LitRPG Podcast 025
LitRPG Podcast 025
Jan. 6th, 2017
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 25 of the LitRPG podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia. I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews.
Quick shoutout to Jay Taylor for upgrading his Patreon pledge to $5 a month. He’s been a really great supporter of the podcast and out site. Thanks Jay.
https://www.patreon.com/geekbytespodcast
New Releases and Reviews:
Video Game Plotline Tester (The Dark Herbalist Book #1)
Game Over (LitRPG Series Book 1)
Legends of Tarthirious : Book One of Kylia's Story
We’ll begin with LitRPG news
(Play Music 2)
LitRPG News
Luke Chmilenko, author of the best selling LitRPG Ascend Online, has started to put up chapters of book 2 in his series on the Royal Road. Right now he has 8 full chapters available for fans to read.
http://royalroadl.com/fiction/6519
Aleron Kong has released the cover art for book 6 in his Chaos Seeds series. It looks rather apocalyptic.
Chapters 1-5 of the new book are up his Patreon page. Chapters 1 and 2 are free for everyone.
https://www.patreon.com/AleronKong
Next couple are book announcement but they don’t have pre-order link
Soulstone: Awakening (Jan. 15th, 2017)
By J.A. Cipriano
Aaron Hope makes it to the final round of the EpiX Games PVP World Championship. Unfortunately, he also gets drugged and shoved into the alpha test for World of Ruul.
In this new virtual reality MMO players have to find all eight treasures scattered throughout the world before the maelstrom’s forces devour everything in sight. The only catch? You can’t log off, and if you die… well, let’s just say what happens in the game doesn’t stay in the game.
https://royalroadl.com/fiction/9017
Lion’s Quest: Undefeated (Mid January, 2017) written by Michael Scott-Earle author of the Destroyer series, Concrete Chaos, and a bunch of other interesting stories. This is his first LitRPG novel.
Leo "The Lion" Lennox has been the game's champion for ten years in a row.
But when a mysterious woman tempts the champ to try her cutting edge game, Leo discovers a world that is beyond fantastic. Can he resist the lure of this strange world and the beautiful woman that has asked him to quest on her behalf?
https://royalroadl.com/fiction/8989
Dungeon Madness (Book #2 The Divine Dungeon series) (February, 2017). No cover art is available yet for book 2 but you do get a delightful video interview with the author Dakota Krout where I try to get as much info about book 2 as I can from him.
You can get the first 3 chapters of the new book if you sign up for the authors newsletter on his facebook page.
http://www.geekbytespodcast.com/reviews/2016/12/31/author-interview-dakota-krout-2
https://www.facebook.com/TheDivineDungeon/?fref=ts
Upcoming LitRPG:
Soulstone: Awakening (Jan. 15th, 2017)
Lion’s Quest: Undefeated (Mid January, 2017)
You're in Game! LitRPG Stories from Bestselling Authors (Jan. 20th, 2017)
Spawn Campers: A LitRPG Adventure (The Crucible Shard Book 2) (Jan. 31st, 2017)
Secrets of the Old Ones (January 2017)
Dungeon Madness (Book #2 The Divine Dungeon series) (February, 2017)
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) LitRPG Series (Feb. 7, 2017)
Sucked into an RPG: a LitRPG Novel (Sucked into an RPG, Book 1) (Feb. 20, 2017)
Spetsnaz: A 49ers LitRPG Novel (Feb 28th, 2017)
The Crystal Sphere (March 10th, 2017)
Onto New Releases and Reviews
(Play Music 3)
New Releases and Reviews
Video Game Plotline Tester (The Dark Herbalist Book #1) LitRPG series
Would you be prepared to work for free? How would you like to bust your hump for a large corporation 60-plus hours a week without a wage or a single day off for the vague promise of some mysterious perks in the distant future?
You'd refuse point blank, wouldn't you?
But what if the job in question was playing a state-of-the-art fantasy MMORPG game? And what if this was the only thing you're really good at? Especially considering that your in-game partner is someone really special to you - and this person already lives a virtual life?
Knowing all this, would you consider the mysterious future bonus worth your while? I dare you to try it!
My opinion: 385 pages, $3.99, available on Kindle Unlimited. There’s also a listing for an audiobook version out in March 2017 (http://amzn.to/2ix9nq0).
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy of the novel from Magic Dome Books to review but purchased it once it went live.
From the author of the Perimeter Defense series (http://amzn.to/2ixkkYA) comes a new LitRPG series set in a VR fantasy world, Boundless Realms. Timothy is a down on his luck gamer. He takes care of his wheelchair bound sister and he’s in need of a steady job that’ll allow him to pay the bills. He gets a job as a “plotline tester” in Boundless Realms where he’s supposed to help show off and test rare race and class combinations. During his probationary test he ends up as a goblin herbalist, one of the game's least popular combinations. If he wants to keep his job he’ll have to prove not only that he can survive but that he can thrive in this world.
