LitRPG Podcast 164 - Level Up Bk 3, Lost Portals, Crystal Shards Online Bk 4, Bone Dungeon, Soulcatcher, Greyblood: Adventurer Academy
I’m Ramon Mejia. I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews. I have 6 new reviews just for you.
Before we begin, I want to give a shout out to two new supporters: Christian Thomas, and S Selcouth. Thank you both for your generous support.
New Releases and Reviews:
The Final Trial (Level Up Book #3) LitRPG Series (11:25)
Lots of action, little less real world story
Score: 7.7 of 10
Didn’t work for me. Good end. Ok, but skippable middle, and disliked beginning.
Score: 6 out of 10
Gun Blade (Crystal Shards Online Book 4) (23:04)
Good action and a switch from the fantasy setting
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG (25:21)
A good, if predictable, dungeon core story.
Score: 7.2 out of 10
Soulcatcher. LitRPG series "Universe ICS": Book I (28:28)
Russian translation, lots of detailed RPG action, and sometimes hard to connect to character.
Score: 7.3 out of 10
Greyblood: Adventurer Academy: A LitRPG Series (31:44)
It has some flaws, but is a pretty good LitRPG story that has magical academy, coming of age themes, good action, crafting, and a tournament.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
(Play Music 2)
LitRPG News
A quick congratulations to Michael Chatfield for his amazing launch of the 4th Realm last week. It broke through the top 100 on all of Amazon for a number of days. I think it hit 86 or even lower at one point. But it just goes to show how well a LitRPG novel can do, even if it’s not on KU.
Michael Chatfield, author of the Emerialia series and The 10th Realm series, did a Facebook Live stream this week where he answered fan questions and made some announcements. He claimed full responsibility for the spelling errors in the latest book, the 4th Realm, as a product of him writing changes right before release.
Michael also announced that he’ll be putting books 1-3 of the 10 Realm series into the Kindle Unlimited program for 90 days, starting April 1st. He’s doing this to help out fans that have been begging him to put his stuff back on KU so they can afford to read it.
It’s a limited time project, so starting April 1st go get those books, cause they won’t be there forever.
https://www.facebook.com/michaelchatfieldsbooks/videos/313748305953289/
I hope things are going well still. I wanted to give the podcast a heads up that Login Accepted will be free this four day weekend to build up some traction again before Login Re;Coded comes out mid- to late May. - RJ Triveri
Matthew Kent mentioned this week that his book The Apprentice of Arabella will be FREE this Friday and Saturday.
Out Now!
Save Point: Reload (Book 2 - Sci-Fi litRPG Series)
Dark World [Transformation. Book II]
Viridian Gate Online: Dead Man’s Tide: A litRPG Adventure (The Illusionist Book 2)
Vault of the Magi: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 5)
Collide (EvoBorne - A LitRPG Saga Book 2)
The Prisoner of Arabella (Arabella Online)
New LitRPG Audiobooks
Beta Life - Digital Sorcery, Book 1
Cavern of Spirits: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure: Stonehaven League, Book 3
A Song of Shadow: Bard from Barliona, Book 2 (March 29th, 2019)
Upcoming LitRPG:
Shyft - Book 1 - Defender of Gallowind: (A LitRPG Adventure) (March 29th, 2019)
Into The Game: Dungeon Crawl Quest: A LitRPG Adventure (Wizard Warrior Quest) (April 1st, 2019)
Dark Hand (Alpha World Book 7) (April 1st, 2019)
Djinn Tamer: Rivals: A Monster Battling GameLit Adventure (Djinn Tamer - Bronze League Book 2) (April 5th, 2019)
Edge of the Abyss (Respawn Trials Book #1) LitRPG Series (April 10th, 2019)
Viridian Gate Online: Embers of Rebellion: A litRPG Adventure (The Firebrand Series Book 2) (April 11th, 2019)
Dukes and Ladders: A LitRPG/Gamelit Adventure (The Good Guys Book 5) (April 11th, 2019)
Adapt (A Touch of Power Book 2) (April 12th, 2019)
Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1) LitRPG Series (April 22nd, 2019)
In Search of the Uldans (Galactogon: Book #2) LitRPG Series
(April 25th, 2019)
Guardians Of The Round Table 5: Crystal Mine (May 18th, 2019)
Web of Worlds (Reality Benders Book #4): LitRPG Series (May 20th, 2019)
Realm of Noria [LitRPG series. Book 2. The Life] (June 1st, 2019)
Apostle of the Sleeping Gods (Disgardium Book #2): LitRPG Series (June 10th, 2019)
Onto New Releases and Reviews
(Play Music 3)
New Releases and Reviews
(Picture 1)
The Final Trial (Level Up Book #3) LitRPG Series
Phil Panfilov's tribulations seem to have run their course. He's quite prepared to quit the alien game installed in his brain. In fact, Phil looks forward to a normal existence: both he and his company are in excellent shape. Still, the timing seems to be badly wrong.
