Shards of Reality Audiobook By Timothy W. Long cover art

Shards of Reality

Enter the Realm, Book 1

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Shards of Reality

By: Timothy W. Long
Narrated by: Todd Menesses
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Walt and Oz need to level up to survive and every moment is going to hurt.

Walter LePointe and Oswald Blackwell just woke up inside of the online role playing game Realms of Th'loria. With no memory of how they arrived, Walt and Oz soon learn the hard way that living in an epic fantasy world isn't all it's cracked up to be. As level one characters with no skills or experience, nothing can prepare them for their new lives as they prepare to enter the realm.

©2017 Timothy W. Long (P)2017 Timothy W. Long Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Funny Witty
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I received an ARC of this audio book. I loved it! Imagine playing your favorite video game. Now imagine reading your favorite book. This book combines the two so realistically that you feel yourself excited when the characters level up, and anxious when their HP goes down. Such great character and world building, that even non gamers should enjoy, especially if you like sarcastic banter and realistic monsters, and a mystery. It's all here with great narration as well. Love a good listen so I can work on a jigsaw puzzle at the same time.

Addictive! Fun! Great story.

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It gets off to a slow start but is a really good lirpg novel. Buy it

Worth the credit

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MC makes a living testing the game. MC spends all his off time playing the game. MC get stuck in the game and well he has no clue. MC plays a caster as his main normally and so makes a caster again. Even though he plays a high level caster normally he just cant stop crying about everything and even freezes up and cant cast a spell to save his group on LOW level mobs. MC is an idiot and must have game rules explained to him over and over. Author tries way to hard to be funny and so most of the time is not. Very hard to make myself finish the book...... yup I did, and it never got better.

Gamer has no Game

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Good narration.

Good world building and pacing.

I would have enjoyed it more had the MC not been a complete idiot. At so many points I was left annoyed at his sheer obliviousness to make the choices I would expect of the experienced gamer he was written to be.

Mistakes I can understand. But... damn. Don't be stupid.

Other than that though, enjoyable.

Good narration, decent story.

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Shards of Reality, Enter the Realm, Book 1 is a LITRPG novel. For those of you not in the know that is a genre in which protagonists find themselves in a virtual reality, usually as players in the game, but sometimes there might be more nefarious or sad reason. For example, Viridian Gate Online has a player enter the game world to escape an asteroid that is going to destroy all life on earth. Reboot, has a player die, and his mind uploaded into the game. Here, the protagonist, Walt, wakes up in a popular MMORPG that he has played numerous times, with no memory of how he got there. Worse yet, he is in a newbie character, and not the one that he spent a lot of hours building up. Walt manages to find a few other people who are in the same predicament as him, players, but with no recollection of how they got there. The scary thing is they might not be able to leave.

The book starts out a little slowly, allowing you to take in everything at the same pace as the characters, and what I really liked is that this book is not bogged down by tons of stats like most LITRPG books. Yes, they grind, and level, and improve but their stats do not run by every five minutes like they do in some books. Let me tell you, that incessant listing of stats can be annoying. I enjoyed how they didn’t overwhelm the listener.

Another nice touch is that the characters all earn their skills and levels, there is no OP character seen here. Oz, for example, does whine and cry like most of us would at the exertion and pain he goes through to level. Walt can come across like a jerk sometimes, and I can see him being off-putting to some listeners. All I can say is that either you will get him, and his sense of humor or you will not, and if you don’t you won’t like him very much. That can be hard on a listener when you aren’t fond of the protagonist.

Another issue that some readers might take umbrage to is that the book ends on a cliffhanger. I know readers who absolutely flip out when they have that happen to them, but it is no big deal to me. I can handle a cliffhanger so long as I know there is more coming. I just put this out there because I know how readers can get.

The writing is smooth, the dialogue is snappy, and the plot really picks up once they hit their main quest. The characters do play out like real people and are not one-dimensional cutouts. If you cut them they will bleed, and then they will yell at you about cutting them. The narration is clean and crisp, and fun to listen to. Todd Menesses really pulls out all the stops, sets off some fireworks, and blows up the bells and whistles in the kitchen sink. He really helps to bring the story to life, and you will find no faults with his work.

One thing that bugged me is that I really liked the cover. It is beautiful and is the absolute picture of defiance. However, the main character is a mage. The cover shows a warrior. The mage carries a mace. The warrior has a sword. While the cover is beautiful and intriguing it literally has no relation to the pudgy wizard that packs a mace. I find it to be a little misleading. Not quite bait and switch, but close enough for government work.

The book is fun and enjoys nice pace once things are explained and the characters get rolling on their big quest. Like I say, I don’t mind a slow burn as long as there is pay off, and we get a pay off, and an excellent set up for the next book. Don’t miss out. Get in before there are 10 books in this series and you struggle to keep up with them!
Audiobook was provided for review by the author/narrator/publisher.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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Waking up in a game playing world

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The main character is not in very relatable and continues to show himself to be an idiot. The story also tends to jump around a bit too much. The narrator does not seem to be all that intrested and this from the sound of his voice

not the best

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I want to start by informing you that I am not into MMORPGs. I am a huge fan of Tim Long’s Work and wanted to give this a try. It was a little difficult to get into because of my complete NUBE status but once the “tutorial” was done, the adventure began and the quest pulled me in. I listened on the way to and from work and while I was at work. I finished it in just over one day and am very much looking forward to the next one.
Great story, great action, great characters. Lots of humor and a fun quest with some conspiracy type stuff going on the background. But this book, listen to it, whatever you need to do, just don’t pass it by. Very well worth your time. Thank you mister Long.

Great start to epic adventure

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I’d never heard of this genre before, and I couldn’t have picked a better book to start with. The characters were great the plot was excellent and as s gamer I thought the mechanics and they were explained was cool.

Man o man

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it was a good book with good narration and story though they were way too many odd pauses throughout that just didn't belong.

good book needs better editing

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The first two chapters I was a little iffy I was thinking it was going to be something like a old school Dungeons & Dragons but realized very quickly that it it was so much more.
the only drawback of this book while listening to it it made me itch to reinstall Everquest 2 or Guild Wars 2 to play as I was enjoying the book.
This this book has made me itching for more I will stay tuned for the next chapters in the series and hope the Adventure Continues on.

better than Sword Art Online

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