Jason has discovered that his homeworld is not what he thought. What’s more, the rest of the planet is on the precipice of sharing his revelation.
With magic on the rise and forces pulling him in multiple directions, Jason is faced with challenges greater than ever before.
Even as his power reaches new and incredible heights, he is faced with the realization that going beyond his best is still not enough.
Doc was happy with his new life— he’d married Fiala and Sonya, had allies who were steadfastly beside him, and was building the name of Lady Luck. Things were moving in the right direction, and life was good.
Powerful enemies were starting to rise against him. Doc knew that Sheriff Grange and McIan, the preacher of Apoc, would be problems eventually, but the two he had to deal with first were Suez and Goodman. Suez was still a mystery to Doc, and the man had effectively split the town with Goodman. Goodman was a larger concern, being the head of the only bank in town and the mayor of Deep Gulch.
Doc’s lucky strike in the wilds helped give him leverage in town. Using the windfall from his mine, he moved to break the town free from the deep pockets that had it in a stranglehold.
When Lia, Ayla, Sophia, and his wives left town to work on their outdoor knowledge and shooting, Doc was left to mind the Lily and keep healing the wounded. He thought things would be fine, until Spot, one of the deputies, came stumbling in mortally wounded.
Pushing himself more than he should, Doc poured his energy, vitality, and his life into saving Spot. Darkness closed in around him as he used almost everything he had to bring the deputy back from death’s door.
After escaping death by the barest of margins himself, Doc had no idea what was coming for him next, but he had faith that his goddess would help see him through it.
(This book contains adult situations, including but not limited to: sex, gambling, abuse, drug use, harem, and murder. It also contains graphic sex scenes, which portray elements of BDSM. You’ve been warned.)
The Path to Peace brought them to the gates of the old city. Now Alburet and his friends will need to find their way into the vaults under the city. They will need to bypass the undead and the cultists that roam the city to even find those tunnels, and that’s only the start of the troubles they will face.
Traitors to Stormguard are uncovered, and the King will have to be told. That can only happen after they deal with the two quests that have brought them this far. Vladimir Dracon hopes to put his brother Dimitry to rest, slaying the one known as the Dragon Eater, while Sir Cody Carter has come to make sure the Urn of Souls is destroyed so it doesn’t fall into Stein’s hands.
What happens under Peace will tilt the balance of what is to come: either in favor of the Crown of Stormguard, or for Stein and his cultists.
Welcome back to Alpha World.
(This book contains adult themes. You’d think I could stop with these disclaimers, but even this far into the series, people are shocked by the content. This book contains a polyamorous relationship, with one of the four people in it being a Succubus. You’ve been warned.)
What happens when you suddenly find yourself in a reality of untold possibilities, in a place where technology and magic are indistinguishable? Every game location is a transformed physical world connected to one other through an interstellar network of portals. Every player "avatar" is a living physical body with incredible survival traits. Once in this dreamscape, it would be unwise to not seize the moment! There are, however, a couple of catches.
First of all, you don't remember your identity.
Second, the "sandbox" of this inter-civilization game, "Universe ICS", is a dangerous place for beginners.
Finally, character restoration is finite.
Death in "ICS" may be irreversible.
As Murmur reels in the wake of the secret her friends tried to keep, her grip on what is real and what is virtual begins to slip. What's more, she's no longer sure who she can trust.
Stalked across the continent by a rogue with a vendetta, Murmur is forced to dig deep and develop her abilities before she finds a knife in her back.
Suspicion surrounds the AIs as well. Their behaviors are too human, their reports too perfect. Shayla and Laria must uncover the truth before the system raises concerns and Murmur is lost forever.
An exciting new entry into the emerging GameLit genre, Joshua Mason's Steam Whistle Alley is a thrilling tale which explores what is possible in augmented reality. Everyone on the street that day saw a lunatic wearing strange brass goggles, swinging an invisible sword on the sidewalks of downtown Seattle. But Jacob recognizes what the man is really doing—playing a game in augmented reality. When the game’s creator offers him his own goggles, Jacob enters a city he thinks he knows. But towering monuments of Victorian architecture have replaced the skyscrapers. Airships float between the buildings. Fearsome enemies, from steam-powered rabbits to clockwork werewolves lurk in every shadow.
