LitRPG Podcast 240 - Noobtown Book 4, Ninetoes, Only I Level Up (Solo Leveling)
LitRPG Podcast 241 - Small Unit Tactics, Path to Villainy, Intellectum, FFF-Class Trashero
Aug 28th, 2020
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 241 of the LitRPG podcast. I’m Ramon Mejia.
I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews. We have 4 new reviews just for you.
For the full show notes visit us at: https://litrpgpodcast.com/litrpg-podcast-241
New Releases and Reviews:
Small Unit Tactics (Volume #1): LitRPG Series
Good group fights, format takes getting used to
Score: 7.2 out of 10
Path to Villainy: An NPC Kobold's Tale
When a Kobold has had enough
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Early translation/editing issues make a tough read
Score: 6 out of 10
Twist on the summoned to the fantasy world tropes
Score: 7.3 out of 10
https://reaperscans.com/comics/853149-fff-class-trashero
Ian’s (Eye-Ann) Picks of the Week
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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)
Reincarnation: (A Litrpg/Gamelit Novel) (Last Born of Ki'Darth Trilogy Book 1)
Superhero kitty
Score: 7.6 out of 10
Shadowbound (Ghostlight Academy Book 1)
Kai the miner
Score: 8.2 put of 10
Burning Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 4)
Enjoyed Jace and friends adventuring again
Score: 8.0 out of 10
(Play Music 2)
LitRPG News
More Plagiarized stories - Common name published by James Grayson. Even claim copyright. All these stories are abandoned which makes them targets of this kind of theft.
A new plagiarized story. Domination Online is stolen from a web novel called World Domination System. If you
https://www.webnovel.com/book/world-domination-system_11413811606356705
Next World Online is stolen as well. It's taken from New Life on the Royal Road.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/18685/new-life
The Final Primal is another story stolen from the web novel The Last Primal.
https://www.webnovel.com/book/the-last-primal_17132064005582905
The Forest King is a stolen story from The Forest Emperor found on the Royal Road.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/14792/the-forest-emperor
Dungeon Stars is a plagerized story of Dungeon and Stars found on the Royal Road.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15070/dungeon-and-stars
Micah’s Quest is published by the same James Grayson as the others on this list. Its stolen from the Royal Road story, Eh! Where Did My Pen... Pen... Go!?!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26879/eh-where-did-my-pen-pen-go
This one is the most clever, it doesn’t even try to hide or change the name of the story and even links to the royal road story on the inside cover. The original story is The Invincible Hero. You can tell it's a stolen story since the account ‘author’ Ethan Dexan has been flagged by readers for stealing stories online before for Hero’s Quest.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/18939/the-invincible-hero
Wizard’s Tale is stolen from the web novel A Wizard’s Secret which is a translated story.
https://www.webnovel.com/book/a-wizard's-secret_11254520405313205
The Prime Gamer is a stolen story from Webnovels of the story Prime Originator.
https://www.webnovel.com/book/prime-originator_14192512206664605
Jeff Sproul’s (Author of Permadeath Legacy, Sigil Online) first solo-developed game, Lost Remnant: The End Tides, has RELEASED and it’s FREE to Play.
“It's a Free Mysterious Point and Click Adventure with some cosmic horror undertones.”
He asks that if you enjoy the game you please leave a review.
https://store.steampowered.com/…/Lost_Remnant_The_End_Tides/
The Mechanical Crafter - Book 1 (A LitRPG series) (The Mechanical Crafter series) will be discounted to $0.99 in a Kindle Big Deal which runs between Sep-1-2020 - Sep-6-2020.
https://geni.us/MechanicalCrafterBk1
Death's Mantle 3 is out now in audio! Death's Mantle is a complete trilogy, and Podium just released the final audiobook today, narrated by Andrea Parsneau (woot, woot!)
To celebrate...
Book one is FREE!
Book two is .99 cents!
Death’s Mantle 1 FREE: https://amzn.to/2D64vql
Death’s Mantle 2 $0.99 : https://amzn.to/2FXM0FC
Death’s Mantle 3 $0.99 : https://amzn.to/34DRrUD
Get started on this Earphone Award-winning series.
Out Now!
