LitRPG Podcast 239 - Life Reset 5, The Dungeon Slayer, This Poo Shall Pass, A New Script, Dragon Heart 7
LitRPG Podcast 239 - Life Reset 5, The Dungeon Slayer, This Poo Shall Pass, A New Script, Dragon Heart 7
Aug 14th, 2020
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 239 of the LitRPG podcast. I’m Ramon Mejia.
I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews. We have 9 new reviews just for you.
New Releases and Reviews:
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5) (12:33)
Continues the adventure and town building
Score: 7.7 out of 10
The Dungeon Slayer: A LitRPG Level-Up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 1) (14:13)
Whiny start but once it got to the action it took off
Score: 7.6 out of 10
This Poo Shall Pass (Caverns and Creatures) (22:29)
So. Many. Poop. Jokes.
Score: 7.4 out of 10
A New Script: A System Apocalypse short story (The System Apocalypse Short Stories Book 2) (24:43)
A good story nugget
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Ian’s (Eye-Ann) Picks of the Week (26:30)
(Pic 0)
Segment from Ian Mitchell a long time LitRPG community member who reads and reviews as much as me. He was nice enough to agree to join the LitRPG Podcast family as a new reviewer.
(Pic 6)
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7
A side mission
Score: 8.5 out of 10
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3
Cultivating school and other hijinks
Score: 8.8 out of 10
Bio Dungeon: Symbiote (The Body's Dungeon Book 1)
Let's learn about the immune system.
Score: 8.2 out of 10
There's a bomb in your head, don't tell anyone
Score: 8.0 out of 10
Rebel Star: A LitRPG Post-Apocalyptic Space Opera (System Apocalypse Book 8)
Almost a savior
Score: 8.8 out of 10
(Play Music 2)
LitRPG News
R&R, a segment on the latest Soundbooth Theater Live stream. Ray Johnson and Ramon Mejia talked about LitRPG, proving they are not secretly the same person. It was fun talking to Ray about his life, some of his projects and his review of Life Reset 4 audiobook.
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.hays2/videos/10101854679799279/
(link)
A new audiobook focused newsletter went out from Listener’s Newsletter which is a collaboration between Michael Chatfield and yours truly. A twice a month newsletter that highlights the best audiobooks. For now, it’s focused on LitRPG, which is why I’m involved. But if it gets a lot of demand from subscribers, it can send out newsletters for any genre of audiobooks people want.
https://listenersnewsletter.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ListenersNewsletter/
Found a new plagiarized novel, Immortal RPG. It was originally written as Immortal Player by RDream on Webnovel.com . It seems to be an abandoned story there with the last chapter published in February 2020. There’s been a slew of this kind of stuff recently, usually with very general fantasy covers but this one stood out because on the cover it also claimed to be a #1 Bestselling series and National Book Award Finalist, neither of which is true.
https://www.webnovel.com/book/the-immortal-player_13510347106112805
Plagiarized novel 2 this week. Dungeon Tutorial is stealing from Dungeon’s Path, a novel on Royal Road, Scribblehub, and the author’s Patreon.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/29840/dungeons-path
World Domination is plagiarized from World Development System on WebNovel.
https://www.webnovel.com/book/world-development-system_12967709905188105
Out Now!
