The World Maker Parable

Adjacent Monsters, Book 1

Guilt will always call you back...

Rhona is a faithful servant of the country Jémoon and a woman in love. Everything changes when her beloved sets the ravenous Vulture goddess loose upon the land. Forced to execute the woman she loves for committing treason, Rhona discovers a profound correlation between morality and truth. A connection that might save her people or annihilate them all.

You are a lie..

Varésh Lúm-talé is many things, most of all a genocidal liar. A falsity searching for the Phoenix goddess whom he believes can help him rectify his atrocities. Such an undertaking is an arduous one for a man with missing memories and a conscience set on rending him from inside out. A man whose journey leads to Hang-Dead Forest and a meeting with a Vulture goddess who is not entirely as she seems.

©2020 Luke Tarzian (P)2025 Luke Tarzian

Poetic & Pulse Pounding

I'm gonna re listen to this actually, and give my full thoughts after. I loves the descriptive, nightmightarish world being build here. The characters seem solid, raw and emotional. Great dialogue, great audio performance, super great prose. I'm a bit confused but I get that in kinda supposed to be. Def gonna check out more of whatever this was.

An emotional performance of a dark mind melting story

Performance was amazing! She did so good. Story had incredible prose. Be warned this story was designed to be something that makes you think and reflect. It can be tough to follow. If you like poetry please check this out.

Psychological brilliance

I got a taste for Tarzian’s writing already, with his, A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell where he weaves a whimsically tragic story, that’s a metaphorical autobiography. So I went into this knowing what was ahead of me, but that still paled in comparison to what was on these pages. Where A Cup of Tea was whimsy, The World Maker Parable is a slow psychological horror that will push readers to their limit, reflecting over its themes of mental health and the human psyche. While this is such a dark and brooding novel, there’s still beauty within, and that beauty starts with Tarzian’s, elegant prose. No matter the intensity of the scene, the sentences are so smooth and impactful, just flowing with an unforgettable touch, that remind me of Neil Gaiman and the king of macabre, Edgar Allen Poe.

“Perception is fickle, dangerously so. Often times we see things as we wish they were; we see ourselves as something we are not. We dream to run from what we fear—but the truth is never far behind. The guilt will always call you back.”

I saw Tarzian say that this book “examines the consequences of nationalism and is a loose interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s, The Inferno,” which describes going through the nine circles of hell and the torments people experience, and I think he nails that narrative of this story, to a tee. What he was able to get into a 166 page novella is incredible, because the characters are all deeply flawed and it’s what drives the story to its deep dark depths, but the slow methodical pacing makes the darkness feel even more profound. There’s so much to unpack within the pages of this novel, but one thing is for sure, you better be ready to be emotionally devastated by the time this novella ends.

On top of that, he found the perfect narrator for his story in Teagan Walsh-Davis. Her performance floored me, pulling me deeper into the emotional ties and the psychological warfare of the mind that Tarzian twists into the fabric of our very being. Walsh-Davis brought the elegance to Tarzian’s eloquence, amplifying the story’s haunting resonance.

I enjoyed the performance it was very well done

I enjoyed the style of writing and reminded me of great works I enjoyed over the years. Look forward to what else Luke has coming next

Introspective psychological warfare

I received a free copy of the audiobook from the author, so thank you to him for the opportunity to experience this story. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is probably one of the hardest books I’ve ever had to review. It’s extremely unique. I’m also going to lightly mark this as spoiler-ish, not because I’m giving anything major away, but because I genuinely don’t know how to talk about this book without touching on the experience of it…. so with that in mind, read the rest of this at your own risk.

I started this on audio, and the narrator did a fantastic job, but the audio quality was a bit off, so I ended up rereading it as an ebook so I could fully immerse myself and take time with it without distraction. This is not a story you can passively listen to, it really requires your full attention… at least for me.

This is a novella, and from my understanding a prequel, and while it’s short, it carries a surprising amount of weight. Not a lot of novellas linger the way this one does, but this one absolutely did for me.

It’s a deeply introspective story. It’s not gonna give you that traditional plot but more like being dropped into someone’s mind, or maybe even their conscience. There’s a strong thread of grief, guilt, and consequence running throughout. It almost feels cyclical, like reliving your mistakes over and over again and being forced to sit with the impact of those choices, not just on yourself, but on everyone around you. There’s also this underlying tension of selfishness and the pursuit of power, and how those choices shape everything that follows.

At times, it almost felt like psychological warfare in the way it forces you to confront those choices and the lies we tell ourselves to live with them, and how far we are willing to go to keep those lies hidden. It gave me Inception-like vibes, layered, disorienting, and not always easy to follow, but that felt exactly the point.

I was definitely confused sometimes while reading this, but not in a way that made me want to stop. If anything, it made me lean in more and try to understand what it was trying to do or say. Everything in this story feels intentional, even the way it’s delivered… almost hauntingly so.

At the end of the day, this is a book that really got me thinking. I kept coming back to the idea of the lies we tell ourselves to live with our choices, and the realization that you can’t escape them, you’re forced to face them and own what you’ve done. It’s unsettling, but also powerful in the way it stays with you.