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
Pyresouls Apocalypse: Rewind: A Grimdark Fantasy LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1)
Arcane Kingdom Online: The World Outside (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 7)
Omens: The Ashen Plane - Book II, A LitRPG Series
ScourgeWorld: Conquest: (Book 2 - A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG/Cultivation novel)
Discovery (Hall of Heroes Book 1)
The Life:Life System: The Origin Story (LitRPG)
New LitRPG Audiobooks
Dose of Chaos - PrimeVerse, Book 2
Respawn: Nightmare Mode - Respawn, Book 4
Breaking Ground - A Fantasy LitRPG Base Builder (Enora Online, Book 4)
Echo Online 2: A GameLit Harem
Upcoming LitRPG:
Aether’s Guard (Aether's Revival Book 2) (Sept. 2nd, 2020)
Holy War (Disgardium Book #5): LitRPG Series (Sept. 4th, 2020)
A Snake's Path (A Snake's Life Book 2) (Sept. 8th, 2020)
Something (Full Murderhobo Book 1)
(Sept. 9th, 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)
Tycoon - Trudging the Path to a Modest Life in a Fantasy World: A Fantasy LitRPG Series (Book Two) (Sept. 29th, 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
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Small Unit Tactics (Volume #1): LitRPG Series
A strange, foreign world. Mysterious judges with capricious rules. Thousands of gamers find themselves split into factions and pitted against each other at the whim of an unknown higher power, with no idea how they got there or why they were chosen. Dying in this world hurts, but it's not the end: dead players always respawn to fight again.
Echo, with his extensive knowledge of fighting, armor, and weapons, has all the makings of a great leader. The ragtag recruits fighting for him under the less-than-threatening name "Society of Pinprick Enthusiasts" become the bane of the opposing factions, sowing terror in their wake. But this game won't be won in straightforward skirmishes. The squad will have to forge pacts with their own faction, the judges, and even their enemies. Each day brings new twists, new rules, and new ways to play, and a step that seemed to be in the right direction might suddenly become a fatal mistake.
Brute force and bravado won't be enough for Echo to carve his way to the top and stay there. He will have to lead his squad through mistakes, good fortune, victory, and defeat in his quest to secure his position.
My Opinion: 307 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
Full Disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
Ok. Right off the bat, I’m going to say that this story is unusual and not everyone is going to get past some early artistic choices. Not only is the beginning really unclear about what’s happening or why, but also in the story itself is told in an unusual way. However, if you can adjust to how the story is told and get through the start, you’ll find an action focused story that combines tactical and historical weapons and armor with PvP and interesting small group fighting.
The biggest thing to address is how the story is told. Instead of a traditional chapter format with clear beginnings, middles, and ends, the story is told in ‘slides’. Which are snapshots of thought or dialogue or events. Sometimes these slides are pages long, other times only a few paragraphs. There’s no normal connective text between these ‘slides’ either, just abrupt jumps between scenes which may skip hours or even days. It was a big adjustment to read the story in this format.
On the story side, the beginning was a little annoying. It had a good enough action start but the main character (MC) is an unreliable narrator as he makes statements that haven’t been shown to be true to the reader. Like that the world is a simulation or game, the ‘Watchers’ are NPCs, and that violence outside of the arena is physically impossible. Additionally, beyond the arena fights, it's not particularly clear what’s happening. I mean the MC says everyone brought to the place is a hard core gamer but he’s only spoken to a few people. There’s also no scene showing how everyone got there, wherever there is, as the story starts with the MC in a park talking to a guy he thinks is on drugs, then entering the stands of the area to watch a fight.
It’s not until about 11% into the story that the MC recounts how he knows he can’t die, that he’d tried to kill himself only to find himself respawn back in the town temple. The story shifts into this slice of life accounting of the MC and his buddy with dreadlocks just messing around, meeting people, and not really doing anything.
About 20% in the story shifts again to the thousand or so gamers choosing one of six gods to follow and organize around. It’s not until this point that the story really gets to what it’s good at, which is tactical group fighting and leveling. Once the PvP and faction versus faction start, the story pace picks up with the MC trying to rally and train his faction and fighting the other sides in increasingly challenging battles. It’s honestly the only reason I didn’t
Game mechanic-wise, it's technically LitRPG but feels more like a melee group battle royale game with RPG upgrades. There are RPG game-like elements/rules that eventually show up but a good portion of the early story (20% ish) doesn’t have them. Death is not permanent as when someone dies they respawn. All equipment is provided free and there’s a range of realistic melee armor and weapons. Ranged weapons don’t exist and even if a weapon is thrown it doesn’t do damage. “Death can only come from a weapon held in your enemy’s hands!” There’s PvP and faction v faction fighting. Once the story gets to that point the MC/narrator explains that they get XP and level for killing other factions, for looting rival god’s temples, and earning the respect of native people. Each level gained gives choices to gain bonuses or special abilities.
