LitRPG Podcast 100
LitRPG Podcast 100
March 9nd, 2018
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 100 of the LitRPG podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia. I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews. I have 10 reviews for you.
I’ll also our last set of winners of the LitRPG Podcast Giveaway, including the Grand Prize Winner, in LitRPG News.
New Releases and Reviews:
Dungeon Deposed (21:23)
The Quest: Last Gods Book 1 (34:10)
Mitigating Risk (Nora Hazard Book 1) (01:08:16)
Warrior Academy: The Hiroic Trio - Episode 2 (01:12:48)
Restart (Dark Paladin Book #3) LitRPG Series (01:16:01)
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LitRPG News
Book 1 in the Greystone Chronicles is going to be FREE till 11:59 pm 3/9/18 to promote the release of the audiobook version.
LitRPG Podcast is running a contest to celebrate 100 episodes
Messages
A lot of messages came in over the last few weeks.
Many of them pointed out how much they appreciate the reviews and how they help them decide what to buy. Especially folks with limited budgets who don’t have Kindle Unlimited.
Plenty of people really like the author interviews, with multiple mentions of the Aleron Kong ones being people favorite.
Vasily Mahaneko vs Aleron Kong game I recorded was also popular.
Also, viewers seem to appreciate my mad dance skills.
“I can't say that I have a favorite podcast moment, however I do have a preferred type of episode and those are the author interviews. Michael-Scott Earle, Daniel Schinhofen and the elusive D. Wolfin in particular were my top picks. Depite D. Wolfins connection issues, seeing the author who introduced me to LitRPG was a treat. Honorable mention goes to the DragonCon vid. Wait, wait. Hold up. I've discovered the 'Real Life RPG - Reputation' video. I hereby add a second honorable mention to the list. OK, time to stop looking at old videos or the list will keep growing. Thank you for the reviews and pretty much helping point the way to the good stuff. Your passion shines through =) “
“Over the past couple of episodes you asked us to write in and tell you one of our favorite LitRPG Podcast moments. For me -- hands down -- it's episode 50, your interview with Michael-Scott Earle. This was by far one of the most epic, insightful, and motivational author interviews I've ever heard. It was a total eye-opener, and the kick in the butt I needed to get back to working on my first novel. Hearing both of your perspectives as authors working away at this every day really shed the light on the path ... Episode 50! This is the one that really changed things for me!!”
Great messages and I really appreciate all the support you the viewers and listeners have given. Whether it’s on Patreon, or using the links we have on our reviews, or sharing and liking the podcast wherever you find it. This podcast does not exist unless you the viewer/listener support it. So thanks.
Ok Now to announce the big winners!!
Runner up winners - Chad E Milner, and Marc Robert.
Signed Copy of Adventures on Terra or Project Alpha by R.A. Mejia
Alpha Company T-Shirt from Daniel Schinhofen
Grand Prize Winner - Felicity
Limited Edition Alpha Company T-Shirt
Limited Edition LitRPG Podcast T-shirt
Limited Edition Adventures on Terra T-Shirt
Mist Village sweater
Three signed novels from R.A. Mejia
$100 Amazon gift card
Check your facebook messenger requests and e-mail folders.
Thank you everyone that sent entered the contest and sent in so many great messages.
Out Now!
I still plan to review the ones I couldn’t get to from last week. But here are the new ones that came out this week.
