Anonymous

Fantastic entry in fantastic series!

Reviewed: 12-23-24

Title says it all. So glad to see the story progress significantly. But dang that cliffhanger was a cruel twist of literary dagger.

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Love this series!! And Fantastic narration. But some directions are best left alone.

Reviewed: 12-19-24

First of all, Travis Baldree is my favorite narrator hands down, and I listen to nearly everything he narrates. In my humble opinion, his ability to give life to different characters is unmatched.


As in title, love this series. Even have to hold myself off from reading it all as it’s published online. Which I was successful at for this entry. Overall another fantastic feel good entry to the series. Characters are great and their interactions are heartwarming. The world and lore the author has created draws me in and I am eager to know what comes next.



**Spoilers Ahead***








But then the author goes and has to connect it to our world, aka Earth. As in every other series that I’ve read recently that does the same, when a book has a fantastic world that the author has built up over the series, throwing in Earth stuff and technology just makes it all so mundane again. In my opinion it was a huge mistake. It’s honestly a bummer the author took the traveler lore in that direction, and went as far as to add a cell phone. It hurt to read. I wish the author had had the confidence to leave it in its own already amazing world, or even think up of some other fantastical technology based world to make background lore. Regardless, it’s a fantastic series and I will certainly continue reading/listening to it. But it sure is a shame.

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The beginning was kind of terrible and all over the place

Reviewed: 08-12-24

But it is worth the time. Good story, if only we understand what happens. MC is likable, despite his dark background/class. Narrator is fine (though he is unable to do any voice other than the shouting narration he does, even when it explicitly states “whispering” or the like)

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Hays Great as always. Interesting premise but…

Reviewed: 12-18-23

Hays is a fantastic narrator, though some of the sound effects are a bit clunky at times. The story is a journey through tropeland but it and the writing isn’t bad until… SPOILER ALERT:



The Lawyered chapter is infuriating. It’s impossible to think the MC (or the author for that matter) could be so stupid stupid… MC actions and lawyer explanations made so little sense it hurt. “He had me beat”… are you serious!? None of what the lawyer said could be pinned in any way on MC as he did not create the the scroll that ruined his livelihood and caused the problem in the game in the first place!!! The warnings he received after the fact were in no way official. No asking for lawyer now or directly after the incident. No arguing for more than a measly 250,000. MC just gave in like a flaccid noodle with less common sense 3 month old speck of pocket lent. I understand the need to create a plot, but the whole thing made so little sense and was so ham-fisted that I am having trouble getting past my disgust to listen to any more of it.

If you can look past this then great! But it does not bode well for the writing and resolution of the story in the future.

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Really solid entry into what’s turned into a great series!

Reviewed: 09-04-22

Coming from reading Defiance do the Fall, Cradle, and Randidly Ghosthound, I was really skeptical as whole parts of the first part of the series seemed to be taken straight from Defiance, with ideas tweaked from the others. However, this entry has solidly settled my doubts. The series has really become awesome in its own right, with good writing, good ideas, and fun progression. Top it all off with Travis Baldree (one of my favorites) narrating, and it truly was an enjoyable listen.

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Great story and ideas, but poor writing and slow progression.

Reviewed: 09-01-22

Narrator is fine, aside from the oft cringe-worthy demon voice (but you get used to it I guess). With danger of sounding too critical, as I have enjoyed the books so far, I will take a moment to gripe about the writing.

Writer has a lot of great ideas, and the world and story is interesting, but loses focus throughout the books, slowly shifting focus of writing (earlier was much more progression focused in concrete ways). It just feels like there is a serious lack of planning. It felt like very little of real substance happened in the book, and the story is taking baby steps. At this rate, there will be 100 books before the story is done (which means I’ll never get to read the end of the story because chances of writer burning out before story is over at this rate is high :( )

As for actually writing, someone get this writer a proper editor. Some of the turns of phrase like “look in the mouth of a gift horse”, in a single sentence, and incessant, lazy, or odd use of e.g “screamed danger”, “was shocked to X but soon i.e. understood” in a single sentence, or “by now”, or “spread out” (when there are so many options like permeated/inundated the area, exploded from the epicenter of, blasted from, etc..) could be worked through with good editor in my opinion. I get that it is from royal road and chapters are published at a high pace, editors cost money, etc., but it just has so much more potential!

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1 person found this helpful

Will Wight + Travis Baldree = Magic^2

Reviewed: 06-04-22

So happy for this re-recording by Travis Baldree, my favorite narrator, of a book by one of my favorite authors! Tried listening after going through Cradle multiple times previously, but while Will Wight is a Monarch of spinning tales, his narration was.. a bit less compelling (Sorry Will, still love you). So happy to finally listen through… it certainly did not disappoint!! Keep the fantastic work, both of you!

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Good story, great writing, great narration

Reviewed: 04-05-22

So many great lines and memorable moments. Many spots that really capture the human condition and the beauty of human relationships. Not as action packed as some, and more focused on the story rather than reveling in power-ups, but even if that’s what you’re here for it’s definitely worth a listen.

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Narration hard to swallow at first

Reviewed: 01-06-22

I absolutely loved reading these, and was excited to finally see an audiobook version come out as both a way to go through them again and support the author.

The story is fantastic, and can’t wait for the next ones to come out. I’d still recommend both this audiobook and reading them, but also supporting the author somehow whichever one chooses.

On the other hand, the narration was pretty disappointing. The character voices were, to be blunt, on the insufferable side. What is with all the random accents?? Ilsa sounds like an odd cockney/Irish Cartman from South Park, Xvim Chao has a heavy pseudo-Japanese Chinese I don’t know what accent (because as long as it sounds like something, anything, from Asia I guess??? As someone who lives in Japan, this was particularly hard to swallow), and Kirielle’s voice is just a horrid shrill. That said, narrator does seem to get a bit better as the book progresses (and/or the listener gets used to it). There are certainly worse narrators out there, and outside of character voices the narration is fine (though on the slow side, so listened at 1.2x speed), but a story this good deserves a narrator that can do it justice (I’d vote Travis Baldree).

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If you’re looking for the likes of Cradle, look elsewhere.

Reviewed: 11-09-21

The book has some interesting ideas that could have been so exciting to see fleshed out, but doesn’t really develop any of them. The characters are flat and undeveloped and have even flatter and undeveloped mantras and motivations. The mc could die and I wouldn’t care much. The characters just aren’t relatable or lovable, and felt little desire to root for them. The only thing I wanted to root for and see was for the Mc to progress, to get stronger, and have fun moments where the fruits of that progression really show in a fun and exciting way. Unfortunately, for being called a progression fantasy, this aspect was startlingly lacking. Go Cradle, go Codex Alera, go Mage Errant, go TBATE, heck, go Thousand Li, all those are far better options in terms of world, characters, and story, imo.

Narration isn’t bad, but feels a little rushed. The flat character development is neither helped nor hurt by the relatively flat expressions the narrator gives characters, but there was nothing that made me cringe.

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