LitRPG Podcast 258 - This Quest is Broken!, Life Reset 6, Savage Dominion, The Realms Book 7, Solo Bug Player
LitRPG Podcast 258 - This Quest is Broken!, Life Reset 6, Savage Dominion, The Realms Book 7, Solo Bug Player
Feb. 5th, 2020
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 258 of the LitRPG podcast. I’m Ramon Mejia.
I’m here to bring you the latest LitRPG news, reviews, and author interviews. We have 8 new reviews just for you.
For the full show notes visit us at: https://litrpgpodcast.com/litrpg-podcast-258
New Releases and Reviews:
This Quest is Broken! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Fantasy Litrpg Adventure) Book 1) (08:37)
Slice of life tabletop feel
Score: 7.3 out of 10
Life Reset: Salvation (Life Reset - Neo Book 6) (17:29)
An ending
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Savage Dominion: A LitRPG Adventure (20:24)
Another good story
Score: 7.6 out of 10
Ravaged Land: The Realms Book 7: (An Epic Progression Fantasy LitRPG Novel) (27:46)
Leading to an end
Score: 7.4 out of 10
Solo Bug Player - Online Webcomic (33:30)
Reincarnated into your favorite game world
Score: 7.8 out of 10
https://mangadex.org/title/47139/solo-bug-player
Ian’s (Eye-Ann) Picks of the Week (38:01)
(Pic 0)
A 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)
Fun, weird, and a smidge creepy
Score: 8.8 out of 10
Tallrock: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure
Starting up a community
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1)
Loot boxes and Kaiju
Score: 8.0 out of 10
(Play Music 2)
LitRPG News
Apparently Felicia Day has narrated a LitRPG story. She did a YouTube video announcing her narration of the story Rule Of Cool written by Mathew Siege
NEW PROJECT ALERT! I narrated an audiobook! My first that I didn't write! Plus it's a LitRPG book! What is that? Watch the video, then pre-order here on Audible: https://geni.us/RuleOfCool So excited for people to listen, the book is so FUNNY and GEEKY I know you guys will dig it!
Out Now!
Ascension: A LitRPG Journey (Legends Online Book 8)
https://amzn.to/353gaS6
Unveil: BlackFlame Online Litrpg/Gamelit Universe (Path of Crafting Book 1)
God's Choice: Sigma Worlds Book 5, a LitRPG series
Broken Council: A Space Opera, Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG (The System Apocalypse Book 10)
Mind's Journey 2: Of Monsters and Men (A Gamelit Fantasy Adventure - Book 2)
Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure
The Problems with Polymorphing: A LitRPG Adventure (Dream Stream Reality Book 3)
World Tree Online: The Order of Epic Grinders: 4th Dive
The Realm Between: God of Life: A LitRPG Saga (Book 8)
Qi, Vampires, and Shearing: A LitRPG novel
Age of Ancients : A GameLit/LitRPG Series (Shattered Kingdoms Book 1)
Legendary Dungeon Seed: The Mage's Academy (Book 2)
New LitRPG Audiobooks
Artificial Dungeon - For Sale by Owner
Underpowered Howard - A LitRPG Adventure
Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel, Book 4
Into the Wild - An Epic LitRPG Series (Axe Druid, Book 6)
Dungeon Core 101 - A Gamelit Adventure (Dungeon Core 101, Book 1)
Dream Stream Reality: Publisher's Pack - Books 1-2
Cipher's Quest - A LitRPG Adventure (Ciphercraft, Book 1)
Sunscorch - Rise to Omniscience Book 8
Upcoming LitRPG:
The Motors of Keldora: An Automation Crafting LitRPG Adventure (Factory of the Gods Book 3) (Feb. 8th, 2021)
Underworld - Scorching Sun: A LitRPG Series (Feb. 10th, 2021)
Challenges of a Scribe: A LitRPG Duology: Book Two (Feb. 15th, 2021)
Rule of Cool: A LitRPG Novel (Feb. 16th, 2021)
Dungeon Duel: A litRPG Adventure (The Rogue Dungeon Book 5) (Feb. 16th, 2021)
Dagger of Doom: A LitRPG Adventure (Beta Tester Book 5) (Feb. 17th, 2021)
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series (Feb. 17th, 2021)
A Hard Truth and An Unwise Decision: Boneknight Series Book 3 (A Dark Fantasy LitRPG) (Bone Knight) (Feb. 19th, 2021)
A Snake's Rise (A Snake's Life Book 3) (Feb. 23rd, 2021)
Eat, Slay, Love (The Good Guys Book 10) (Feb. 25th, 2021)
Player Reached the Top. LitRPG Series. Book V (Feb 26th, 2021)
Dungeon of the Old Gods: A Dark Dungeon Realm LitRPG (Pandemonium - The Dark Lords - A Dark Dungeon Realm LitRPG Series) (Feb. 27th, 2021)