Chronicle of the Eternal: Volume 2
Outpost: A LitRPG Adventure (Monsters, Maces and Magic Book 1)
Dungeon Guild: A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure (Glendaria Awakens Trilogy Book 3)
The Slaver: VirTim LitRPG Episode 2
New LitRPG Audiobooks
The Greystone Chronicles: Book One: Io Online
Pangea Online Book One: Death and Axes: A LitRPG Novel
Upcoming LitRPG:
The Crown and the Key (Epic LitRPG Adventure - Book 8) (Fayroll) (March 12th, 2018)
Perma-Death Online: A LitRPG adventure: Book 2 (March 15, 2018)
Ritualist (The Completionist Chronicles Book 1) (March 15th, 2018)
Akillia's Reign (Puatera Online Book 4) (March 16th, 2018)
Ghost in the Game (Dream State Saga book 3) (March 19th)
The Land of the Undying (Dark Elf Chronicles Book 1) (March 30th, 2018)
Betrayal: A LitRPG Adventure (Monsters, Maces and Magic Book 2) (April 4th, 2018)
Absalom’s Fate: A LitRPG Quest (The Everlands: Book 1) (April 10th, 2018)
Countdown (Reality Benders Book #1) LitRPG Series (April 23, 2018)
Mightier Still: A LitRPG/GameLit Novella (Enter The louVRe Side Quest) (Becoming Death Book 1) (May 10, 2018)
Blind Gambit: A GameLit LitRPG novel (May 10, 2018)
World of Karik 2: (The First Crusade) The LitRPG series (May 17th, 2018)
God Mode (AlterGame Book #3) LitRPG Series (May 24th, 2018)
Kingdom Level Five: LitRPG (May 27th, 2018)
Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) (May 28th, 2018)
Onto New Releases and Reviews
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New Releases and Reviews
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Auger & Augment (Blood of The Boundless Book 1)
The Boundless promises the opportunity to escape reality, but those who enter find that what the game offers isn't as simple as it appears. You can escape your job, and you can escape your family, but you can't escape human nature—and you can't escape yourself.
Nathan Hill needs out: out of his family and out of his life. When he's offered just such an opportunity, he jumps at the chance. Still, software is still software, and humans are still human, and Nathan finds himself defenseless and facing a wild new world alone, full of danger, and every bit as complicated as the life he left.
Content Warning: Profanity, Violence, and just a touch of The Gay.
My Opinion: 319 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
*The author tells you there is a ‘Touch of the Gay’ in the story. This amounts to a single kiss between to male characters and a discussion about being gay. So don’t miss a good story.*
The setup for how the main character gets into the game world is a bit loose. But he’s in the game by the 5% mark. Once there he finds his setup and character creation process aren’t quite like the other players but he does the best with what he has. The main character (MC) never becomes overpowered but instead makes steady progress as as kind of support character with unique spells and abilities. He’ll become powerful eventually, the setup is all there, but it doesn’t happen in this novel. I really liked how the MC develops his powers though.
One of the things that i think make this novel stand out from others is that the RPG game world isn’t setup to cater to players. Instead, the world is rather hostile towards them. Players kill other players, there are tough monsters, and even the NPCs are more than willing to take advantage of the players in the right situation. NPCs can and do lie, cheat, steal, and scam players. There’s a whole world of fully developed NPCs with thousand of years of history.
Combat is well described and there are some genuinely good tactics employed by the MC and his group of friends. The game mechanics are familiar but with enough variation in unique skills and ways to progress that it’s interesting to read about.
The story is mostly slice of life, following the MC, as he explores this game world. There are dungeon dives, crafting, a little bit of intrigue, and some neat twists in the story. There are also some emotional moments that are touching as the MC comes to grip with his internal conflict between his ingrained belief system, the way he thinks he should be, and who he really is.
Overall, a good story that had me sniffling in a couple of places.
Score: 7 out of 10
Auger & Augment (Blood of The Boundless Book 1)
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Dungeon Deposed
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.
Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/partial harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, forced political marriage (and consummation), and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Read at your own risk.
My Opinion: 382 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
First let me say that there are a lot of people who absolutely love this novel. It hits all their buttons. For me, there are some really good parts that I like a lot. What the author does with the dungeon is innovative. The main character is interesting and not your normal hero type. There’s a variety of good fights. However, overall the story didn’t land with me.
