The Reluctant Dungeon cover art

The Reluctant Dungeon

Monster Haven, Book 1

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

€0.00/month for the first 3 months
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Reluctant Dungeon

By: J.D. Astra
Narrated by: Judy Alice Lee
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £11.99

Buy Now for £11.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Transforming into a monstrous dungeon couldn’t be all that bad, right?

Dolli had a very hands-off approach to ruling her once booming village. She preferred to use her alchemical skills to brew a nice cup of tea and keep whiny petitioners off her lawn with Wendigo repellant. But she pays the price for her apathy when her neglected village transforms into a Dungeon, making it fair game for any Hero with a lust for loot.

It doesn't take long for one such Hero from Dolli’s dark past, Keegan Plague Ender, to arrive with his sword ready to be bloodied. The villagers are evolving into powerful Dungeon denizens who can respawn if they're killed—or they could if a mated pair of wyverns hadn't turned the seat of the dungeon core into a brood nest. Now, with one swipe of the Hero's blade, the former townsfolk could be lost to the Lifestream forever.

Despite her curmudgeonly nature, Dolli can't let that happen. Can she rebuild the confidence of her people to roust the wyverns and reinstate respawns? Even if she can, will the young Dungeon hold out against the storm of raiding Heroes?

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Shadow Alley Press Inc (P)2022 Audible, Inc. Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Village Dragons

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Dungeon That Walks Like a Man cover art
Ember Mage cover art
Dungeon Engineer cover art
Re-Roll: A LitRPG Adventure cover art
Virgil's Pact cover art
Fragment of Divinity cover art
Dungeon Heart cover art
Path to Villainy cover art
Unbound cover art
Dissonance cover art
Sufficiently Advanced Magic cover art
Rogue Dungeon: A litRPG Adventure cover art
The First Blade of Ostia cover art
Unsouled cover art
A Warrior's Path cover art
Ascendant cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Pretty good story, not a master piece but it doesn't aim to be one. It delivers what it promises.

I would have liked to hear it without the sounds effect though, and every time an ability is used it went back to menu voice, which to me was distracting, but still, I did enjoy it

Good short book to keep you distracted

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
has its own quirky concept on a well loved genre. decent performance, things like stats didn't over take the story. Well written. on my second go of listening to these 3 books and really liking the step away from the tiered concepts normally used in dungeon core stories and twisting them into something much more enjoyable.

interesting twist on the dungeon concept

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If your buying this book for the battles and city building then sure it’s great lack’s a little on the story side (but expected for a 4 hour book) if I had to give the story 1/10 I’d give it a 4 narrator was great though suited the characters perfectly only issue i have is it feels like the author has never played a video game in there life small issue tho

What you expect

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Reluctant Dungeon introduces us to a small backwater town of NPCs in a gaming world, in the immediate aftermath of a plague event. The town and its reluctant leader, witch Dolli, had to reach out to gamers (heroes) in order to survive the plague. Due to her refusal to honour their quest rewards, and dwindling visitor numbers, the village is transformed into a dungeon, and it’s people into monsters. The focus on NPCs as the main characters and the villagers’ vague knowledge of the game world and the heroes’ purposes is a refreshing take on the genre. Dolli has to try and get her angry villagers back on side to take control of the dungeon and protect it from heroes and a mating pair of wyverns. The story is one of alliances, betrayal, redemption and coming together for the common good.
One of the best aspects of the audio? No lengthy stat dumps to read through, a companion pdf is available to read when prompted if you want to.

Great NPC focused LitRPG

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really good book looking at a npc view to dungeons and dragons

does rely on knowledge and basic understanding of dungeons and dragons, but gives a really good account of how works, really enjoyed

d and d viewpoint from npc

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This review covers all three books, as they’re so short they can all easily be listened to in a small space of time.

I starting listening to the first book, as it’s free with a subscription and I was waiting for my next credit for another book in the same genre.

Positives:
- As others have said, the focus on NPCs is original and it is interesting to see the point of view of the people who you wouldn’t usually think about much.
- The narrator has a good variation of voices and you can easily tell which character is speaking at any one time.
- Each book has its own story and although they follow on from one another, I felt that a satisfying conclusion is met at the end of every book.

Negatives:
- Based on the length and lack of vocabulary, I assume this is aimed at a younger audience. That’s ok if you are part of that crowd, but unfortunately, I’m not.
- I didn’t feel invested in the characters, as there wasn’t really any character development. At all. The only ambition the main character had was to sit and have a cup of tea. I like tea too, but I wouldn’t say that tea defines me (even though I am British!).
- There were some descriptions of the environment, but this could have been explored in a lot more detail. To add to not caring about the characters, I also didn’t feel fully absorbed in where the events were taking place.
- Most of the time the characters can respawn after dying and because of this, there wasn’t really any doubt about if anyone was going to survive, because it was impossible not to. Despite this, the characters (especially the main character) was desperate to live and many situations could have been escaped by just suiciding.
- I felt like the action scenes weren’t in a great amount of detail and I ended up getting bored. Also, the same spells were used in all situations. Usually when I miss a few words in a book I end up skipping back to hear what I missed, but the same can’t be said for these books.
- Although the narrator had a good range of voices, there were a few poorly pronounced words with English accents at least and she could sometimes be a bit ‘breathy’.
- I don’t know if it’s just me, but the elf accents were very irritating.
- when each spell was spoken in the middle of an action scene and mid-sentence, it took me out of the experience, as it’s spoken in a monotone voice.

If it weren’t for all of the books being free, I would have definitely stopped after the first book. Book 2 and 3 were slightly better, but I still would not recommend. Having said that, if you listen to the first book and like it, then go for the trilogy!

Good to kill some time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
while this story is certainly short, It has a way of holding your interest a great read

a short but captivating story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Do you like listening to stat blocks and ability descriptions? This book might be for you.
I can normally tolerate a bit of that, but when I was 2h into the book and maybe 2 or 3 things had actually happened, I gave up.

Too much RPG, not enough lit

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.