War of the Posers (The Bad Guys Book 4)
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5)
Chrysalis - A Fantasy LitRPG (Beast Realms Book 1)
The Way of the Force (The Heavenly Throne Book 2): A LitRPG Wuxia Series
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7
Derelict: Book 2, Counterattack (A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure)
The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2)
DoucheMage: A Glitchworld Original
New LitRPG Audiobooks
Backlash - A Second Skin Novel Book 5
City of the Dead - Alchemist Series Book 1
Expedition Newb - Sun & Shadow Online Book 2
Twilight Templar - The Eternal Journey Book 1
The Tower's Price - Tower of Power Book 5
Dark Academy - Transformation Book 4
Dragon's Born: A 4X Strategy LitRPG Series
Warlords of the Circle Sea, Book 2
Path of Soul: BlackFlame Online Universe
Glory of Formation Emperor, Book 3
Upcoming LitRPG:
The Idle System (A LitRPG series Book 6): The War (Aug. 15th, 2020)
Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) (Aug. 17th, 2020)
Intellectum [RealRPG series] Book 1 (Aug. 18th, 2020)
Raider (Olympus Reborn Book 2) (Aug. 21st, 2020)
The Power of Nine: Scifi LitRPG - Esports - Mecha Battles (Overdrive Book 2) (Aug. 20th, 2020)
Raider (Olympus Reborn Book 2) (Aug. 21st, 2020)
The SyStem: Multiverse: Book 2 (Aug. 23rd, 2020)
War of Gods: Dungeons of Perdition - Book 4 (A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure) (Aug. 24th, 2020)
Dream Stream Reality: A LitRPG Adventure (Aug. 25th, 2020)
Small Unit Tactics (Volume #1): LitRPG Series (Aug. 27th, 2020)
Holy War (Disgardium Book #5): LitRPG Series (Sept. 4th, 2020)
Dungeon Worlds: A Reborn Online LitRPG Adventure (Sept. 9th, 2020)
Stolen Lives: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Underhill Chronicles Book 1) (Sept. 15th, 2020)
The Guild Core 1: Dragon Bourne (A Dungeon Core LitRPG/Cultavation Epic) (Sept. 16th, 2020)
Claimed (Olympus Reborn Book 3) (Sept. 18th, 2020)
Labyrinth to Tartarus: The LitRPG Saga Continues (The Eternal Journey Book 3) (Sept. 21st, 2020)
Sovereign (The Gods' Game, Volume IV): A LitRPG novel (Sept. 30th, 2020)
Seas the Day: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (The Bad Guys Book 5) (Oct. 1st, 2020)
Final Odyssey: A LitRPG Journey (Legends Online Book 7) (Oct. 1st, 2020)
Dungeon Crawler Carl (Oct. 2nd, 2020)
Watcher’s Fate: A LitRPG Saga (Life in Exile Book 3) (Oct. 6th, 2020)
City of Goblins (In the System Book #1): LitRPG Series (Oct. 7th, 2020)
The Otherworld (Underdog Book #4): LitRPG Series (Oct. 26th, 2020)
The Fallen God: A LitRPG Adventure (Eternal Online Book 3) (Oct. 27th, 2020)
Quest for the Ember Relic: A Phoenix Online LitRPG Adventure (Nov. 23rd, 2020)
Onto New Releases and Reviews
(Play Music 3)
New Releases and Reviews
(Picture 1)
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5)
A prophecy foretold … the fate of thousands on the line …
With one major enemy town behind them, the GreenPiece clan marches onward to new conquests. Facing Oren and his monster army are the combined forces of the so-called ‘civilized races’, intent on halting his invasion of their territory.
Reality blurs as Oren fights harder than ever to save the trapped players, his clan, and his family.
Life Reset: Conquest is book 5 of New Era Online, a LitRPG / GameLit bestselling series that combines settlement development, a monster protagonist, a deranged AI companion who’s obsessed with testicular quips, and a desire to explore what it means to be a human living inside a video game.
My Opinion: 463 pages, $5.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
The story continues to expand its scope in the second arc of the series. The game world has changed and the main character (MC) has adapted and found a way to keep his monster empire safe, by expanding and conquering the neighboring cities and towns. There’s minor advancement of the plotline to free all the players trapped in the game but lots of city and kingdom building, resource management, and large battles to defend and attack cities. Overall a good story with some interesting villains, good fights, and crunchy LitRPG stuff for those that like kingdom building.
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5)
The Dungeon Slayer: A LitRPG Level-Up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 1)
Mankind has been under attack for fifty years by the awesome power of bosses and monsters who are the denizens of dungeons. Monsters started these attacks when a mystical beast named Raekast appeared and threatened the world, eradicating human life from several continents. Raekast threatened all human life until a mysterious ceremony called 'Rebirth' unlocked the hidden potential of humans strong enough to repel and defeat her. Raekast’s final, desperate act caused dungeons to spawn across the globe. The greatest of these dungeons is known as Titan. Dungeons are a threat to humanity and nature alike. Powerful reborn humans known as 'Slayers' enter their dangerous depths to kill the monsters and bosses that live within and retrieve treasure, items and more.