The very first thing I ask as someone that reviews LitRPG stories, is this story LitRPG? That was a hard one for me to qualify this time. It has an system in the story but much of the details are hidden away. Adventurer’s and monsters have ‘cards’ that show their stats, level, and skills. But it’s only something that’s referred to in the story, the actual information on those cards is hidden away. That’s kind of the extent of anything RPG related. I was on the fence but i decided that yes, there is an RPG system. It’s referenced several times that characters level and there are classes with specific powers that’s a part of the world. Just because I’d like to see more details, or really any details at all, doesn’t mean that this RPG game world is hidden from the reader or the characters.
The dungeon master stuff is interesting. The MC has this detailed plan to use a dungeon he can create and control to get his revenge. The dungeon isn’t your standard hack and slash though. It becomes this story based system that has quest giving NPCs and as more adventures die, the MC absorbs their class skills and abilities that he uses to make more complex and powerful monsters. There’s more interesting stuff that I won’t spoil.
However, most of the dungeon master story disappears by the 35% mark. At that point, the story becomes more focused on politics and intrigue as both the Queen of the country and her rivals vie for control of the dungeon through marriage and sex. The story also becomes more harem.
Overall, I wanted to like this story. I like that the MC is a bit darker and ok with killing adventurer’s as long as he gets the revenge he wants. The dungeon master stuff is good but the dungeon development becomes a minor part of the story after the 35% mark. I’m also not a particular fan of political intrigue, which becomes a major focus of the story. That coupled with the severe lack of detail on the RPG system in the world just made it less interesting to me. Had even one of those things been more developed: showing the adventurer cards, or more dungeon development in the story, this would have gotten a 7.
While the story wasn’t a home run for me, if you like political intrigue or if weren’t expecting a full dungeon master story or if you prefer super super light RPG stuff, you will likely love this story.
Score: 6 out of 10
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A Game Called Quest: A Retro LitRPG Novel
March 16th, 1982, a day that Donny has been waiting and planning for.
Launch Day for Pac-Man on the Atari 2600!
But an early start, endless queuing and a mad dash comes to nothing when bully Brian, who has been after Donny for years, steals his copy in the store. In an effort to cheer Donny up, his older sister, Amanda, takes him and his newfound compadre, Kevin, to an odd little shop downtown where the shop keep rents them an Atari game called Quest--and it is like nothing the three of them have seen before.
They become sensually immersed in the world of Quintarria with the shop keep's 3D controller contraption hooked to Donny's Atari, and in this world, Donny, Amanda, and Kevin must defeat the evil overlord Serranti and bring peace to the land for the Elves, freeing them from the oppression of the dark Elves.
While they race to finish the game, Brian and his cohorts try to keep the unlikely trio from finishing the game's quest to free the Elves of Quintarria. Donny must not only save Quintarria and Earth, but find a way to stop Brian's ongoing torment.
My Opinion: 126 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Way too pricey for 126 pages.
Set in the 1982, this story makes a bid for nostalgia and combines it with a kind of transported to a game world story. It does the nostalgia part well with all the correct references and the descriptions of the town. Pac Man, alligator shirts, and Atari. Unfortunately, the game part just doesn’t do well.
The kids are sent to a game world where there’s an evil bad guy they have to beat and they’re sent on a series of quests to gather allies to face him. When they first get there, they’re given roles as a warrior, a mage, and an archer and allowed to choice from three races. And it’s here that you start to see the limitations of the RPG system in place. There’s a distinct lack of agency on the part of the players. They are given a string of ‘on the rail’ quests and they level and then move onto the next quest. The kids are never given any choice about how they develop their characters and are just given abilities and levels as they complete the quests. Whole swaths of levels are skipped in the story. The characters go from level 2 to 21 in the space of a page with no details of how they got there. No choice, no depth. And that, to me is the biggest failing of the story. The game part is frankly boring. I get that it likely references the kinds of games from the 80s, with their limited play choice options and limited ability to customize a character. But if the author can essentially bring a VR game system into the story, why couldn’t he implement a better game system too?
Overall, the story had promise. The real world storyline is very engaging and I genuinely felt bad for the kids when they were being bullied and when things turn around at the end. But the RPG game stuff just wasn’t as well developed.