Beginner Quest: A LitRPG Cultivation Series (Towers & Rifts Book 1) (March 2nd, 2021)
Battle for the North (Rogue Merchant Book #4): LitRPG Series (March 9th, 2021)
The Font of Life: A Mecha LitRPG Adventure (Overdrive Book 3) (March 16th, 2021)
Lucky Slots (A Litrpg/Gamelit Fantasy Adventure) (March 19th, 2021)
Cause for War (Reality Benders Book #7): LitRPG Series (March 19th, 2021)
Sovereign's Choice (The Gods' Game, Volume V): A LitRPG novel (March 31st, 2021)
The Fourth Secret: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Divine Apostasy Book 4) (March 31st, 2021)
Visceral: A GameLit Fantasy Adventure (Nullifier Book 2) (April 2nd, 2021)
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 3 (April 2nd, 2021)
Nullform (Book #1): RealRPG Series (April 5th, 2021)
City of the Undead (In the System Book #2): LitRPG Series (April 12th, 2021)
Volper (Alpha Rome Book 1): LitRPG Series (April 12th, 2021)
The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series (April 22nd, 2021)
Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story (April 22nd, 2021)
The Guild Core 3: War Torn (A Dungeon Adventure) (April 30th , 2021)
Manufacturing Magic: An Epic LitRPG Series (Jeff the Game Master Book 1) (May 4th, 2021)
The Rebel (Project Stellar Book 4): LitRPG Series (May 10th, 2021)
Iaxiabor's Revenge: A LitRPG Adventure (Beta Tester Book 6) (May 11th, 2021)
Lords of the Ruins (The Range Book #2): LitRPG Series (May 14th, 2021)
The Guardian of the Dead (An NPC's Path Book #4): LitRPG Series (May 20th, 2021)
The Dungeon Leader: A LitRPG Level-up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 3) (May 31st, 2021)
Onto New Releases and Reviews
(Play Music 3)
New Releases and Reviews
(Picture 1)
This Quest is Broken! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Fantasy Litrpg Adventure) Book 1)
The Questing Stones have come to Nowherested, and Evelia Greene is finally ready to receive her life's quest. Perhaps she'll be a great warrior, or a wealthy merchant, or a brilliant mage. Perhaps her quest is simply to live a quiet life, constantly honing a craft to the heights of perfection.
Or perhaps the Questing Stones will grant her the Legendary mission of popping over to the next village to pick up a loaf of bread.
Wouldn’t that be ridiculous?
Eve can’t even begin to guess how or why she’s come by such an absurd life goal, nor how a level 1 Messenger Girl is supposed to complete anything labeled as Legendary, but at least she can be sure of one thing. No matter how many wolves or goblins attack, no matter how many speeding tickets she racks up, no matter how many bakeries spontaneously combust as she steps into town, one way or another, Eve is going to get that gods-damned bread.
There just might be a few Side Quests along the way.
|This book contains game elements, good jokes, bad jokes, worse jokes, and language strong enough to lift weights. Please enjoy.|
My Opinion: 408 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is a slice of life fantasy RPG story that reminded me of a tabletop D&D campaign. Mostly casual adventures with good RPG progress, a DM that tries to inject a plot, and just gives out cool rewards without worrying strict rules.
On the story side of things, it's pretty good. There’s regular action, good banter between characters, a little world building, and hints of plot. Mostly the story is slice of life, following the characters as they adventure. Nothing groundbreaking or epic, but good general adventuring.
While the story is entertaining, because of the way the game mechanics are built it often feels contrived. I want to be clear, that most of the rules are very well developed and you can tell the author took great care in developing, tracking, and following them. But there are some aspects that just felt like they were being used to push character and story development instead of existing as solid independent rules. The biggest mechanic being the class and quest systems that arbitrarily assign people tasks and classes based on their activities or sometimes not even that. It’s all chalked up to capricious gods or systems with a quirky sense of humor, but it ended up feeling like a DM was running a tabletop campaign and bending or creating rules, quests, and rewards to keep the campaign running and fun.
