So long, but so worth it!

This series has been on my list for some time, but my actual reading time is so limited. When it came to audio I was super happy.

Michael is a complete wiz at weaving stories in and around characters that have amazing depth and motivation.

What starts off pretty slow build till you actually can't stop listening... there's good back story woven in, crafting (a must for anyone who loves litrpg) and intense action.

The 18 hours totally whizzed past me, and I wanted more. I know this series is a huge one, and I seriously hope that Tristan keeps with it because he was a great choice as far as voice and tone go. I'd not listened to Tristan before, but the tone and voices he had for each character, especially Dave were great. The sarcastic and then funny side to him just had me laughing while driving. Some parts I literally was on the edge of my seat. A total joy to the ears, and it made the book go so much quicker. I believe Michael and Tristan nailed this one, and I'm so excited for more.

Now for some deeper thoughts.

As I said the plot itself was slow to get going, I do admit that there were some word choices and lengthy sentences that even made me think twice about the meaning, but it really didn't detract from the story.

Dave is a very interesting character, from a big company to the game he wants to play it's totally opposite to his usual life and it's relaxing and interesting. The game mechanics aren't hard to follow and they develop nicely along the way, of course, there are some huge things for Dave to learn and to develop but he does so at a good pace. It's not over the top for me even though he does develop some interesting items and skills.

Overall this is good start to a series of over 7 books and I do believe he has more on the go! the man is insane.... can't wait for the next one on audio :)

13 people found this helpful

Enjoyable fantasy twist on 'the Matrix'

I generally don't like books that tend towards the litrpg style, so I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this one, most of the time you could pretty much tune out the recitation of stats and simply enjoy a basic fantasy novel with a likable cast of characters.

When we meet the main character he is a rich CEO of a company on Earth who decides to play the virtual reality game Emerilia to get away from the stresses of real life, but over time while he is in the 'game' he learns that it is actually Earth that is the simulation and that in-game is actually the real world and a real world where humanity is not in charge.

The book follows his progress both from the perspective of his stats as a character growing and his personal as a real person in that 'game', culminating in a final battle that is obviously framed in the manner of a raid in an mmo.

The narrator gave a good performance overall, with Dave and the main supporting cast all sounding suitably distinctive without resorting to cliche too much with the wide array of dwarves and elves either.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and the narration and will be interested in hearing more of this series in the future.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

9 people found this helpful

Great story needed proof reading

Would you listen to another book narrated by Tristan Morris?
Yes

Any additional comments?
I really enjoyed the world, characters and game mechanics of this story but there were two problems that almost made me quit reading early on. This almost feels like an early draft with lots of inconsistencies throughout creating the impression that the author was changing their mind about how they wanted things to happen. For example the main character discovered the same levelling mechanic for the first time on multiple different occasions. There were also grammar mistakes that changed the meaning of a sentence to the opposite of what had obviously been intended.

Despite this I'm still giving it 4 stars and I felt it improved as it went on. I'm mainly posting this to encourage people not to be put off by these problems.

Edit: Sadly I ended up dropping this series. Later books spend more and more time on long drawn battles that are not that interesting individually, let alone one after another.

4 people found this helpful

Just plain bad

Great premise, but it's so badly written...
Whole paragraphs seem to have been ripped from Aleron Kong's Chaos Seed books, without understanding why he wrote then in the first place.
Just a pale imitation.
Avoid!
Can I get my money back!!!

3 people found this helpful

An amazing twist on LitRPG. Loved this book.

This is a fantastic twist on the LitRPG genre. It provided a wonderful basis to truly explore the story and characters. I think that the characters were well developed and crafted to add balance to the groups.

The story rolls along nicely never feeling slow or strained. It provides some lovely twists and grows as you move through building to a crescendo.

I loved the twist right at the end to give a gateway to the follow up book.

The narration was spot on providing in depth characters and distinctive throughout.
You never tire of listening to the narrator and you feel completely immersed throughout.

In summation a fantastic book giving a good intro to LitRPG or just a great fantasy book.
If you are already into LitRPG then this is a bit of a twist on the normal telling and adds a slightly different component.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily provided this impartial review.

2 people found this helpful

So very bored...

I tried to give this a fair go but after 5 hours I was just unbelievably bored. I mean, the only real major plot point that was uncovered during FIVE HOURS was was nature of the virtual world. And that ought to have been a surprise and an emotional event, not just "Ah, yes, OK."

1 person found this helpful

Slow Burner

This isn't a bad story although it borrows heavily from Tolkien and Peter Jackson.
The text is repetitive in places and the narrator sometimes misses context, but overall I enjoyed it.

1 person found this helpful

Great book,

This was a great story, great idea, well written and brilliantly read by Tristan Morris.

I would happily listen to the other books in the series if read by the same narrator

This audiobook was given by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review via Audiobook Boom.

1 person found this helpful

Kool book

It’s a good story only bad thing is the fcking skill dialogues there so annoying 😡

Erratic

It's entertaining enough if you want some LitRPG to pass the time, but this isn't a high quality story. The dialogue is often forced, the characterisation is average and story jumps around a lot.

It has good ideas worth exploring, but beyond the exploration of ideas and a little badassery, this reads like a first draft. The story goes exactly in the direction you'd expect, so there are no nasty surprises at least. I finished the whole 11-book series, so I know how little this story improves.

The characters are vehicles for the author to dump information, sometimes redundantly. Lots of out of character monologues or fawning over whichever character the author wants to look good at any given time. The author tries to flesh out his characters, but he doesn't understand temperaments or individual lexicons.

There's definitely some variation, but most of the time most of the characters are indistinguishable from each other, aside from some decent accents. But hey, at least they're all mature so there's no unnecessary drama. Or very little of it.

The world building is.. how to put it... Thorough and shallow. The author worked a lot on creating a world, but while most of it is relatively interesting, you can't help but see the cracks and stains on the big picture. Things which make no sense, but which deliver the story the author wants to tell. It can be a bit jarring. The story spends a lot of time explaining the obvious, but anything that sounds dumb is for you to figure out. I won't spoil the story, so you'll need to take my word for it. Lots of apparent holes in how this world works. If you squint, you can pretend it all makes sense.

And the fights.. too many pointless fights that deliver nothing and take multiple chapters. Some have a purpose, but you could basically sleep through most of them and not miss much. (Don't though because a few are very relevant to the plot.)

So, pros: mature characters, occasional badassery, ((very) eventual) rebellion against tyranny. Cons: too many books for what actually happens, too many distractions, cardboard characters, abysmal wording and sentences, ankle-deep plot, and you'll also strain your eyes from rolling them too much.

And another pro: I now have a library of some of the most idiotic things ever said in any story I've ever listened to, and I've listened to hundreds, though I may have been more selective in the past.