how it creates genuine emotion and makes readers care about the characters' happiness.

"...This is a horror novel, a story about post-traumatic stress, a character study, and a world-building opener that screams at more secrets and things..." Read more

"...She is kind, brave, intelligent and a bit of a rebel. I like that combination...." Read more

"The good: engaging characters. You come to care about their happiness...." Read more

"...3. Event the non-combat scenes are layered with terror & genuine emotion...my first exposure to the Queen left me repulsed and terrified...." Read more

7 customers mention "Familiarity"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book familiar and comfortable to read, with one customer comparing it to sword and sorcery Indiana Jones, while another appreciates its down-to-earth feel.

"...about a father trying to do right by his kids (Agnes) that sits well with me and had me from the onset...." Read more

"...It feels like sword and sorcery Indiana Jones -- and I’m very here for that." Read more

"...+ Paced well + The final section is intense, claustrophobic, and thrilling...." Read more

"...The world feels comfortably familiar (especially to anyone familiar with dungeon-delving RPGs) but holds all kinds of wonderful new details, full of..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • A RobertsKindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Grim and Oddly Hopeful Tale
    Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2025
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    This book was recommended on a Reddit thread where the OP was ark by for books about aging protagonists. The title caught my eye and the blurb convinced me to try it. So glad I did. This is a failing empire. It's not the greed and pettiness of nobles or the threatened war with other nations spelling its demise. It's that the queen is possessed by a sly and petty god. A lesser god who seeks to elevate itself at the cost of as many mortal lives as it takes. This book is the opening act and I'm sure it will get even more intense in the next book. If you like empires entangled with gods and the nobility you'll love this book.
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  • David Stewart
    4.0 out of 5 stars I loved this dungeon crawler
    Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2019
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    The tendency to pigeonhole Aching God as a simple Dungeons and Dragons adventure is tempting (not that such efforts should be cast aside because many a good story has come from the table-top). Shel’s debut has all the trappings of a role-playing game: there is a band of adventurers, each with a different skill set; there are monsters to slay and dungeons to explore; there are strange religions of differing morality; and it takes its characters from one side of a map to another. This formula screams D&D. I would not be at all surprised to hear that Shel took his story from a well-run campaign - a very likely possibility given his Pathfinder work.

    However, Aching God, by virtue of Shel's ability with the written word and his talent for diving deep into a character’s psyche, is so much more than a game set to the page. This is a horror novel, a story about post-traumatic stress, a character study, and a world-building opener that screams at more secrets and things to come. Aching God does what some of the best fantasy in the history of the genre does in its ability to flesh out a map and trickle in enough information to keep a reader wondering with every flip of the page. Aching God is really, really good.

    The story finds an aging Auric Manteo, retired from the Syraeic League where he drew his fame and fortune, once more thrust into the life of an adventurer when his daughter and her fellow compatriots in the League, are stricken with a mysterious plague. The source of this plague is an idol taken from an ancient tomb, the kind of thing Auric himself might have plundered in his younger days, and the scholars within the League (those yet alive) predict that the only thing to stop this plague is to restore the idol to its place of origin. Auric must, with a cadre of capable companions, journey to the Barrowlands, spelunk back into the horrifying crypt, and place the idol back into the statue from whence it was wrested.

    Sound familiar? The concept here is nothing new, but we don’t always need something new in our fantasy - Nicholas Eames proved that with his genre-shaking debut Kings Of The Wyld. Sometimes the oldest stories, if told with a twist and told well, can be fantastic.

    What is Shel’s twist? He has a few. First, and most memorable, is the way in which he narrates Auric’s adventurous past. Auric did not retire because he had a nice long life and wanted to reap the rewards. Auric retired because his last foray into one of the Barrowlands’ dungeons saw his entire party slain and devoured before his very eyes. Shel does a masterful job of relaying Auric’s last journey, mostly through flashbacks or dreams, and the more we learn about that last fated adventure, the more we understand Auric’s motivations and his fears. Shel borrows notes from Lovecraft in his depictions of the Djao gods, deities once worshipped by an ancient race but that were cast down by the realm’s current pantheon. These are grotesque beings of indeterminable size or form. They toy with their victims in an eldritch manner, worming into the mind in order to use madness as a weapon. Shel shrouds all of this in that signature mystery often reserved for ruined ancient races.

