LitRPG Podcast 032
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 32 of the LitRPG podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia. I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews.
New Patreon Supporters Kieron Uchee and Sebastian Nielsen. Both of whom have pledged $6/month to support the podcast. They of course get all our content early and all the other rewards at the Geek King level. Thank you both so much for being such amazing supporters.
https://www.patreon.com/geekbytespodcast
New Releases and Reviews:
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) (08:24)
Legends of Tarthirious : Book Two of Kylia's Story (13:21)
Questing: A LITRPG Novella (17:22)
Benvari Mountains (Book 2 in the Emerilia series) (19:41)
We’ll begin with LitRPG news
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LitRPG News
Scottie Futch, author of Origin ARS, has said that he’s planning some new releases this month and next.
This month he plans on releasing Galactic Fist of Legend Volume 2.
He has an un-named project that he plans to release is a LitRPG story that uses a turn based gaming mechanic.
He also plans to clean up and release Earth Tactics Advance Volume 1 next month.
Dakota Krout has gotten the artwork for his 2nd book, Dungeon Madness, and is it weird that it’s a little creepy? I think it has something to to do with the things growing on the hand in the picture. It’s cool and reflects definitely reflects the madness part. I look forward to reading it next week. He assures me that the novel is totally done and that he was just waiting on the artwork.
Michael-Scott Earle has gotten the artwork for Lion’s Quest: Duel Wield, the 2nd book in the Lion’s Quest series. It’s up for pre-order now, with a release date of March 27th for $7.49. However, the author says it should be out at the end of February or beginning of March.
There are a couple of LitRPG stories that came out this week that I just couldn’t read before I recorded. Those Emerilla books are pretty long. But wanted you to know about. I’ll be reviewing them next week.
Robert Bevan has snuck a new short story in his Caverns and Creatures series on Amazon. Potty Mouth is out now.
Eden's Gate: The Reborn: A LitRPG Adventure, is also out now.
Q&A interview with G. Akella
http://www.geekbytespodcast.com/reviews/2017/2/10/author-interview-qa-with-g-akilla
Upcoming LitRPG:
Dungeon Madness (Book #2 The Divine Dungeon series) (February 15th, 2017)
Viridian Gate Online: Crimson Alliance (Feb 17th, 2017)
For The Guild (Book 3 in the Emerilia series) (Feb. 21st, 2017)
Galactic Fist of Legend Volume 2. (Feb. 2017)
The Crystal Sphere (March 10th, 2017)
Lion’s Quest: Duel Wield (March 27th, 2017)
Awaken Online: Precipice (March 31st, 2017)
Delvers LLC: Obligations Incurred (March 2017)
Earth Tactics Advance Vol. 1 (March 2017)
The Karmadont Chess Set (The Way of the Shaman: Book #5) (April 2nd, 2017)
Onto New Releases and Reviews
(Play Music 3)
New Releases and Reviews
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1)
Is it easy to survive in the game world? You could say yes, if you didn’t know what the additional conditions were. They are unusual: it’s the real world in which you have lived all your life. The enemy, craving to destroy you. Your own class who couldn’t care less about you. Are you still sure that survival is easy? Then welcome to THE GAME! It will prove you wrong.
My Opinion: 385 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: Magic Dome books, the folks that do the translating and publishing for the book in english, sent me an early copy of the novel. I’ve since picked up the story on Kindle Unlimited.
The beginning of the story is rather confusing. It tries to explain too much at once instead of focusing on the gaming LitRPG stuff. However, once I got past the beginning and decided to ignore the game’s confusing relationship to the real world, I found an interesting novel. The story is not Way of the Shaman. Don’t expect it to be. This has more of a Hunger Games vibe with newly initiated players teaming up and then betraying each other to survive the academy.
The confusing premise of the novel: Our world, earth is really a staging ground for a fantasy game. We’re all NPCs. One day, one of us, a soldier, kills a player in this game. Even though he dies, he’s brought back to life, having earned a place as a player of the game himself.
Now, if that weren’t confusing enough, this NPC soldier turned player, chooses the class of Paladin and has to survive a mandatory period at a training academy where he’s supposed to be taught about the game and it’s mechanics. Unfortunately, the player he killed as an NPC soldier is a mentor at the academy and has sent his mage students after him to end his life. He’s also vulnerable as a player because he missed some initiation and now if he dies, he dies for good.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the novel was just learning about the game world. To leave the academy players must find 10 trainers scattered throughout the vast training area. Each trainer is meant to teach players a different aspect of the game: class combat abilities, user interface, etc. I enjoyed learning about the game mechanics as they were explained through these training sessions and much of the suspense of the story comes from the MC trying to find ways to reach these trainers even if they’re guarded by other players looking to kill him.