For example, all the group members eventually get rare or epic classes as part of their arcs. Or that the MC advances her quest (of getting a loaf of bread) while helping out her friend, even though her quest has nothing to do with him or his quest. Or that the characters unlock their classes through very random acts (ie: using a defensive ability offensively, beginning to heal an emotional wound) that felt less like they had earned power and more like the author just wanted to give them a cool class. There are plenty more examples, but it didn't make the story bad, just made me realize the game stuff, though it had lots of numbers, was ultimately more wand wavy than I liked and the powers the characters got felt less earned.
Overall, the slice of life story was still entertaining but I lost some enjoyment knowing that the game mechanics, to a degree, existed to advance the story and not as a hard set of rules I could count on or understand fully.
Score: 7.3 out of 10
This Quest is Broken! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Fantasy Litrpg Adventure) Book 1)
Life Reset: Salvation (Life Reset - Neo Book 6)
The conclusion to the epic Life Reset saga!
Insurmountable odds ... hidden powers maneuvering behind the scenes ... all culminating in a final, titanic, clash.
The mighty city of Everance lay in the GreenPiece clan’s path, but as Oren soon discovers, he’s got even bigger obstacles to overcome before reaching his final goal.
My Opinion: 582 pages, $5.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
The final book in the Life Reset series, it has town building, massive armies duking it out, and best of all a pretty good ending that tied up the storyline satisfactorily. There’s a little wand waviness towards the end, but I didn’t mind since it was the end of the story and it was used to wrap things up. Always a little sad when a good series ends, but it’s a good ending.
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Life Reset: Salvation (Life Reset - Neo Book 6)
Savage Dominion: A LitRPG Adventure
Maulkin didn't know dying would mean a new eternity of dungeon delving, monster slaying, and glory hunting. If he had, he wouldn't have been so worried about kicking the bucket on a date gone even more wrong than usual.
Reborn in the wild world of Amaranth, Maulkin finds himself in a hulking demi-human body with a sword of a size to match. Marked as an Eternal, a fledging immortal of boundless potential, Maulkin soon discovers he's been given a mission by the elder pantheon of this new realm:
Grow stronger. Ascend to godhood. Spread chaos in their name.
Oh and fend off that inbound apocalypse, if he can find the time.
Who wants an easy afterlife anyway?
My Opinion: 613 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
The story leans a bit more towards fantasy than the other major LitRPG work of the author, Ascend Online, and there is definitely a bit more wand-waviness when it comes to crafting and occasionally spell usage. But on the whole, it’s a good story full of action-adventure, a little romance, a good power progression, and lots of good world building.
The three main characters (MC), Eternals, have a good balance of personalities and powers without being pegged into particular classes. The addition of later characters to the group add good variety, even if they feel like anime personalities (Tsundere and others). The characters all have full personalities and those that are native to the world do a good job of filling in cultural perspectives, and histories which include unpleasant truths about the world and their peoples which made the characters feel more real.
Action is a major part of the story and there’s hardly a chapter without some kind of fight. One of the MCs even gets grumpy and antsy if he doesn’t get to beat up something regularly. The fights are well thought out and paced well and are good reads.
The RPG stuff is interesting. It’s not nearly as deep and logical as the system used in Ascend Online, but has some interesting and original powers available to the Eternal characters. There’s actually a bit too much openness sometimes which leads to a little wand waviness in solving problems with intentionally undefined to unexplored options. Additionally, the rules for the powers are occasionally not followed with the healing Restoration power being the prime example of saving multiple characters from death one after another, even if it is supposed to have a long cool down. It felt a little like a tool to stop characters from dying, even though they’re supposed to be immortal and just preventing random respawning until a respawn point was unlocked. Other powers, like the crafting one, felt like they were a little wand wavy since it allowed one of the MCs to magically create items in great detail, even when it wasn’t reasonable that he would know how it was made, and the how to make aspect was automatically downloaded into his mind. But beyond those things, the mechanics were fairly solid with health being shown regularly, and good descriptions of the powers used. Decently crunchy.
Overall, despite a few small issues with the game mechanics, the story was good. Really enjoyed the action-adventure, world building, and character development.
Score: 7.6 out of 10
Savage Dominion: A LitRPG Adventure
Ravaged Land: The Realms Book 7: (An Epic Progression Fantasy LitRPG Novel)
WHEN THE GODS WAGE WAR, THE INNOCENT SUFFER.
THE REALMS FACE ANNIHILATION, and their greatest defender has gone missing.
When Gryph is torn from the Realms by the Light, an ancient secret society sworn to end the threat of the High God Aluran, he has one mission.
Get back to the Realms, at any cost.
The Light offer Gryph a quest. “Help us resurrect the Source and together we can free all the peoples of the Realms.”