    Shel also does a lovely job in his characterizations of the party. Of particular note is Auric’s companion Belech, an ex-soldier who accompanies the retired adventurer at the behest of the noble lady in whose realm Auric has retired. Belech is a complex mixture of simple man and unassuming scholar. He has faith, but is not preachy about it and seems to truly believe in the benevolence of his god. He’s also handy with a mace. Auric’s other companions are ones furnished him by the League, but they leave nearly as much of an impact. Sira is a priest whom Auric and Belech meet even before coming to the Syraeic League’s headquarters, and she becomes one of the most sympathetic and authentic characters in the novel. It is a testament to Shel’s character work that he is able to write characters with a spectrum of cynicism and optimism. Gnaeus, a young swordsman, is the consummate cynic and polar opposite of Sira, in much the same way that Auric and Belech lean towards opposite ends. Del Ogara, a happy sorceress, and Lumari, a cold alchemist, round out the balanced pairs in a way that is only noticeable upon later scrutiny. There are times when the characterization does not completely hold up, and a scene near the end in particular that tries to impart an emotional bombshell that is unearned, but for the most part I cared about these characters and wanted to see them succeed.

    The only part where Aching God falters is in its ending. Shel spends so much time working towards this confrontation with the unknown Aching God, and then when things finally reach that head, it turns out to be a disappointment. I both understand and lament this. This is the first novel in a series. Robert Jordan couldn’t end The Eye of the World with Rand confronting and defeating Shai’tan. Neither can Shel simply have his characters meet the world’s biggest bad and stick a sword in him. But where Jordan succeeds and Shel fails, to use the prior analogy, is that Jordan casts a wider net with his villains. Shel makes mention of something more out there, but not until the very end, and the entire novel is spent working solely towards this one unfathomable creature. The way in which this is told, it feels like Rand is making his way to the Dark One, to further push that comparison, and when he gets there he finds that the Dark One isn’t very dark at all. I feel that this will be fleshed out in the sequel, certainly, but it makes for a mostly unsatisfying conclusion to what is an incredible journey.

    I don’t know if Mike Shel will win the SPFBO. This is my favorite book so far in the competition, but I suspect others might find less depth than I have and see it as more of a simple role-playing game-style adventure. I hope people take the time to read more into the story than what’s on the surface because I do think this is an excellent book, and I expect to stay with Mike Shel for a long while.
    16 people found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Atmosphere
    Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2024
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    My October/November reading pace has been slooooww but this was the greatest book to brave it with.

    Imagine a world where the old beings (Gods? Demons? Monsters?) have passed on to leave their temples and barrows full of forbidden relics and artifacts, devices that, in some cases, continue to wreak havoc on the wider world.

    Such is the dilemma here, requiring a crew to assemble and meet the threat of a terrible plague which might be linked to a catastrophic expedition years past, an expedition which was supposed to seal the evil belowground. Unfortunately, evil rarely stays buried in dark fantasy, and this novel proves no exception.

    I could describe the characters and magic to you, but what really got me was the atmosphere. It was the perfect read for spooky season, equal parts creepy and shocking. There's blood, guts, walking corpses and graphic endings. Simultaneously, there's an overwhelming sense of unease, dread, and the unsettling perspective that something is creeping right behind our protagonists, an eldritch awareness I couldn't get enough of.

    I have the privilege of knowing Shel in real life, and I know he writes from a lifetime of experience in the mental health industry. When he depicts post-traumatic stress, I know he does it justice. When he writes regret, shame, and fear, I know he analyzes those all day long. The result is a rich, textured, genuine approach to dark fantasy and the ways our horrors change us.

    I truly couldn't get enough of this book, and I am eager to eventually read the rest of his series. If you need something thought-provoking, snarky, gritty, or plain unsettling, I recommend you try this one.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Rohan
    5.0 out of 5 stars What a read !!
    Reviewed in India on April 3, 2020
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Best book i have read this year. The story , the characters , and the pace were really brilliant.
    I really liked the writing style and intricate world building..
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  • J Lockwood
    5.0 out of 5 stars So good
    Reviewed in Canada on September 22, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This is one of the best fantasy books I've read in a very long time.

    And having a PTSD diagnosis myself, Auric was relatable at a level I've never experienced.

    I can't recommend this book enough.
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  • Fujin
    5.0 out of 5 stars Super Fantasy Geschichte und gute Inspiration für D&D Abenteuer.
    Reviewed in Germany on November 15, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Mir hat das Buch sehr gut gefallen.
    Ein richtig schöner Dungeoncrawler.
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  • E. Schofield
    5.0 out of 5 stars A unique concept executed excellently.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 5, 2019
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    It isn't hard to come up with a fantasy world where people cast spells and fight evil. For this reason alone the Aching God should be celebrated.
    The syraeic league function a lot like magical archaeologists (though most of them aren't magic) and the world they inhabit and the dangers they face are almost as fascinating as the methods they utilise to deal with them.
    The world never stops being believable which is in large part due to its solid characters, the main few being a step above side characters who are themselves on the same plane as main characters from other books.
    The story is great and I couldn't predict it.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
    Reviewed in Australia on December 8, 2020
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    So many things to love about this one. First off, the author really builds an atmosphere of dread throughout the story that it reminds me of some horror novels I've read. The characters have depth and nobody is perfect and you are never sure anybody is going to survive. there's plenty more to like, I highly recommend it.
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