Tad Harrington, a video game loving 16-year-old high school student, was bullied relentlessly throughout his life. Tad’s Rebirth date has come. His last hope is to be reborn a slayer strong enough to enter the toughest dungeons where a life of power and luxury could await him.
When things don’t go according to plan, Tad finds out he has a special Rebirth, one that can level up and grow stronger by defeating monsters. Starting from level one, how high can Tad climb? Can he overcome the challenges and become the ultimate dungeon slayer?
My Opinion: 370 pages, $0.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
I eventually really enjoyed this novel but it has one of the whiniest openings I think I’ve ever read. I mean I understand the need to show the low place the main character (MC) starts out at so that he has some progress to make in the story but it just goes on and on for way to long about just how much of a loser the MC feels like and how he’s so weak that bullies find him wherever he goes. It’s a real turn off.
Thankfully, the story improved as it continued. The setup also included an interesting world building element where everyone has to go through a rebirth between the ages of 15-16 to discover if they’ll have powers and if they can help defend the world from monsters or fight in the dungeon that spawns them.
The MC gets a zero power rating and is considered less powerful than even a normal person. Things change for the MC as he gets an RPG interface that lets him increase his power by leveling, improving his stats, and completing quests. Most of the story is dungeon diving to further this power growth to make him less wimpy.
From the point where the MC goes into his first dungeon, the story takes a turn for the better. There’s lots of good action with the MC fighting in dungeons with a group and growing in power as he develops his character while unlocking the mysteries of his abilities. The end in particular took a dark turn that I wasn’t expecting, but was pleased with.
The RPG stuff shows up at about the 7% mark, and unfortunately isn’t something anyone else has. There’s a few character sheets that show the MCs level, stats, and abilities. There are also a few quests the MC gets. The MCs powers are varied and honestly felt a little wand wavy as they just appeared as the story went on without the MC really working for them. Other rules that showed up also felt inconsistent with the world building. For example, the MC uses tools for healing and spell casting which he’s told are specific to certain people, like they’re class tools. But there’s no mention of such a restriction in any earlier world building. Instead, the power system is just numeric with higher amounts of power determining just what place you have in society as a civilian, soldier, creator, etc. The use of these class specific tools fits with the RPG interface theme but since the MC is the only one in the world that has it, it doesn’t fit with the larger world building. On the plus side of things, the story focuses heavily on the MC improving his stats as he levels and that is done well. Each stat increase has a real impact on the MC both in his physical description and how he fights. Additionally, though the powers were gained in a little wand wavy manner, their use was well done and added tension and variety to the fights.
Overall, it’s eventually a good action filled story. Despite the whiny beginning that was frankly annoying and the way the MC gains power is a little wand wavy, once the MC gets to the dungeon diving, the fighting and character progression is enough to be very entertaining.
Score: 7.6 out of 10
The Dungeon Slayer: A LitRPG Level-Up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 1)
This Poo Shall Pass (Caverns and Creatures)
Having a Charisma score of 4 seems pretty bad when you're constantly shitting yourself because of it. But things get even worse for Cooper when he can't squeeze out so much as a shart.
The pressure builds as he and his friends seek answers to help this volcano erupt. Can they discover the mysterious cause of Cooper's constipation in time to save him?
Find out in this exciting new Caverns & Creatures adventure!
My Opinion: 36 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
So. Many. Poop. Jokes.
A short story about the group trying to help their low charisma barbarian, Cooper, try to get over a blockage in his intestines. Lots of poop humor. Not for everyone, but I thought it was too funny and a nice variation on Cooper’s normal charisma flaw.
Score: 7.4 out of 10
This Poo Shall Pass (Caverns and Creatures)
A New Script: A System Apocalypse short story (The System Apocalypse Short Stories Book 2)
A New Script is set in Vancouver, BC and showcases an unusual adventuring party and the day-to-day struggle of individuals who aren't necessarily suited to the apocalypse.
A New Script is set in the second year of the apocalypse (between books 4 and 5) and features new characters.