Humanity's enemies are stronger than ever. Despite all his new abilities, Phil has never been so close to defeat. But there's too much at stake this time, his interface included. Without it, all his hopes for a better future will be thwarted.
Phil can't afford that to happen. He has to face his enemies and defeat them, otherwise all his work has been for nothing.
Can he really confront a force which is infinitely more powerful than he can ever hope to become? A force which will stop at nothing to achieve its ends...
My Opinion: 483 pg, $6.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review, I purchased a copy when it became available.
This is a nice conclusion to the first arc of the Level Up series. It resolves most of the big plot points while leaving lots of room for future ones. Phil, the main character (MC), finally faces the big test that will determine if he can keep the life changing interface the alien’s installed. This tests adds a new narrative that feels more like a traditional LitRPG story with a specific hex capture ‘game’ that has to be won. There’s action, strategy, base building, and PvP fighting. At the same time, the real world social storyline is not abandoned and continues to develop with a new villain popping up there too.
For me, while I thought the game test added some action-adventure, I still liked the real world storyline better. It is what I’ve come to appreciate about the series, the speculative journey of how an RPG interface would be used by people. How’d they’d try to exploit it for their personal gain or to help others, the social and economic conflicts, and the unintended consequences. It doesn’t sound exciting when I describe it, but it very much is.
Overall, a good story that I stayed up much to late finishing.
Score: 7.7 of 10
The Final Trial (Level Up Book #3) LitRPG Series
(Picture 2)
Lost Portals: Czarzakian Multiverse Online (LitRPG Omniverse 1) (Czarzakian Multiverse Online: LitRPG Omnverse)
Seven Game Master Corpsmen went into a coma after exploring a glitch in the simulated multiverse. It’s classified by the GMC until they can figure out what is going on with the anomaly. They call the phenomenon a ‘lost portal’.
Newly commissioned Game Master, Priest McKenna, makes the mistake of leading his team into a lost portal. Priest and his wife are the only two corpsmen to return from the portal and not go into a coma but the event changed their lives. They lost their team, their memories of what happened inside the portal, and they lost their marriage.
Priest also loses his class and powers. The Game Master Corps questions his ability as a leader. His ex-wife becomes a dangerous rival.
Now Priest must create a new team of multiverse explorers to get his powers back and find the lost portal where his friends are trapped. He recruits a timid portal mage, an intern developer, and others. The only way to succeed is to journey deeper into the Czarzakian multiverse and level up.
Can the team grow in skill and ability to even survive exploration of the multiverse? Can they find the lost portal and save the people stuck inside? What is the source of these anomalous portals with no destination?
My Opinion: 245 pages, $0.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review, I purchased a copy when it became available.
The novel is a mixed bag and I’m a little conflicted about it. I did not like the beginning. The first 7% is really confusing and a bit gory and it really feels like the author wrote this part not sure where the story was going. The first 30% doesn’t even feel like LitRPG, but more like a sci-fi multidimensional story with some gaming jokes. The story becomes LitRPG at about the 31% mark with the main character (MC) regaining his class powers and much of the rest of the story is him training his new team members, newly empowered NPCs who get their own classes. This section is just ok to good with the group going on some slice of life adventurers to level everyone and train them in their powers and while it’s not boring, it is also very skippable. You could read the first 7% and then skip to the 95% mark and continue reading the story for the same resolution. None of the middle story slice of life adventuring really matters to the plot. The end is actually pretty good with some nice resolutions and some touching moments.
Overall, while I liked the end and the Samantha-Gina plotline, it’s not enough to make up for the so-so slice of life adventuring that doesn’t matter to the plot or the beginning that I didn’t like.
Score: 6 out of 10
(Picture 3)
Gun Blade (Crystal Shards Online Book 4)
In the future…only the strong survive…
New London—a city of wondrous technology, where cyborgs and androids reign, and the fate of many is decided by bloody PvP. But this violent metropolis may also hold the secret to the true location of Citadel and Reece and his friends are running out of time to save their home.
