Dyrk Ashton has a fast paced fantasy here with complex mythology, ancient powers, and powerful demigods with cell phones…
Unique and original, this urban fantasy is a spendid combination of ancient mythology and non-stop action. The entire story in book one, takes place in a mere 24 hours of our time, yet covers millennia of ancient mythogical lore and history. Creatively constructed chapters move the reader through to different locations, and different characters who are simultaneously either carrying out their nefarious parts of a sinister plan, or simply running for their lives. The deceptively simple beginnings may lead you to believe that you’re reading a YA fantasy, but don’t be misled. When the seemingly ordinary lives of two hospital volunteers are literally torn apart, you will find yourself on a rollercoaster of impossiblities, danger, and violence.
Ashton has skillfully interwined the long histories of the Firstborn into the story arc, their many names, the places they’ve originated, and those they have loved and lost in the cataclysms of a recurring cycle of war between immortals. The amount of research done for this book is amazing and really gives the reader a good feel for the complexity of the lives of these immortal beings.
The storyline is compelling and the characters are complex, highly imagined, and brought to life so well you will empathize, and shudder in turns. Telling the tale of the ancient immortal gods, their rise and fall over millions of years, and their connections to the All-father himself. The ancient cataclysms and holocaust, doomed to repetition, of their immortal kind, combined with two young modern-day protaganists that find themselves embroiled in an ancient rebellion, makes for an exciting, brutal, yet touching read. A semifinalist in Self Published Fantasy Blog Off 2, you will find a growing fanbase building for Paternus. Word is spreading and Ashton took the bold move to redesign his cover and it is just brilliant. With a striking image of the firstborn Mahisha on the new one that really sets a more dangerous tone for this debut.
I highly recommend Paternus for those who love well written fantasy, a load of action, mythology, ancient powers, and powerful demigods with cell phones.
Even myths have legends. And not all legends are myth.
Synopsis:
When a local hospital is attacked by strange and frightening men, Fiona Patterson and Zeke Prisco save a catatonic old man named Peter–and find themselves running for their lives with creatures beyond imagination hounding their every step. With nowhere else to turn, they seek out Fi’s enigmatic Uncle Edgar. But the more their questions are answered, the more they discover that nothing is what it seems–not Peter, not Edgar, perhaps not even themselves. The gods and monsters, heroes and villains of lore–they’re real. And now they’ve come out of hiding to hunt their own. In order to survive, Fi and Zeke must join up with powerful allies against an ancient evil that’s been known by many names and feared by all. The final battle of the world’s oldest war has begun.
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You can also read a short piece from Paternus here. “Berserker” is a stand-alone short story framed as a “missing chapter” from Paternus, It tells of the time when one of the characters finally met his father, many centuries ago…
With the little humans dying around him, many at his own hands, Bödvar remembers craving with all his heart that vibrant thrill of life, sheer horror, excruciating agony, that genuine sense of impending doom. Then, in that very battle, his wish was nearly granted. A Scyth leader cried out, pointing off to the east. On the horizon, riding out of the pallid blotch of a weak watery sun, Bödvar saw a figure bedecked in a gleaming copper breastplate, racing toward them on an enormous pale-gray stallion. The beating of Bödvar’s heart nearly ceased. It was his father, he knew immediately, and the steed he rode the fiercest “horse” in all the worlds, the dreaded Sleipnir…
About the Author: Dyrk Ashton was born in Athens (Ohio, not Greece), on a chilly Halloween morning. He whiled away his adolescent years and teens in cornfields, woods, rivers, ditches and haymows, climbing trees, running along barn beams, riding, wrestling, soccering, fighting BB gun wars, reading Stuart Little, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, everything Verne, London, Kipling, White, Lewis, Doyle, Burroughs, Poe, Howard, Fleming, Lovecraft, Tolkein, Zelazny, and generally ignoring school — though he somehow managed excellent grades (except in Algebra, of course).
Grimmedian 
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