Score: 5 out of 10
A Game Called Quest: A Retro LitRPG Novel
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The Quest: Last Gods Book 1
When Jason receives a beta immersive virtual reality game rig he does suspect that he will be transported to a new world with no way to log out or go back home. Nor did he think he would end up a slave forced to fight for his gremlin masters.
Will Jason find a way to get free and can he get back home?
My Opinion: 197 pages, $1.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy of the story for review. I purchased the story when it became available.
There are a lot of good things going on with this story. It’s a little ambiguous whether it’s trapped in the game or transported to a game world, but there are definitely RPG rules that everyone is aware of and follows, with the glaring exception of combat.
The main character (MC), Jason/Actaeon, tries out the latest VR system and finds himself captured and forced to fight in a fantasy world as a gladiator. The fights are over the top and I’ll mention why that bothers me in second, but for the most part, this is a really solid story. The MC is only one of many players being captured and enslaved as they come into this world. He makes friends and allies with the other captured players and that relationship building is done well.
The story itself doesn’t have a definite conclusion and is a bit slice of life. It feels more like part of a serial story, with some loose threads that are going to be developed later in the series. This includes a whole 2nd narrative about some guy named Larion that doesn’t have anything to do with the MC for now.
Game mechanic-wise, the author put quite a bit of effort into creating a balanced system. The MC trains and gains skills, new abilities, and increases his stats. He even learns magic at one point but has to grind out levels in that if he wants it to be useful. When the MC levels, he only has a few stat and skill points, so he has to be careful about where he distributes those points.
Unfortunately, this balance disappears as soon as combat is initiated. In his first fight, the level 1 MC is able to one-shot an opponent so much more powerful that his level appears as “lvl. ???” Something the reader later learns means that the opponent is at least 30 levels above them. Not only does this occur here, but in every single fight scene where the MC isn’t training. Later the MC even one-shots a whole group of higher level opponents in full platemail, using a sword he just picked up and has no skills for. It just seems like the author is so focused on making these fight scenes over the top that he’s willing to ignore the RPG game rules he’s established.
Which is a shame, because the fact that these fight scenes seem so wand wavy and ignore the rules of the world, are just about the only thing that I don’t like about the story.
Overall, a good story with lots of potential. However, the fight scenes just brought down my enjoyment level because of how much they broke the RPG rules that were setup. If you can ignore that kind of stuff or just don’t care if it happens in small doses, then you’ll like the story a bit more than me. My gamer brain just won’t let me ignore it though.
Score: 6 out of 10
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The Lionheart: a LitRPG Novel (No Respawn Book 1)
Tharis doesn’t know who he is, what he is, or what he will do. All he knows is that he must fight and kill as that is what his IRL player tells him to do.
Soon, Tharis realizes he can taste, feel, and even think on his own! With life becoming more real every second, Tharis finds that he can take control of his own destiny--literally--against the will of his creator. Yet all decisions have consequences, and with awareness comes the fear of death.
And for Tharis… there is no respawn.
My Opinion: 280 pages, $0.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
From fantasy writer Stevie Collier, this novel tries to unsuccessfully combine an awakened AI story with MMORPG storyline. You can tell the author has lots of gaming experience but he ultimately sacrifices the game parts of world for the Story.
As I read the story, it became very evident that the game mechanics and world rules would be ignored anytime a certain story event had to go a particular way. You can genuinely read the first 23%, skip to the 41-44%, then skip to 86-89% for the big reveal about what’s happening in the game world and lose nothing. Everything else feels like RPG themed filler.
--Spoilers ahead---
The novel starts our with a new character being created in an MMORPG. This character is blank and is somehow aware that someone else is making all the choices about his race, appearance, class, and gender. He’s then dropped into the world as Tharis, a level 1 half -elf warrior, even though he’d rather be an architect. Up until the 23% mark, the story follows this character as he goes on a series of quests to level up, get new gear, and work with other characters to find some way to beat Toxhin. Toxhin is a killer that has taken the starter village hostage, demanding money and killing anyone that gets to high a level.