The big draw in the story was hands down the fighting. There was realistic use of melee weapons, armor, and interesting group tactics in the fights after the 20% mark that the MC used. There was clear personal knowledge or research done for the variety of swords, spears, and armor types including their advantages/disadvantages, and their historical use on the battlefield. Once the faction versus faction stuff starts, it gets more interesting with the MC trying to help his side use group fighting and realistic use of the weapons and armors to defeat their foes.
Overall, if you can get past the format of the story and the unclear start, it’s an entertaining story for those that like PvP and Faction V Faction fighting.
Score: 7.2 out of 10
Small Unit Tactics (Volume #1): LitRPG Series
Path to Villainy: An NPC Kobold
Villains aren’t born, they’re made.
Witt was an ordinary NPC—a non-player character in a video game. As a kobold skald, he sang songs to empower heroes before they entered the local dungeons.
Every day was a fresh start. Every day Witt woke with no memory of his previous encounters with all those so-called heroes. And every day he forgot the countless beatings and deaths he took at the hands of the murder hobos he valiantly buffed.
But when all of those memories suddenly come flooding back, he only wants one thing:
My Opinion: 175 pages, $2.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
When a Kobold has had enough
I’ll be honest, the cover art for this novel does not convey the coolness of the story. It starts out with an NPC kobold that buffs adventurers before they go into a dungeon. Only this kobold is abused by jerks fairly regularly and one day he remembers everything that had happened to him. Stuff that’s normally wiped from his mind by the game. That’s when the kobold goes on a rampage and is determined to kill all the players that have abused him and the other kobolds. It’s an interesting story about an NPC becoming aware and becoming a villain, at least from the perspective of the players.
On the RPG side of things, the story is a bit light here. Part of that is that the beginning of story has the MC unaware of what has happened to him in the past so it has a real fantasy vibe. After about the 15% mark, when the MC awakens, he also gets access to his character sheet, stats, class skills, etc. He also gets the ability to gain XP and levels if he hunts monsters or players. The combo of Bard + Barbarian = Skald is a neat variation on the bard class and I liked that the MC had some fighting capacity that paired with bard buffs worked really well. The villainy game mechanics were also a nice addition to the story.
Overall, it’s a shorter story but it’s interesting and I liked it.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Path to Villainy: An NPC Kobold's Tale
Intellectum
They say God created the Earth in six days. Highly advanced invaders, calling themselves Admins, destroyed Earth’s civilization and part of its biosphere in a single day.
People had always considered their minerals to be the most valuable material on Earth. They quickly learned how wrong they’d been. People turned out to be the most valuable material, or rather, the substance that could be produced from them.
Intellectum was a liquid so potent that a drop of it could bestow any creature or thing with sentience. It could make all sorts of objects smart, strong, and infuse them with magic.
The Admins gave the three hundred million survivors a slim chance to improve their lot in life through the Global Game. Though the Earthlings were supposed to breed in special farms in order to produce more Intellectum, at least they hadn’t been deprived of their right to fight back.
My Opinion: 237 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
This is a RPG Apocalypse story translated from Russian and like other reviews have mentioned, it has some translations issues. I’ve read worse translations and it’s not like the words are incorrect, just that they are strung together oddly enough that it makes understanding them challenging.
The story is about a guy, our main character (MC), who had lost the use of his legs in a childhood car crash, now grown up, who is involved in another catastrophe. This time though, it's an RPG Apocalypse that affects the entire world. He himself is chosen as a savior and given special bonuses and items as well as hints about what is happening in the world. Not only does the MC have his body fixed, but he’s saved from plane crash, given an RPG interface, an inventory system, a battle pet, a rare class, and a few special items. Still, the world is now full of deadly monsters and the MC must survive with only 3 respawns. Not only that but he must figure out the mystery of who caused the RPG apocalypse and what’s expected of him by his benefactors.