My Opinion: 24 pages, $0.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited
A good story nugget
This is an interesting short story independent of the main series characters. It features a group of survivors that have gained script/movie related abilities like: Edit Line, Script - which generates quests and bonus credits based on scripted actions, Edit - which can cut out injuries if caught quickly. It’s otherwise a monster hunt where the group tries to gain XP and credits to get their own safe zone place to rest instead of paying exorbitant credits to the one local rest location. It’s a nice little story nugget with subtle world building, interesting system powers, and good action.
Score: 7.7 out of 10
A New Script: A System Apocalypse short story (The System Apocalypse Short Stories Book 2)
Ian’s (Eye-Ann) Picks of the Week - New Segment
Segment from Ian Mitchell a long time LitRPG community member who reads and reviews as much as me. He was nice enough to agree to join the LitRPG Podcast family as a new reviewer.
(Pic 6)
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7
A side mission
Still my favorite series. I like it better than the cradle series And Kirill Klevanski didn't botch book 7. Hadjar is still a smart tough guy. I did get the feeling that his power level is exceeding the empire he lives in. The fights were great. Hadjar's temporary orc sidekick added some nice flavor to the stew this time. Not quite as tasty as the first 6 books. Bits at the end felt like easy mode. It'll be fun seeing Hadjar back at school.
Score: 8.5 out of 10
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7
(Pic 7)
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3
Cultivating school and other hijinks
I really loved most of the first part of the book. Pacing, development, and emotional tone were excellent. I had a great time with the book. Some great fights. Very visceral (might be a bit much for some). Something about the last part of the book felt odd in the pacing. I enjoyed it. Some exposition went a bit long as well as trippy cultivation breakthroughs. I can definitely recommend this. Has a similar feel to the author's Endless Online series.
Score: 8.8 out of 10
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Forsworn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 3
(Pic 8)
Bio Dungeon: Symbiote (The Body's Dungeon Book 1)
Let's learn about the immune system.
An enjoyable adventure. I liked the human hosts parts of the story. Those were fun and I really liked the characters. The core parts of the story were interesting enough to take in the how the immune system works. I think it's cool how gamification gives an extra hook and a way for the reader to visualize and conceptualize the various parts of the immune system. Worthwhile reading.
Score: 8.2 out of 10
Bio Dungeon: Symbiote (The Body's Dungeon Book 1)
(Pic 9)
Rise (Last Chance Book 1)
There's a bomb in your head, don't tell anyone
This quickly reminded me of the show Dead like me. Plus spy shows. Plus some anime. Dare had something happen but can't tell anyone. There's an immediacy and intensity having a dead man switch. Having to keep it all secret ups the tension. What a way to disrupt a life. All of this creates a surreal quality to the experience. I liked the mystery and feeling that things aren't quite what they seem. With first person the focus is on Dare the MC. The other characters have some definition but didn't stand out for me. So we have a person thrown in the deep end on hard mode. I liked the story. It didn't have the pacing of a standalone novel. All the same I enjoyed the ride. Next episode of Dare's bizarre adventure please!
Score: 8.0 out of 10
(Pic 11a - Manual)
Rebel Star: A LitRPG Post-Apocalyptic Space Opera (System Apocalypse Book 8)
Almost a savior
John Lee is the guy who gets things done. Feed him enough chocolate and give him something impossible to do and he'll get it done. I love this guy. This time he helps save a space pirate base. Except they really seem more a last stop for the people who don't fit in and won't give up. The world(s) the author makes and his hero is plucky, angry, passionate, smart and thinks about how to fix the broken things in the world. I really enjoy how often he gets curb stomped every book. I binged the audiobooks for 1-7 which were great and read this one. Bonus for all the explosions. Not much on the romance side this time. The battle throughout the pirate base was epic. Reminds me a bit of recent supers book by Drew Hayes: Raising Hephestus.
Score: 8.8 out of 10
Rebel Star: A LitRPG Post-Apocalyptic Space Opera (System Apocalypse Book 8)
That’s it everyone! Thank you for watching/listening.
You can follow us on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/litrpgpodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LitRPGPodcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3-eBvpm-g7IkjfVktObGAA
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/geekbytespodcast
Our Webpage: www.litrpgpodcast.com
Other LitRPG facebook pages
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPG.books
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGsociety/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheFantasyNation/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/541733016223492/
If you enjoy the podcast and want to support us you can also find all the other ways to support the podcast at www.litrpgpodcast.com/support
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/