This first 23% is a good story. There are hints that the MC has some ability to see beyond the code and question if someone is controlling him. At the same time, there’s plenty of RPG questing stuff. My only complaint about this section is the lack of depth about XP, and weirdly never seeing a character sheet or getting any numbers for health. There’s a distinct absence of info, especially when compared against the other game details the author provides.
However, at the 23% mark, just as the main character (MC) and his friends are about to be killed by Toxhin, there’s some serious wand waving and MC uses his Neo like game powers to fall through the floor to safety. It’s at this point that I realized that game stuff, the rules, the whole system doesn’t really matter to the story. This is further confirmed as the story suddenly allows the MC to talk to animals, trees, and get quests from them. Then get arrested by his own faction and is forced to power level to 19 (lots of level skipping here too) just to be sent back to the village and face off against Toxhin.
Their final conflict really ended my interest in the story, as again, some serious wand waving occurs. Again, just as he’s about to die, he’s forced to kill his friend and it’s just enough to get level 20, refill his health, earn a legendary subclass, auto equip magically protective armor, and beat the bad guy. And that’s when I realized why the author never showed how much XP characters got or needed to level, otherwise, this exact scene would never be possible.
The rest of the story is just filler, getting the MC more levels, some specialized skills, and equipment, and finding more people like him. It all culminated at the 86% mark where the MC gets all the explanations he wants about him being in a game and is told he’s destined to save everyone.
The novel actually ends at the 89% mark. The last 11% of the novel is also filler, or rather, the beginning of the authors fantasy novel. Nothing to do with LitRPG.
Overall, I liked the first quarter of the story. But once it became evident that the game rules established didn’t matter. That they would be ignored anytime a certain story event had to go a particular way, I honestly lost interest. You can genuinely read the first 23%, skip to the 41-44%, then skip to 86-89% for the big reveal about what’s happening in the game world. Everything else feels like RPG themed filler.
Score: 5 out of 10
The Lionheart: a LitRPG Novel (No Respawn Book 1)
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Barrow King: The Realms Book One (A LitRPG Adventure)
Betrayed by those closest to him, Finn Caldwell thought he’d escaped his life of violence and deception. But when a frantic message from his estranged sister draws him into The Realms, the world’s most advanced holographic reality game, Finn is forced to embrace his deadly skills once more.
Armed with a mysterious artifact known as a Godhead, Finn becomes the warrior mage Gryph. Yet, things are not as they seem and to save his sister, he must escape a sentient dungeon by defeating its master the Barrow King.
My Opinion: 452 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Launch issues: spelling and grammar errors, missing pages, according to reviews but the author assures me they've been fixed.
The novel starts out as a cyber thriller where the main character (MC), Finn, former spy is sent a message by his sister. She’s been missing for the last six months and is trapped in a game created by the most immersive VR game creator. It’s all very cyber thrillery. Very. It also doesn’t really matter, except as a long term plot for the series. In this novel, it’s just a way to get the MC trapped in the game.
There’s also this whole other subplot that the game is really a portal to an alternate dimension where this world is ruled by game mechanics and the CEO of the company used beta players to take over and then advance the universe by 200 years once he was the god of the world. But this honestly doesn’t make sense and I choose to ignore it.
After character creation, which takes way too long (like 40 whole pages). The rest of the story is a dungeon dive. You get a bit of insight into how the MC has a unique abilities and a special item that will make him like a god eventually, but for now has to be leveled up through epic level fights. The MC collects some nice party members but it is still a dungeon dive.
The story has flaws. Like a few of the fights being wand wavy and there being no way the MC should have won (like he fights a level 21 character at level 1 and wins). And the loot the MC gets is so overpowered. But beyond that, the story is good. Most of the other fights are balanced and well described. It’s a pretty good dungeon dive story over all.
Score: 7 out of 10.
Barrow King: The Realms Book One (A LitRPG Adventure)
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Dragon Seed: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (The Archemi Online Chronicles Book 1)
What would you give to be a dragon rider?