My general opinion of the story: LOVED IT!
I’m really super happy that Michael Atamanov decided to write this. I talked to him a few months ago about the Perimeter Defense series and he was really excited about this story and now I know why. There are a slew of unique class and race combinations in the story that are just fun to read about. Even though the main character advances to a pretty high level he never feels over powered. There’s crafting, pets, interesting quests, and a lot good fights. Including some PVP battles. Can’t wait till book 2 comes out.
Video Game Plotline Tester (The Dark Herbalist Book #1)
Game Over (LitRPG Series Book 1)
As the last nuclear weapon is dismantled, the earth celebrates. World peace has been achieved, and the future looks bright. Fittingly, a meteor shower marks the event and people gather the world over to watch it. Neighbours with neighbours, friends with friends, family with family.
And then a darkness falls over the Earth, and everyone falls into a coma. Planes drop from the skies. Buses crash. Life support machines fail.
Those who wake up find that three days have gone by, and the people around them have vanished. Where have they been taken? What has happened to them? Why were they left behind? The survivors band together and try to figure it out, all the while surviving in a world where the power is gone.
And then some of the missing people return, but it isn’t them. They aren’t people anymore. They act like it, but something is inside of them just waiting to come out. Nobody can be trusted.
My Opinion: 160 pages, $2.99, available on Kindle Unlimited
One day meteors fall from the sky and everyone loses consciousness. A group of people wake up and find that it’s their duty to find some monoliths and destroy them or some aliens are going to come kill everyone. Everyone else they meet are infected with some strange, never really explained, condition that turns them into raging killers. Oh...and everyone has levels, classes, and abilities and they might live in a game world but that’s never really explained.
This feels like a recycled story that someone adapted to be LitRPGish. There are game mechanics in the story, levels, abilities, powers, but they almost feel incidental. There’s some vague reference to everyone being in a game but that’s never really explained. For example, one of the main characters is a hardened detective that’s thrown away her marriage and family to chase after a serial killer and she also happens to be a level 24 detective with a 3rd eye ability.
The story feels like a end of the world, apocalyptic, supernatural mystery with just enough gaming elements thrown in to qualify as LitRPG. The survival apocalypse elements of the story are done well. The characters are well fleshed out. The only other thing on Amazon that I could find that the author has written is an apocalypse thriller.
I just didn’t enjoy the story not because it was poorly written, but because it felt like a mashup of so many other things that it never really did any of them well, especially the LitRPG part.
Game Over (LitRPG Series Book 1)
Legends of Tarthirious : Book One of Kylia's Story
In fear of an impending economic crisis, a drastic change in leadership and society occurs in Great Britain. The residents are told they're no longer citizens, that they have to earn that right by paying off their fair share of the national debt, but they don't have to rely solely on their jobs and careers for this gargantuan task. They can pay it off by playing Legends of Tarthirious, an MMORPG, and collecting resources and items in-game to convert into real life money.
The year is 2035, and Kylia Redmond has six short months to pay off her debt, but little does she know that her problems are going to become a whole lot worse over the coming months. From political scheming, watchful military police, and someone who clearly doesn't want her to be free of debt, Kylia's world is going to be turned upside down and burned before she can so much as log in.
My Opinion: 168 pages, $0.99 as e-book, $8.99 paperback, available on Kindle Unlimited.
A great story. Characters are believable and the premise of the world is plausible. It takes a little while to get to the game world where Kylia gets a new character but once there it’s a pretty fun journey. There’s lots of interesting banter and flirting between her and other characters. Some of the humor is probably UK specific but it’s still entertaining.
Things I think could have been used better. 1) Backstory - Great backstory setup about UK government being sort of privatized and each resident having to pay off their fair share before they regain their citizenship. 2) There’s also a sense of urgency is created in the backstory of Kylia having to pay off not only her debt but her deceased families debt.
These two points are set up well and a significant bit of writing is devoted to them but there isn’t really any pay off and they’re not used in the main story.
If she’s on such an urgent time scale why isn’t she spending all her spare time grinding to maximize her income potential? Instead Kylia is a bit more casual with her gaming strategy and even goes out on a date or two. I enjoyed reading about all this but those two points just feel like a wasted story opportunity. 7 out 10.
Legends of Tarthirious : Book One of Kylia's Story
That’s it everyone!
If you enjoy the podcast and want to support us you can find out all the ways to do so at litrpgpodcast.com/support
Thanks for hanging out with me today. Until we can hangout again, remember to 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/