But things are not what they seem and Gryph soon discovers that even in the Light, shadows fester.
Shadows that could doom the Realms to eternal darkness.
To save his sister, his friends, and the people of the Realms, Gryph must win the war of the gods.
Score: 438 pages, $5.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
*Leading to an end*
The latest entry into the series is an interesting mix of a story reset and a continuation of things. The first half of the story feels a bit fresh since it returns to the real world for a bit and has a bit of a time jump, and once the main character (MC) does return to the Realms he’s got new powers and allies. However, after the 50% mark, things go back to normal as he reunites with his old friends. There’s a little fallout from the time lost on earth, but I was a little disappointed that more terrible things hadn’t happened while the MC was gone. It would have been interesting to see bigger setbacks. Instead, it almost feels like the time jump didn’t happen in some respects. The rest of the story was good. Still full of RPG action-adventure as the MC and his friends oppose Aluran and the new bad guys, the Light. The ending wasn’t satisfying for me though. Instead of any kind of resolution, it really just felt like a lead into the last book in the series. Lots of open plotlines left dangling.
Overall, a good read still. There were a few parts I really liked, like the new historic opening between the Gaul and Romans, or the new godhood powers. On the whole though, it seemed like the novel was meant to push the series to a conclusion in the next book.
Score: 7.4 out of 10
Ravaged Land: The Realms Book 7: (An Epic Progression Fantasy LitRPG Novel)
Solo Bug Player
A sudden death after all-nighters and ridiculous amounts of work playing a game?! What greeted me after opening my eyes was the reality that I was in the world of <Paradiso>. And on top of that, I was stuck in the body of a perfectly vulgar, obese, extra of a lord. The worst of the worst. I reincarnated in Jared’s body! Dammit! All those protagonists in books or movies are born to stupidly well-off families, being raised with wealth and riches! “I’ll get to the top as soon as I can!” I’ll succeed and grow! Whether I use bugs or hacks, it’s all a-okay! The start of a challenging world of intense dieting and bug abuse begins now!
My Opinion: 40 chapters, FREE, No Official English Translation
A kind of reincarnation story where an MMO player who had hit #1 for years and amassed a great deal of knowledge on the game and died suddenly. Yet, he wakes up in the body of a level 1, obese, minor noble in the game world turned real. Now he has to deal with being a level 1 NPC, being obese with all the debuffs that entails, and he has to use his massive knowledge of the game, its secrets, and exploits to become powerful enough to defeat the demon army he knows is coming or he’ll die permanently, again.
The sense of humor of the comic is a good mix with the OP knowledge of the game world. Though the main character (MC) knows much, he doesn’t have the physicality to produce instant results. Instead, he has to scheme, plan, and work hard to implement his plans to not only renew his fiefdom but undo all the neglect the noble whose body he inhabit did. There’s also some surprising depth to some of the side character’s background.
On the RPG side, there’s character sheets for everyone and the MC has to deal with his low stats through training, dieting, and real social change. Levels matter as do the limitations imposed by their lack for the MC.
The art style of the web comic is great and not cookie cutter or cg. Lots of bold colors and a nice style.
Solo Bug Player
Score: 7.8 out of 10
https://mangadex.org/title/47139/solo-bug-player
Ian’s (Eye-Ann) Picks of the Week
(Pic 0)
Contributor Ian Mitchell, a long time LitRPG community member who reads and reviews as much as me. was nice enough to agree to join the LitRPG Podcast family as a new reviewer.
(Pic 6)
Death Cultivator 2
by eden Hudson
Fun, weird, and a smidge creepy
eden Hudson writes odd fiction. Alice in wonder land meets kung fu hustle with a dash of fifth element. And then there's the cultivating death. For a junior dark lord Hake's a pretty nice guy. Such a creative bunch of aliens. Doing the right thing dancing with the dark side. Great reading. I had fun. A fast read.
Score: 8.8 out of 10
Tallrock: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure
by Xander Boyce
Starting up a community
Worthwhile reading. It was peaceful. Harvest moon with a giant drake lady for a partner. I didn't mind but it was odd reading LitRPG with little actual conflict. I look forward to reading more about Miranda valley.
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Tallrock: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure
Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1)
by Jonathan Brooks
Loot boxes and Kaiju
Jonathan Brooks has dungeon core books down. This new variation made for a pretty good story. Not a lot of character development but interesting just the same. It looks like the dungeon core, hero, world boss environment was imposed by some unknown agency. It's fantasy and light LitRPG reading. I enjoyed it, even though it feels a bit formulaic.
Score: 8.0 out of 10
Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1)
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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