Before being conscripted to fight in the Total War, Private Hector Park had a shattered family, a collection of old videogames, and a promising career as a motorcycle stuntman. Now, he is dying from a virus threatening humankind with extinction. He has three days to live.
When Hector’s brother contacts him after years of hostile silence, Hector goes to try and make peace. But his brother has an offer even more unbelievable than reconciliation: the chance to cheat death by joining him in Archemi, a full-immersion fantasy VR-RPG video game.
Determined to forge a life worth living, Hector undergoes the experimental upload process and chooses the difficult path of the Dragon Knight. To achieve his dream, he must prove himself worthy of imprinting a dragon, a being with whom he will share a telepathic bond more intimate than any human relationship.
But at what cost?
My Opinion: 426 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
The beginning portion of this story, the real world stuff, is a bit slow. I’d suggest skipping it and jumping right to the 12% mark. Just know that the main character (MC), Hector, has disease that is killing him. He and others like him are uploaded into a full immersion game that’s still technically in Beta. Everything else about the real world story is touched on in the rest of the story.
Now, the rest of the novel is quiet good. Like surprisingly good. From the cover, I was expecting another high fantasy, barely LitRPG story, that depended on dragons to make it interesting. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only is this a crunchy LitRPG story, it’s one that has a surprising amount of depth to the game system and the world building.
After character creation the story drops the MC on a magically powered airship as a slave who has to figure out someway to escape. That’s right, a magic powered airship. This novel incorporates magictech. There are hints that there’s a whole magictech civilizations but you don’t get to see them in this novel. Still, that alone told me that this novel wouldn’t be the same old fantasy story.
On the game side, there are lots and lots of notifications, ability descriptions, character sheets, damage notifications, and more. The number of skill and ability choices is varied for the MC and there’s more than enough info to roll your own character in this world. In the first half of the story, there’s even an important survival game aspect that I thought was well done. In addition to that crafting plays a very important part of the story since there are no healer classes.
Not only is there depth to the game system though. More surprising is the depth to the world building. The author describes distinct cultures with their own histories, influences, and biases. Each has distinctive dress, traditions, and even hairstyles. I was truly surprised at how fleshed out the game world felt.
Some of that depth diminishes as the story enters the 2nd arc after the 50% mark. But it just shifts to a smaller story that is a bit more military and focuses on the objective of the MC becoming a dragon rider. However, even in this half, there are plenty of surprises and interesting twists.
Overall, I had a very good time reading the story and look forward to seeing where it goes in the next book.
Score: 7 out of 10
Dragon Seed: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (The Archemi Online Chronicles Book 1)
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Mitigating Risk (Nora Hazard Book 1)
*Nora Hazard's story begins over three years prior to the events of Delvers LLC: Welcome to Ludus.*
On Ludus, life is often cheap. Nora’s childhood hadn’t given her many options. With nowhere else to go after losing her family, she had joined an old friend in a street gang and found an unlikely home there.
But unfortunately, tragedy is about to befall Nora. Grudges from the distant past and movements of shadowy organizations may take away everything she is familiar with and all that she holds dear…possibly even her life.
Danger has never stopped her before, but survival may require escaping her old life and embarking on an insane, desperate journey. On the way, she might even accidentally stumble into both an incredible opportunity, and an incredible burden.
Unfortunately for her enemies, Nora was no pushover before...and that was before discovering super powers!
My Opinion: 238 pages now says 400, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This almost feels like a short story. I mean that in the best way possible. It’s a very efficient story. Sets up backstory and empathy in the first 25%. Them gets into the Game mechanic and world building explanation. Them straight into the application of those new powers kicking butts. All without ever getting boring or cluttered. It’s one of the most efficient stories I’ve read from the author and, with the exception of parts in the middle, it just flies by as you read it.
You don’t have to have read Delvers LLC to read this. You’ll get more of the references if you have, but the author does a great job of explaining what Ludas is and the orb mechanics. Good stuff that you can see tying into the larger series but still stands alone as a good action story.