But with the game comes a quest, and to the victors go the deed to Steam Whistle Alley, the social and financial heart of the game. Jacob, his biosynthetic monkey Banjo, and the rest of the team must face off against foes who want the alley for themselves. Some of his adversaries, however, aren’t playing games. They don’t want the alley. They want the company, and the death they bring is not the kind Jacob can respawn from.
Level-up. Cross the Binding. Save reality.
Die-hard gamer Morrow Adams strives to escape his corporate-controlled existence on Earth. Logging in as Atlas Reign, he plays The Binding as a way to break from the limitations of his real life.
Few have crossed the elusive Binding in the game, but if you do, real-life opportunity awaits—physical passage to a new world.
But the same corporation that Morrow tries to escape from on Earth also controls the virtual game world—a world perfectly designed to drain your credits and enslave you to their workforce.
Everything changes when Morrow meets a beautiful, top-level player from the other side named Raven Vex. She helps him uncover a devious conspiracy within the game that sends them on an unbelievable quest through The Binding's expansive—and dangerous—univers
For those who reside in the outer regions of Aleria, the day of bestowal is what determines their destiny.
It is the holy day of the Goddess. The day that allows those of age to step forward and receive her blessing, to embark on the path that she has chosen for them. To receive their Classification, which dictates their strength and ability. For those people, the holy day of bestowal represents fate itself.
For Dante, it represents salvation.
Years have past since he found himself abandoned without memories. Years of hunger, ostracization, and solitude on the streets of Alazel without any hope of reprieve. Of entrapment at the hands of the creatures that roamed the wilds beyond the city walls that made leaving impossible.
Now, there is a chance for everything to change.
In a cruel world where power could be gained through slaughter, strength meant everything. For Dante, that meant that the last his hopes lay in the Goddess’ blessing. A combat Classification would be a lifeline, a way for him to escape the hell he had been living in. Anything else would only mean death.
Ryker only has one goal in his life right now:
Turn a certain adventuring guild into a flaming wreck while dancing merrily through the smoldering ruins. All for the chance to get back at a handful of people.
It isn’t as if they didn’t deserve it either.
They had driven him from his home. Chased him physically from the very guild house itself. All the way to the gates of the city.
Simply because he wasn’t as strong as they expected him to be.
As strong as he’d expected himself to be.
He’d returned to the city the next day and left with his means for revenge. Something he’d hidden away and told no one about when he found it in one of his few Dungeon Dives.
An inactive Dungeon Core.
A crystal the size of a fist with a soul inside. One that could create anything from mana it wanted to. From monsters and complex cave systems to gold coins.
Years spent in planning, and unfortunately farming, as he waited. Now it felt like his moment was finally here.
The Dungeon Core had been acting strange lately. As if it were finally… coming to life.
Watching over the crystal like a hawk for this very event, Ryker impatiently waits. Any day now, it'd start.
And he could set about taking his vengeance.
Starting with ripping the soul of the Dungeon out.
Atherleah Carroll grew up in a negative-tax family in the gang-controlled suburbs of Brisbane at the end of the twenty-first century. From the age of six, she decided that she wanted more and with the help of her local gang-leader, she learned the skills to escape the relentless pressure to accept a life of mediocrity. On her sixteenth birthday, she was inadvertently implanted with a Neural Enhancement Chip instead of the free Government provided basic level personal AI. This mistake not only removed the limits placed on the AI but also broke some of the Government instigated control parameters. Leah’s life rapidly becomes a battle, both in the virtual-multiverse and in real life.