Another part of the story I enjoyed, are the main character's class specialization and job. Just the ability to customize a character's general class with a specialization or job is reminiscent of the jobs available in Final Fantasy games. The mechanism allows for a much needed variety to the types of classes that are revealed in the story.
Eventually there is action, betrayal, and some sometimes unbelievable plot twists. But overall, if you think of it as a story of a player trying to get through the training scenario of a MMO with PVP enabled, it makes more sense and it’s quite enjoyable.
I give The Beginning, Dark Paladin Book 1, a 7 out of 10.
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1)
Legends of Tarthirious : Book Two of Kylia's Story
Little time has passed since Kylia Redmond was arrested for cheating in her front of all of her colleagues, but when new evidence comes to light she is released and immediately returns to Legends of Tarthirious. In this, the sequel to the bestselling Legends of Tarthirious : Book One of Kylia's Story, Kylia is forced to play harder and faster than before to make up for lost time while trying to make sure her real life doesn't collapse around her.
My Opinion: 165 pages, $0.99, available on Kindle Unlimited
Well priced for the page count. The beginning is a little awkward since it tries to transition from the end of the last book but the story quickly jumps into the game world.
I’d break this short story into two parts: 1) Real world- The consequences of Kylie’s arrest and release on charges of cheating in the game are felt as the public vents their frustration at the debt payback system. 2) The game world- Kylie’s character goes on a series of random and unrelated quests to gain experience and gold.
The real world stuff feels very dystopian and even a bit political. It’s fine but not that interesting to me. The game stuff feels completely unrelated to the other parts of the story and more like a series of even shorter stories that are inserted to make the fiction LitRPG. You could actually read these two parts separately and not lose anything.
The writing is solid and I always care about the characters. The romance between Kylie and Gerald is still adorable and interesting. However, the disconnect between the real world and the game world almost makes this feel like two separate stories, only one of which I was interested in. I enjoyed the first novel in this series and fully intend to read the next installment but this one just didn’t do much for me. I give it a 5 out 10.
Legends of Tarthirious : Book Two of Kylia's Story
Questing: A LITRPG Novella
A LIRTRPG novel that has the protagonist Anon making his way through a new virtual game world, There are no gold farmers, no alts and no overpriced economy, at least not yet. Anon is not in a hurry to level but is content to enjoy the game and explore the new world at his own pace. But like all new games, there are bugs and problems. As he quests and explores he also begins to change. Is he changing the game, or is the game changing him.
My Opinion: 118 pages, $2.99, available on Kindle Unlimited
This the story of Annon and his first couple quests in the most advanced full immersion VR game
Game mechanics seem just a little bit off and the main character gets a little overpowered rather quickly. Why is a level one character hitting consistently for 55-80 damage?
Later, the story it feels a little more like a traditional fantasy but it’s still a good read. The main character goes through starting towns, training in the big city and on a variety of quests dealing with smelly trolls, cute vampires, and ghosts. I had a good time reading it and would recommend it to anyone that has Kindle Unlimited. I’d give it a 7 out of 10.
Questing: A LITRPG Novella
Benvari Mountains (Book 2 in the Emerilia series)
As the fight for Boran-al’s Citadel draws to a close Dave’s learned one important lesson. To protect what he cares for, he’s going to have to become stronger.
He can’t just sit back in Cliff-Hill and take things easy. Emerilia is filled with danger as well as possibilities.
It’s time Dave became a Master Smith.
My Opinion: 366 page, $4.99, available on Kindle Unlimited.
The last 10% of the novel is a glossary of characters and boy will you need it. One of the few complaints I have about the story is that there are just so many characters to keep track of.
Book 1: Focuses on the main character establishing a home for himself that expands into a community of elves, dwarves, and eventually players. The big event is a raid on a dark citadel.
Book 2: Journey to Benvari Mountains. A much smaller group goes off on a journey so that Dave can learn how to be a master Dwarven Smith. They have some interesting adventures along the way during the first half of the book and get into a lot of crafting in the second half.
Simply put, I enjoyed this novel. It had less action than book 1 but a lot more crafting. It was an interesting journey to take with Dave on his path to become a master dwarven smith. The growth of all the other characters was also very interesting to read about. I can’t wait to read the next book when it comes out later this month Feb, 2017. The author has stated that he plans to put out a new novel in this series on a monthly basis starting in March, so we’ll all have plenty read about in the Emerilia series.
Benvari Mountains (Book 2 in the Emerilia series)
That’s it everyone!
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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/