Score: 7 out of 10
Mitigating Risk (Nora Hazard Book 1)
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Warrior Academy: The Hiroic Trio - Episode 2
After the world is destroyed humanities survivors start anew. Now in a world forever changed, a place where magic is real, and monsters have come to life. A place where magic and science blend with pop culture… Welcome to Warrior Academy.
Welcome back to Warrior Academy. Rejoin Hiro and friends as they continue their journey. Meet new friends and enemies. More food, fighting, and music.
If you like video games, music, anime, and just pop culture in general… you will love Warrior Academy. Its Harry Potter meets Naruto with a little Dragon Ball Z and Dungeons and Dragons thrown in for fun, oh and don’t forget a smattering of High School Musical…
This is the second episode in a 13 episode series.
(P.S. There is an attached Youtube and/or Spotify playlist meant to be listened to with the episode. Think of it as a Soundtrack.)
My Opinion: 291 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Fun slice of life that reads a bit like mash up fan fiction. It’s set in a future world were a cataclysmic change occurred bringing monsters and great evils into the world. This same change gave the few human survivors powers and abilities to fight the monsters. These survivors took this raw power and used anime and manga as their inspiration to create controlled powers.
Over time the original stories became myth and the clans took on their names. So you have thing like the Belmont Clan, teachers named Professor Strange, and an old wise martial arts instructor named Roshi.
The MC has a tragic past that is gradually revealed in flashback chapters. He’s attending this school where he competes and learns with other teens like him. Teens with powers and martial training who are being taught to harness their powers and increase their levels and ranks.
In this episode, there’s an introduction of a sport that gets people in teams and an inter school competition.
Mostly slice of life stuff, sports, classes, school rivalry, crafting
But about ¾ in you get a development of a larger plot point for the series. Overall, it is fun, parody stuff. If you like the characters and the fighting, it’s fun to follow the MC on his slice of life adventure.
Score: 7 out of 10
Warrior Academy: The Hiroic Trio - Episode 2
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Restart (Dark Paladin Book #3) LitRPG Series
The Game is in turmoil. All the players’ strength and resources are invested in preparing for Restart: only twenty percent of the players will make it to the next era. Murders are becoming commonplace; bribes and nepotism are at their height. Betrayal is becoming an inherent part of everyday interactions. The Game has spread its perfidious influence to the farthest corners of the Universe, affecting every sentient being. Will the Dark Judge reach the right verdict? Will he follow the ideals of his class to the end, or will he reject them, becoming an ordinary player? Yaropolk must make a fateful choice: he is the Guide. The one who will launch the Restart.
My Opinion: 323 pages, $5.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited
Took me a little while to remember who everyone is. This is not the kind of series you pick up in the middle. You have to have read books 1 and 2 first. Even then, it’s kind of a complicated story.
Basically, our world is actually a game and there’s a whole hidden game system with a bunch of specific rules. The main character (MC) has up till now just been trying to get a grasp of it all, get a class, a job, and grinding out some levels. Only now, the conditions to reset everything and start over have been met. The big question is, if Restart happens, who’s going to get to determine what the new game world is like? Also, only 10% of the existing players will make it through to the new iteration and there’s fierce fighting for those spots.
This series in general has been harder to get into than The Way of the Shaman because the game world rules are harder to understand. In this series there are a bunch of custom game rules and complex social/political aspects. There’s even this whole plot with the archetypes of Merlin and the Madonna. The Way of the Shaman was at least in part inspired by World of Warcraft.
Overall, I liked the novel, though even for me it’s unnecessarily complex in some places. If you didn't like the first books in the series, this one is going to be just as confusing. The pay off at the end is worth it, if you like the series. This is the last book in the series, for now, according to the author.
Score: 7 out of 10
Restart (Dark Paladin Book #3) LitRPG Series
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(Music 4)
Music Credits
"Blip Stream" "Mighty Like Us" "Big Shift" "Vivacity"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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