LitRPG Audiobook Podcast 075 -Critical Failures IV, Tower of Ruin, Delvers LLC: Golden Handcuffs

“Hello everyone. Welcome to the LitRPG Audiobook Podcast. I’m Ray. I’ll be reviewing some recent and classic LitRPG Audiobooks for you. I’ll begin with: ”

Critical Failures IV: The Phantom Pinas (01:03)

Score: 6.5 out of 10

https://amzn.to/3swePvk

Tower of Ruin: Volume I (14:56)

Score: 8.2 out of 10

https://amzn.to/3mZuXEB

Soundbooth Spotlight

Delvers LLC: Golden Handcuffs (22:56)

Score: 7.6 out of 10

https://amzn.to/3mYi3Xu

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Critical Failures IV: The Phantom Pinas

Caverns and Creatures, Book 4

By: Robert Bevan

Narrated by: Jonathan Sleep

Series: Caverns and Creatures, Book 4

Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins

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This is going to be a series review up to book four. Have reviewed other books in the series, but I’m going to talk about the over all arch and my thoughts on why I am done with this series in general.

Bevan starts of with one of my favorite concepts. Gamers sucked into their gaming world. They inhabit the bodies of their characters, but keep their minds as players. There is an evil DM who they have to outwit, and the perils of the new world that is a combo of the player’s disbelief in where they are to the machinations of the nerdy DM.

Premise and initial novel were great, and who doesn’t like an orc that craps himself everytime he turns around? Third book actually has a pretty cool vampire subplot, and the heroes figure out a way back home, before inevitably going back to where they came from with some other folks in tow.

The problem is the series went from humorous to, and God forgive me for using this phrase, utterly cringe. I don’t even know if I’m using that term correctly, but I cringed throughout most of book 4. The short jokes, the poop jokes, the gay jokes are nothing new, and there were points where it just felt super forced an completely unfunny. I actually stopped halfway through book 4 and let it sit for a long time before coming back to it in the hopes that I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind, but no.

What happened? What changed? First of all, the humor remained the same juvenile bunch of fart jokes without the humor. Kinda like how Stephen King does nothing but write novels around characters who pick boogers and bottles farts and adding in monsters or whatever. His stuff isn’t funny and neither is Bevan’s after the 7,000th time Horse is used.

What else? The characters all of them, literally become dumber in this book. Maybe dimension hopping adversely affects brains, but no one acts like that have a bit of sense in their heads in this book. The only interesting part was the invention of a new god. Had I read this it would have felt like I had scrubbed my eyes with sandpaper, having listened to it it felt like I cleaned out my ears with a sewing needle.

That wasn’t the fault of Jonathan Sleep, though. He is the one bright spot, and he does his best to make this book work. Too bad Bevan does nothing to help him succeed.

Honestly, I’m done with the series, and you want to know the bad part? I have all the short story audiobooks and up to book 6, because I grabbed them all waaaaay back when I first read book one and have been parsing them out. And I will never finish them, and I have had them so long I can’t even turn them in for a refund, not that I would. I bought them, and I’m stuck with them. It’s on me for being so foolish.

Up until now this series was a solid seven and a half, but this book is a 6.5. I didn’t enjoy, but you might, and I know the series has some staunch fans, so someone has to like it but I am through with uninspired and unoriginal “humor”. You want funny, get Noobtown or the Good/Bad guys series. You’ll be happier. 6.5 stars.

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Tower of Ruin: Volume I

By: Wolfe Locke

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Series: Pandemonium - Afterlife, Book 1

Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins

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My biggest complaint is that this book is far too short, and I mean that in you are left wanting so much more. IN that sense, I suppose it reminds me of the Luck Stat Strategy by Blaise Corvin, as that too was a concise but impactful novel.

The book is a tower climb novel, so fans of that subgenre will rejoice and it is also one of those sort of time travel back to the start novels that seems to get paired up with tower climbing. Basically, the MC exists in a tower that resets you when you die, but you start out completely new. The MC, Daniel, gets to keep his memory and gets a cool weapon when he goes back and has a chance to make changes and a difference, the problem is the tower has overseers and they were unstoppable the first time around, so if you couldn’t stop them the first time how do you do it the second time?

The novel isn’t perfect, there is a mass of characters who are introduced but seem to be for something else down the line as they kind of just show up to show up. Fans of crunch might be in for a let down as the book isn’t packed with stats, but it still works just fine the way it is.

The book is a quick wild ride packed with action, gods, evil gods, and lots of climbing. Daniel is rather likable, even though he lacks people skills, or leadership skills, not sure how to best put it. Let’s just say he tries his damnedest. I love the concept, and as a horror fan I can appreciate everything that Daniel has to go through. It is pretty brutal, but simultaneously cool as hell.

