LitRPG Podcast 007
Welcome to Episode 7 of the LitRPG Podcast. The only podcast dedicated to LitRPG.
I’m Ramon Mejia. I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews.
I’ll be telling you about the LitRPG pre-orders coming up.
New Releases and Reviews: The Land: Swarm (Book 5 of Chaos Seeds series), Digital Shadows: A Virtual Horror Action Adventure Thriller, The Dungeon's Town (The Slime Dungeon Chronicles Book 2), Game On: Starting the Game
Upcoming LitRPG available for Pre-Order:
Going Rogue (Spells, Swords, & Stealth Book 3) (Oct. 19th)
Dungeon Crawl: A LitRPG Adventure (The Crucible Shard Book 1) (Nov. 17th)
Homeland: Ingame 2 (Nov. 19th)
The Way of the Outcast (Mirror World Book #3) (Dec. 19th)
New Releases and Reviews
The Land: Swarm (Book 5 of Chaos Seeds series)
Aleron Kong's #1 Best Selling LitRPG Saga continues in "The Land: Swarm"
The enemies of the Mist Village are moving, the storm clouds are gathering, what are Richter and Sion to do???
Crush the game, that's what! More of everything you love in LitRPG: Powerful items, epic battles, awesome quests and in depth world building!
What happened to Elora? Where is the swarm? Did the rock giant make Richter jelly? What are the colonel's secret spices???
Journey back into my world and find out! Come back... to The Land!
My Opinion: My favorite LitRPG series is back with a new entry. Even though the author is sort of joking with his book description, I’m genuinely looking forward to getting the answers to all those questions.
The last book left off on a cliffhanger with Richter facing off against a giant but other than that most of the loose threads from previous books were wrapped up. I look forward to reading what new threats await the Mist Village.
The Land: Swarm Chaos Seeds Book 5)
Psy-Hunters
Troy Warwick has a fairly good life thanks to the support of his family and his closest friend, Dana. He lives with no regrets, except one. Why did he treat his ex-girlfriend so poorly? As Troy delves into a fun new game with his nephews, a mystery unfolds in the virtual realm, a mystery that involves his ex.
Join Troy in the virtual game, Psy-Hunters, a game world where the power of the mind trumps all.
Ueden-Ter is a world on the brink of extinction. A powerful race of mechanized behemoths, known only as Overlords, have forever changed the future of the human race. A new race of genetically altered humans have joined together, led by the powerful Psychics. Psychics, Beasts, Cyborgs, Androids, and Humans alike all band together under the banner of the Psychic Hunters' Association or the Military Police Faction to protect Ueden-Ter from the tyranny of the Overlords. Will their combined might be enough to push back the threat of extinction?
Join the battle in the virtual role playing game Psy-Hunters.
My Opinion: This story is 333 pages, $0.99 to buy right now, and on Kindle Unlimited. A great value for a pretty decent read. Most LitRPG is either fantasy with swords and magic or sci-fi with shooty lasers and starships. Psy-Hunters is somewhere in between. There are cyborgs and androids with guns but also psychic that can use telekinesis and pyrokinesis
The action and adventure parts are well described. However, the characters felt a little hollow and juvenile sometimes. This may be because the book is trying to be appropriate for ages 10 and up but I would have liked some more mature themes. Like, the consequences of abuse of power, the effects of trauma, love, death,
Digital Shadows: A Virtual Horror Action Adventure Thriller
Todd Heller has always tried hard to control his fears. Afraid of a boring life, he escapes to the one place where he and his friends can make a difference. A place where he can fight his fears and pit his survival skills against the best. A place called Digital Shadows.
Digital Shadows is the latest craze in Virtual Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing games. The game is based in a virtual world of horror, mystery, secret societies, monsters and shadowy nightmares.
Todd has dreamed of this game since its first introduction. An avid fan of the horror genre, Todd and his friends take the plunge to explore the dark world and fight the terrors within.
But when a glitch effects Todd's ability to log out, the player soon discovers there is something more then a simple game simulation running. Sinister forces converge on the player, eager to claim him for their dark designs and it is up to Todd and his friends to survive the nights ahead of them.
My Opinion: Digital Shadows does take a different path than many other LitRPG stories. Instead of being based on fantasy or Sci fi games, it is based on survival horror rpg games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. It mixes those type of game mechanics with with some LoveCraftian elements and it does it well.
Now your measurement for good horror may be different than mine. I don’t watch a lot of horror movies and play Resident Evil with the lights on. Hower, I think Digital Shadows weaves a narrative that is faithful to its genre. When the characters are in the game, there is a palatable sense of suspense. The monsters in the game are appropriately creepy and horrifying. There were even a few times I had to stop reading, and turn on a light to continue with the story. Specifically, any scene with a creepy slasher clown.
While there are a few spelling and grammar errors, it’s nothing that pulls away from the enjoyment of the story. Additionally, I enjoyed the how the author didn’t stop to explain every game mechanic. Instead he just showed you how it worked within the story.
This story was written for those people that love a creepy, fear inducing atmosphere. If you’re a fan of survival horror games you’ll probably like the book. If you’re not, then you may not.
The Dungeon's Town (The Slime Dungeon Chronicles Book 2)
In the aftermath of the demonic invasion, everyone is left to recover. Claire is worries about Doc's unending sleep. Fiora and her adventurers have split up, and the royal family mourns the loss of the Prince and Princess.
Meanwhile, people are baying for blood as news spread, and the church comes in to eliminate any demonic forces remaining. Tensions rise as the clergy begin their own agenda with the dungeon. Through it all, a town comes together with a unique bond to Doc.
The uneasy peace won't last long however, because in this world of adventure, trouble comes in all shapes and sizes.
My Opinion: The sequel to one of my favorite stories, Slime Dungeon Chronicles, doesn't spend enough time in the slime dungeon. A lot of the story is spent enlarging our knowledge of the dungeon town that has sprung up around our favorite dungeon and the political and social consequences of the events of the last book. This isn't bad, it just takes times. On the plus side, new characters like the bearman on the cover, are introduced.
The time spent in the dungeon with Doc and friends is definitely my favorite part of the story. I just wish we spent more time there. Still a good story.
Game On: Starting the Game
Matthew Barnett tried to warn those around him — the Game was going to start soon. Everyone was going to suffer and most were going to die, unless they took some serious steps to prepare themselves for what was to come.
Diagnosed with Schizophrenia, he was hospitalized for several months until the proper medications could be found to help him control his inability to distinguish reality from fantasy and could return back to a normal school life.
But…
What if it was the world which was actually insane, and not him? What if he was right? What if it really was time for everyone to get their “Game On”?
That’s it for the podcast.
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Go read some LitRPG!
Music Credits
"Blip Stream" "Mighty Like Us" "Big Shift" "Vivacity"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/