Game mechanic wise, it’s fairly standard for an RPG Apocalypse story. Stats, levels, skills, special abilities, notifications, XP from killing monsters. The MCs class is interesting as a Gunsmith.
There are several issues with the story for me. The biggest issue here for me is that the story doesn’t make sense often. Parts seem kinda cool, but because of the translation/english editing issues the story didn’t flow well and events occurred that were frankly unclear and confusing. At one point, a random person shows up to arrest the MC for using a forbidden artifact, then monsters kill that guy, the MC is still arrested I think but is then he is pardoned by a judge who after self destructs. Huh?
Other issues include that the MC gets a bunch of levels, powers, and abilities that he doesn’t earn. I mean, by the 15% mark, he’s given 55 levels. Literally given them both by the normal system and by the special gifts he gets. It's unclear why he gets any of the levels to be honest. He didn’t accomplish anything or kill any monsters in the half day the story covers to that point.
Which brings me to another issue, combat is frankly lackluster and descriptively lacking. The fights amount to the MC shooting and maybe a sentence about what the results were. There’s no real struggle in any of the action scenes.
About 40% into the novel, the story does get better as far as translation issues are concerned. The actions of the MC become more focused on survival, exploration of his powers, and creating a human faction to oppose the alien Admins. However, much of the MCs success feels a bit foreordained with his massive and often unearned level gains. Its an ok development if you don’t mind a massively OP MC.
Overall, it was a challenging read sometimes but my brain eventually got used to ignoring the odd phrasing issues. I liked the parts of the story I understood. I mean, I generally like RPG Apocalypse stories, but there was just too much of the early story that was confusing. On the whole, it didn’t work for me.
Score: 6 out of 10
FFF-Class Trashero
Protagonist Kang Han Soo killed the demon king after 10 years of being summoned in the fantasy world. Now it's time to be sent back to earth. What's this? the fantasy world god appears along with his report card. Because he removed all the obstacles that prevented him from killing the demon king, his personality score came out as F. The regression that follows is that he has to return to the start and begin again. Can Kang Han Soo end this endless returns?
My Opinion: 52 chapters, Free
A twist on the summoned to the fantasy world to defeat the demon king trope. The main character (MC) is an anti-hero who after defeating the demon king like he was supposed to is sent back to the first day he was summoned because he got a failing grade on his personality as he adventured. The MC retains all his knowledge of the last ten years but his level, stats, and abilities all revert to level 1. The story follows the MC as he tries to use his knowledge to cheat the system and gain even more power. He doesn’t mind killing his friends or massacring a town, if it’ll get him the power he wants. It was genuinely fun to watch this character act selfishly and take advantage of any opportunity for XP as so many gamers would. Even with the MC knowing about certain events, there was still enough conflict from unexpected consequences to his actions and new powerful antagonists.
Score: 7.3 out of 10
https://reaperscans.com/comics/853149-fff-class-trashero
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)
Reincarnation: (A Litrpg/Gamelit Novel) (Last Born of Ki'Darth Trilogy Book 1)
Superhero kitty
I thought the heroic kitty angle was cool. The dying world aspect was a detractor for me (I'm generally not fond of apocalypse stories). I liked the adventure overall and the creative uses of environmental elements. Bonus points for explosions. I like my booms. Kitty Rambo on a desert planet trying to save the girl with his system companion all the while trying to get clean. It had LitRPG structure. It was a quick enjoyable read for me. I'll definitely read book 2 when it comes out.
Score: 7.6 out of 10
Reincarnation: (A Litrpg/Gamelit Novel) (Last Born of Ki'Darth Trilogy Book 1)
(Pic 7)
Shadowbound (Ghostlight Academy Book 1)
Kai the miner
Pretty smart for a teenager. This one had some interesting fights near the end. The MC was somewhere between a tf2 engineer and tabletop martial artist. The story was simple and fun. The limited world worked pretty well here. I'm not sure where this goes from here. The book works well as a standalone novel.
Score: 8.2 put of 10
Shadowbound (Ghostlight Academy Book 1)
(Pic 8)
Enjoyed Jace and friends adventuring again
This was pretty good reading. A lot of adventure. Mostly action at a fairly high pace. Good reading. For a first person book, I'm glad Jace didn't get bogged down with introspection. Jace, Eric, Abi, and Clem made for a good crew with enough detail and quirks to bring life to them.
Score: 8.0 out of 10
Burning Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 4)
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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
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/