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A cultivation series that fancies itself a romance

Revisado: 04-10-25

The author has an obsession with women, but not real women, can't seem to write that. So you have man type a and man type b. So it'd be more accurate to say he has a "Type B" obsession. With a primitive view on sex. Pretty much, everyone bangs everyone like everyday people are all hip for the local orgy. When the protag is focused on improvement and cultivation, fighting and overcoming challenges. It's actually interesting, but once you throw in the type Bs and sex obsession it's just trashy and boring.

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A disappointing end.

Revisado: 12-24-24

For whatever reason Phoenix has a sex obsession. He writes good characters, but for some reason the protagonist can't go 5 minutes without feeling like it has been "forever" since he last had sex. The guy gets raped by a multitude of women and still he's craving unsatiable amounts of sex. A woman plays with his feelings for a little bit and suddenly he's madly in love. Now the protag in this series is meant to be an idiot, and I like that he's has his flaws, but it's not just him getting his horn on, but this whole universe is so incredibly sex obsessed, and that's about a good two hours of this book non-stop sex. While i'm not opposed to the topic in moderation, it is not interesting. I'd rather a lot of other things over sex. In my reading and in life.

Now on the topic of sex I believe we all knew by this point that the elf is gay, but there's a twist in the epilogue which ruins that and that simply isn't appreciated.

The first 5 books were the best in my opinion, these last 5 have been getting increasingly disappointing. I was glad we were getting to the deathlands finally, because like the Elf I really wanted to just get it over with as it was one I didn't want to spend much time in. In fact the whole grand quest was something I had little interest in. Our protag and his friends adventuring was much more interesting...even though the protag's idiocy got him kicked out of the adventurers guild. Still since we were on this grand quest I'd like to have seen it to the end.

I'd comment more, but the rest I'd have to comment on would be in regards to spoilers.

All this said the performance by Neil was excellent, and the story was something I was fine listening to until the end.

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Caught by surprise!

Revisado: 12-10-24

When I got this it was because I was experimenting, just scatter shot buying books that "might" be interesting. Well I caught a gem. The writing style is one I love. The way the characters communicate it different, but in a way I'm fond of. Also this writer does not have the problem it seems to me most suffer from these days. His characters aren't written like puppets with some hive mind. The protagonist isn't the smartest or the strongest. He's not entirely brave or righteous. He's selfish, thoughtless, but trying his best to be a good guy. The people in his surroundings act unique. The act like individuals. That is good writing. Now I dislike how pervy the protag gets some times, but his friend is written well. There is a "plot twist" I guess in the story of book 1, and it was very obvious to me what it was going to be. In spite of that though its execution was still well done.

Also the author does something that I NEVER see these days. Every journey nowadays is a guy and gal or guys and gals. For the most part that protag is on a solo journey, but he has been accompanies by guy friends. It hasn't felt like a woman has been forced to join the party just "because"

Now aside from the story which I'm liking a lot the performance is exceptional. I've never heard of Neil Hellegers before, but he is reading this narrative in way that is truly captivating.

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Good, but…

Revisado: 03-29-24

Normally I would give this a one star on principle. The author brings into the story an a-sexual race. That is a race that can produce eggs and germinate them without the need of a mate. This does make the race neither male or female. In English this means we use the gender neutral he or it pronouns, and sometimes the author does exactly that. However, he also the. Tries to use they as the gender neutral singular pronoun. Which it is not.

Aside from that though the story is mostly good. He has the problem of not really understanding women. For example in one situation he asked a gaggle of women if they would like freedom or power. Freedom is not particularly important to women, and this is even shown in several parts of the story. So in that scenario you could be asking them if they would like to eat dirt or cake. That just sounds ridiculous.

The other part i’m not fond of is the obsession with women in the story. Most are written well, but it seems like the protagonist is building an island nation of mostly women. Also protag has a dead father, but a living mother and sister. Could of had a dead mother and living brother and father to help balance the sexes a bit.

Then there are the religions mentioned. The buddhists are shown as good and the Catholics are shown as evil. I’m not fond of that. I was hoping he would try and show all of the earth religions he plans to mention as having different insights, but that does not appear to be the case.

The final complaint is all the swearing. It’s made all the more annoying when people of all races apparently share the same habit and swear in the same ways.

That’s about it though. Beyond that the story is interesting and has some nice twists so I will give it an overall 3 stars instead of 1.

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Fantastic

Revisado: 11-24-23

An incredible series in the LitRPG genre. I’m looking forward to more! Mr. Brooks has written many great series so far, and is among my favorite authors. The narrator always does well with his books.

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A great series returns

Revisado: 07-31-23

I made this purchase because i’m a long time fan of the series. Everything by Dakota really. I’m also a fan of Vikas Adam’s reading of the series. So I had a slight bias against a new reading. Admittedly the first chapter was hard to get through. For me this was mostly because the music went on too loud for too long. While I understood the vibe they were going for it became tedious listening. After that though it was relatively smooth sailing. I really enjoyed the dramatization. While I enjoy normal narration a dramatization is simply more. Like turning a 2D image into a 3D image. It was very enjoyable and I look forward to hearing the series fully dramatized. Though because i’m impatient I’m going to listen to the whole series again anyhow.

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A must listen

Revisado: 04-01-23

Classic stories like this are the best. It’s also very well narrated. I highly recommend listening!

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Dial it back

Revisado: 04-14-22

So. The story is a decent one. Not something I'll listen to a second time, but it's decent. There are a couple of big annoyances for me listening to this book. The first is the constant cursing. The second is the over active lusting going on in the story. First "fella you say you have a girl friend" and not long after "I want to bang all the elf girls" is the thought almost non-stop. So my opinion. Dial it back.

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Return to NEO with an old RTS flair!

Revisado: 03-11-22

Another great work from Shemer Kuznits. We revisit NEO after the events with Oran. A man trying to save his brother. Which is a great premise to begin with. The cast, setting, and storytelling are all great. I’m also really glad to see my favorite faction from an old RTS i loved come to life in this story in its own unique way.

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A good counter story

Revisado: 03-06-22

So for those don’t know this is an alternate story in “the completionist saga” happening before the adventures of Joe. I found the first 7 chapters difficult to listen to and had to play it at 2-3 times speed to get through it, but then it becomes tolerable, and then good. I find the young adult, college anxiety and high school portions as things I didn’t enjoy most about the beginning. If I were to be more specific. All that said I’m looking forward to more adventures with Sam! Intrigued about how he ended up encountering Joe especially.

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