On the advice of the local ‘boss’, Leah began playing the virtual fantasy game Dunyanin to earn the money she needed to live at the local POD facility and help with her education. With the help of her rapidly evolving AI, she has not only thwarted attempts by the government to limit her opportunities but evaded kidnapping by virtual slavers. Co-opted by several Virtual Security AI Leah has helped shut down a virtual sweat-shop which used mind-controlled players to farm for resources. The family, which runs the virtual crime syndicate, has cornered Leah in the depths of a virtual-mine and sent twenty player-mercenaries to capture her. Fleeing through a hidden doorway into a mirror mine operated by goblins Leah hopes to escape her pursuers.
October, 2042
In two weeks, the world will die, murdered by a nine-mile-wide, extinction-level asteroid.
And Robert Osmark—billionaire and savvy tech-genius—couldn’t be readier for the fiery apocalypse.
Unlike the shortsighted masses, he’s been diligently preparing for this day from the moment the asteroid first appeared. Through his relentless efforts, digital salvation now awaits anyone bold enough to take the leap and permanently transition into the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. And Robert Osmark will lead this new world he has created.
But even with every advantage skewed in his favor, Osmark faces powerful opposition. A rogue faction of global elites led by US Senator Sizemore isn’t content to merely survive the apocalypse. They have their sights set much higher, and are recruiting dangerous allies, undercutting Robert’s efforts at every turn, and hiring VGO’s most deadly assassins to get what they want. To win, Osmark will need to viciously crush all opposition before his plans turn to ash.
BE A HERO IN THE ULTIMATE GAME
Are you a top-rated gamer?
Then you might have the skills to play the Game … where players are sponsored by actual demon lords, gods and goddesses, or Lovecraftian nightmares.
Enter Thera, a real kingdom at the crossroads of many other worlds, but with all the augmented-reality interfaces, character progression, and game mechanics that players know and love.
And the stakes of The Game?
Nothing less than Creation—every world in every universe and reality.
So … no pressure.
Thus Hector Savage, gamer extraordinaire, comes to Thera. Nothing can prepare him, though, for the schemes of Abyssal Lords, rampaging barbarian ghosts, and a host of nefarious forces who want him dead—before he can even make fifth level!
Locke finds himself between a rock and a hard place, as old urges and new desires compete to shape the life and death decisions that he must make in his quest to save the kingdom from the brink of corruption.
My Opinion: About 400 pages, $3.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited
One of the things I like about this series is that it’s almost a standalone adventure story. If you’ve read the other books in the series you get more from the text but if you haven’t then you still get to enjoy a funny, action- adventure story.
The Merchant of Tiqpa series, in general, is smaller in scope than the Bathrobe Knight part. This book is no different. It’s not epic and world-shaking. Instead, it’s Lock, his satirical friend Reginald, and the warrior Eliza on an adventure in a city of merchants. Trying to find a way to take over for their guild. It’s fun.
Score: 7 out of 10
Shawn Bradshaw has made a desperate gamble. To save his life he risked it all in an attempt to become digitized. Knowing almost nothing about the greater Digital community or if he will be allowed to join, how Digital existence is experienced, or even if he will be relegated to a Digital zoo.
Shawn's success in obtaining immortality is but the start of his journey. Thrust into the kingdom of Loson's political intrigue, friends become enemies, allies manipulate and control, Shawn must decide how much assistance he is willing to let his allies provide and if he wants to count them as enemies instead.
Oblivious and ignorant of the culture, manipulated, reveling in his new found freedom even as he is chained socially, Shawn must decide on his long term goals and what he is willing to give up to achieve them.
The Immortal Wizard must decide what kind of legend he will leave behind.
If I had to describe Viridian Gate Online in one sentence it would be: A trapped in the game story with a hint of political intrigue.
The story doesn’t spend much time in the ‘real world’ since it’s going to be destroyed by an asteroid. Instead it jumps right into Viridian Gate Online where Jack plans to upload his mind instead of dying on earth. When Jack or “Grim Jack” as his game character is called, logs into the game, he finds himself in a dungeon and has to escape with sneaky thief named cutter. Along the way he tries to save an old woman and is sent on a difficult game quest that will eventually help him establish his character class.