Again, here’s another Travis Baldree book! What can I say, I love the guy. He really gets into it and does one literal hell of a job doing his voices. He is a great fit for this story, and he does one heck of a job creating auditory illustrations.

Kind of a short review, but the book is just four hours long, more of a novella really, but it is so worth the time. I’m hoping the next installment will be a lot longer. I know I’m only doing three books this week, but this is easily the best of the bunch. It's more like a short quick jab that does the job in one shot rather than a prolonged beating that gets bloody but does nothing more than get blood on the carpet. It knocks you out and moves on. There’s a lot of fun in those four hours.

Final score 8.2 stars. The writing and narraction, yes Narraction! Meld together for a fun burst of freshness. Don’t miss out on the fun, fights, and fury of the Tower of Ruin.

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Delvers LLC: Golden Handcuffs

By: Blaise Corvin

Narrated by: Jeff Hays

Series: Delvers LLC, Book 4

Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins

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All right. I’m going to preface this by saying that I love Blaise Corvin, and have enjoyed every book of his I have read. That being said, I sadly have to say that this is probably the weakest of any of his books. Why? Several reasons.

First, the book advances nothing. Other than the big reveal of what Dolos is afraid of and why he’s been doing what he’s been doing the book kinda treads water. There are a couple of cool fight scenes, but for the most part their severity is lessened by where they take place.

Second, This didn’t feel like a Delvers book, so much as it did a Nora Hazard novel. Now, I enjoyed Nora Hazard quite a bit, but she seemed to take up a huge chunk of the book’s focus. Henry, Jason, and company got what seemed to be equal screen time when compared to the singular character of Nora. Also, and this is what I think hurts the book, if you didn’t read the Hazard books you are going to be wondering who she is and where in the hell she came from, and why she deserves such a big chunk of the book devoted to her. Again, I appreciate Nora, but you get a short Bezi Ibi storyline, one that hopefully does more in the next novel. A is mentioned, but barely appears, and we get to see the boys spar a few times and build stuff.

Most of that I could over look if the story had some progression, but aside from Dolos getting more fleshed out and an infestation taking place that backs up his actions, it felt like a lot of fluff. The issue was that there was little danger for the MC’s, and the big fight between Nora and Maureen was mostly flash because the outcome was unsatisfactory for me.

I don’t know if it was the anticipation of waiting so long, or the hype that I built up in my head for this book, because I had huge expectations, but by the end I felt like Nora had stolen some of the boy’s and girl’s spotlight, and I am a fan of Nora’s. If I hadn’t read her books, I would have been left scratching my head. As it is I think Blaise tried really hard to integrate her without lessening her in comparison to Jason and Henry and what happened is it felt a little forced. Honestly, I don’t know if this move by Blaise is pure genius in that it will make people who skipped the Nora books go back and check them out of if it will make people who didn’t like Nora drop the series. It’s pretty dicey. All I can say is that I trust him to do the write thing, for those of you listening its W-R-I-T-E thing.

Say what you will, but Jeff Hays pours his heart in to this book and I will reiterate that this is where Jeff absolutely shines, doing a book all on his own. That said, I would have liked to have had Emily Beresford brought in to voice Nora. Still, Jeff really brings this book to life and his reading of Nora confronting Maureen (very minor spoiler) was awesome. He put a lot of vitriol in there in just the right places. This is pure Jeff, and since Jeff is the best we all win when it comes to the audio portion of the book.

Overall, the book had some character growth, some leveling up, an out of nowhere and completely unexpected, um I’ll say Romance for spoilers sake, and a mystery regarding Bezi Ibi so there were a lot of positive things. That said the book seemed to hit every point on the compass rather than having one solid direction. It actually felt like it left off where it should have started, and for me, the “holodeck” stuff took away any real impact. It was kind of like playing Injustice or Marvel vs Capcom, a buncha who would win type stuff that would change in every single play though. Batman beat Superman last round? Next round it’s the opposite! That was probably the one part of the book that I could have done without. It actually, for you comic book fans, reminded me of Marvel vs DC where fans got to vote on who would win, and that was the point any of them could have beaten their opponent given a different set of circumstances. It was fun, but ultimately meant nothing to me.

Final score 7.6 stars. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I have any of Blaise Corvin’s other novels. Hopefully, given the direction the series looks to be taking things will get back on track in the next book.

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Thanks oh so very much for watching everyone, I do appreciate you taking the time to watch or listen to the show. If you want to support us, you can like the LitRPG Podcast facebook page or the YouTube Page, or just share and like the video. I’m going to ask for more suggestions for the ‘Is it LIT’ segment, I’ve got a good one for next time, but will always need ideas. Please leave comments or suggestions in the comments below, and feel free to tell me whatever you like. I enjoy the feedback.

For LitRPG Audiobook Podcast, I’m Ray. Keep listening!!!

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