With Gilly and Becky now saved from the Labyrinth, Reece turns his attention to the original mission of saving Citadel. But in order to discover it, they’ll need to leave the fantasy realm of Nasgar and cross the wild to explore a harsh and futuristic dystopia; in hopes of accessing the archives that will lead them to their home. But as they face powerful enemies, a blood-thirsty AI and challenges like never before, a dark secret from Rembrandt’s past may threaten to bring it all undone.
But before even that, Reece will need to face his own demons from the past, and an arch nemesis who still stands in his way…
Join Reece as he uncovers more mysteries within the Crystal Shards and confronts the strange new enemy that threatens both it and his home. In order to defeat them, he’ll need to unlock more powers within the game world and himself and grow into the man and leader that his team needs him to become.
WARNING: Contains RPG mechanics, detailed party combat and giant boss fights. If these things do not interest you, then this is not the book for you!
My Opinion: 527 pages, $5.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
Another action packed entry in the series. This time the group travels to a new zone, New London, with different rules, classes, and enemies to fight. Group must choose a faction just to survive but that decision will make them even more enemies. Loads of good action-adventure here and some interesting developments with the larger plot. The switch from straight fantasy to include guns, and a more cyberpunk setting is a welcome shift.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Gun Blade (Crystal Shards Online Book 4)
(Picture 4)
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG
Ryan doesn't remember much about his life before becoming a dungeon core. Only that he had a bit of a disagreement with the church -- something to do with a beheading?
Now reborn, Ryan begins to arm his darkness dungeon with devious traps, bestial zombies and ill-named skeletal creations, without doing anything too evil. Well, mostly. Some adventurers just deserve a stalactite to the head.
But Ryan quickly learns being a darkness dungeon isn't all loot and bone puns. With a necromancer on the rise and the Adventurer's Guild watching his every move, he must prove that not all darkness dungeons are malevolent... even if they do have a few skeletons in their caverns.
Sadly, all of these issues keep distracting him from his own guilty pleasure, skeletal fight club. But don't tell his fairy about that.
My Opinion: 398 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
A good, if predictable, dungeon core story. There’s a good snarky sense of humor, and a few interesting aspects, but overall the story is kind of middle of the road for a dungeon core novel. Nothing bad, good adventure, limited monster types, a dungeon and bonded fairy that create mobs, traps, and treasure for adventurers. The only slight variation would be that the dungeon creates undead type monsters. Still, while entertaining, it doesn’t do anything to push the dungeon core genre.
Score: 7.2 out of 10
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG
(Picture 5)
Soulcatcher. LitRPG series "Universe ICS": Book I
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.
My Opinion: 557 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is a Russian translation that focuses mostly on action-adventure. The MC wakes up in a virtual world and is given a goal to beat the hardest dungeon and the baddest boss in the starter zone, all with in 10 days. If he does, he'll get to keep his scaling starter items and have an advantage out in the world beyond which he'll automatically be sent to in 10 days. But, it's not a straightforward path. He'll have to deal with competing guilds, PvP assassins, a variety of linked quests, and many monsters. There are also mysteries to be solved. Like why doesn't anyone have memories of before the game? Or who is trying to permadeath him?
Overall, the combat in the story is good. A nice variety of monsters and quest types. It's actually the main part of the novel. Though there are a few sections that are info dumps, they're rare. Also, just because of the amnesia aspect of the story, it may be challenging for some readers to connect to the characters since they don’t have a backstory.
Score: 7.3 out of 10
Soulcatcher. LitRPG series "Universe ICS": Book I
(Picture 6)
Greyblood: Adventurer Academy: A LitRPG Series
Born a Monster. Destined to be a Hero.
Half-Orc. Half-Human. All Hero.
Lugor is a Half-Orc, and in his world, that's a very dangerous thing to be.
He dreams of becoming an Adventurer, slaying monsters and delving into dungeons. Unfortunately for him, one cut to his skin could reveal his secret. He's forced to spend his days in his small village, working at the Smithy and keeping his head down.
But when his world is turned upside down in a monster attack on his village, Lugor seeks training at the Adventurer Academy, where he can learn to become the Champion that he was born to be. It won't be easy, especially whilst contending against an arrogant mage who is determined to see him fail.
With a steadfast Dwarven Elementalist and a sarcastic Dark-Elf Necromancer by his side, Lugor sets out to prove that just because he's Half-Orc, doesn't mean he can't be a hero.
My Opinion: 358 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
A pretty good LitRPG story that has magical academy, coming of age themes, good action, crafting, and a tournament. There are a few technical writing flaws and some late story plot holes, but nothing that ruins the story. Overall, it’s a really fun journey with likable characters, action-adventure, and nicely detailed crafting.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Greyblood: Adventurer Academy: A LitRPG 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 4)
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/