Brian Browning

Very promising start! Entertaining!

Revisado: 04-29-25

I can see why this gets compared to DCC (Dungeon Crawler Carl), but it does stand on its own merits. The comparison isn’t unwarranted, but I certainly don’t think the Litrpg/Progression mechanics are anything short of unique. I appreciate the effort invested into not making the MC a twat waffle or a one trick pony. The system is more complex than I thought it would be.

Great narration (range of voices/accents) keeps the characters delineated so it’s easy to follow who is talking, and it helps with the immersion.

I’ll definitely be on the lookout for a follow-up installment. I do hope to see some relationship building with other delvers, as I believe there’s untapped potential in creating some deep emotional bonds. Make us care about keeping cast members alive!

Strong start and worth listening to!

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Awful! Hated everything about it!

Revisado: 04-28-25

I even hate the fact I hated this book so much I’m wasting time on a review. The only explanation I can come up with for not seeing a metric fornication-ton of horrible reviews is that every sane person who read this suffered [-10,000 DKP] and had their brains turned into soup…

Jack - Idiot MC who makes every other idiot MC written look like genius savants.
Sarah - cardboard placeholder
Sam - Man baby that seriously makes you want to punt puppies

Narrator - Wish I were deaf. So bad I’ve removed Noobtown books from my audio library for mental health reasons. The only John McClain I’ll ever care about kills terrorists in the best Christmas movie of all times.

Every fight - MC gets wrecked. Insert Gimmick to win. Chug potion to heal anything. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Plot - Huh? Was there one?

Stats, Abilities, Skill Points, Loot, anything else important to this genre - Meaningless. Absolutely irrelevant.

Me - Still trying to figure out what made me think getting book 2 after hating book 1 was a good idea. Masochist (Legendary).

😂 - The irony of a ‘helpful’ button isn’t lost on me.

Off to bleach my ear drums and search for a pallet cleanser or 13…

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Exceeded Expectations! Pleasantly surprised!

Revisado: 04-28-25

I don’t know if I was just desperate for a non-craptastic book given a recent trend of duds I’ve been experiencing, or if our fourth attempt at riding shotgun with Big E was truly impressive, but I found myself immersed and enjoying the pace, the plot, and the storytelling. I felt like our MC finally put on his big boy pants and accrued enough experience and power to really start asserting some control over his fate. He’s by no means perfect and still has plenty of foibles, such as a mild case of unhealthy paranoia (trust issues) and selfish tendencies, but I’ll gladly take that over reading about another idiot that requires a binky and pacifier. I’m also liking how much of the story is taking place in a gray area where good and evil aren’t always clearly defined.

Narrator is clean and does a great job of not being overly dramatic in the delivery.

Solid book with a solid performance! Recommend!

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Not a fan - Throwing in the Towel

Revisado: 04-25-25

I know Steph and Randi are a popular duo, but I found this installment slow, annoying, and completely forgettable. Sorry, but I just couldn’t care about the cast or the world building.

Stephanie S. is actually one of my least favorite narrators. I can’t stand when she smiles while delivering lines. It’s a habit that gets out of control and is distracting. I also find Goody/Mom’s voice painful and most of the male voices brutal.

I own most of William/Randi’s books and have enjoyed following the various spinoffs. Unfortunately, this has to be my least favorite of the bunch.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Murderbot = Winner winner chicken dinner

Revisado: 04-23-25

Yeah, so I’m one of those pesky RoyalRoad fans who has followed this web novel. I was hoping it’d find its way to publication, and I can’t complain about the result. SBT can often times get so caught up in the production of a book that they totally disregard the notion of ‘less is more’. I’ve actually dropped most of their work entirely due to how grating and obtrusive all the ear candy can become. For example, in the last 2 DCC (Dungeon Crawler Carl) books, the only positive feedback I can muster was how much cleaner and better Travis Baldree’s cameo was in comparison to the regular cast. All that being said, I am definitely enjoying how the cast is starting here. Great performances and not too heavy on nonsensical effects that do more to break immersion than encourage it.

The interactions with the Maniacal Murderbot are the clear winners for any scene stealing awards. There are times where Bob’s inner dialogue hits a redundancy threshold and slows down momentum, but it hasn’t become too overbearing yet. I do love this series though and have high hopes for more. It would be better if it’d get released in larger chunks or at a faster pace though. Being familiar with the series, I’m a little concerned about the ‘between’ or ‘filler’ parts cropping up as I’m not too keen on the idea of flagging every other book as ‘setup’ for the subsequent release. If I’m being totally honest, I was expecting more in the 16-18 hour range to account for all the future ‘Hobbit Traveling’ that will be coming up.

Highly recommend at the moment.

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Epic Fail - Story and Narration

Revisado: 04-12-25

I love and support RoyalRoad and all those who contribute to its success. Unfortunately, views don’t have bearing on the quality of a published or narrated work. There are different standards for different platforms, or at least there should be.

What’s the point of all the previous ‘books’ if every single character other than Randidly gets excised from the plot or is trimmed down so much he/she is relegated to background noise? Helen? Rough and gruff Mentor? Alanna? Best Friends? Any Friends? Enemies other than the system? Bahhhh, there’s not a single relationship worth mentioning.

Path points? Joke’s on us. They are mostly inconsequential as are stats. Numbers go down! Instead, the listeners are essentially treated to a dry lesson of metaphysical and technical babble that might or might not make sense and might or might not change completely after some revelation that might or might not occur in some dream that might not be a dream but certainly might or might not effect reality…

The narration isn’t much better. For all those giving 5 Stars, can you not hear all the wet swallowing noises or intakes of breath? Competent sound editing should remove all this. Cheesy sound effects of explosions or rumbling? Nope, just nope. Describe it, don’t act it out… please. 🙏 Soooo not Jonesy from Police Academy, so just let those aspirations go.

To me, this is the perfect example of cut/paste/stub gone bad/horribly wrong.

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Decent, but not the best in the series…

Revisado: 04-11-25

Overall, I’d say this installment was around 4.5 ⭐️’s. Nick’s performance was great as usual, not overly dramatic but present enough to capture the mood and allow the characters to breathe. The material was a little dry and monotonous at times, especially when the technical descriptions became long winded or redundant after being explained at least once already. It’s a little frustrating the author chose to go the route of handicapping our team’s power with all the Emerald level adversaries available to work with (very cliche). Hopefully that issue doesn’t drag on much longer and gets resolved so we can continue with our regularly scheduled programming.

Will get the next book that’s already available for preorder. I do miss my favorite sword that’s not a sword though…

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Please address audio clicks! Distractingly Awful!

Revisado: 04-10-25

Click, click, click… This is not the first book, nor is it the first time this has been commented on by myself or other listeners. Dragon Justice 9, the new DD remix, etc… All are picking up what sounds like mouse clicks in the background. At this point it’s nigh impossible for me to believe the recording studio/group is unaware of this issue. If those who are recording aren’t held accountable by the authors and listeners, don’t expect them to correct the issues themselves. You’d think pride and professionalism would be enough, but it hasn’t been for a few months of various releases thus far.

As to the story, I’ll just say the MC is an overacted, melodramatic annoyance I could live without. On the bright side I enjoy the cast of girls quite a bit. Heck, almost all the cast is entertaining outside the MC. I get that he’s meant to be flippant and dismissive, but it permeates the story so thoroughly that when a serious moment comes up, I have zero desire to waste any emotional currency to buy in to what’s being offered. Every time Ard puts his hand to his chest, I’m saddled with an urge to put my hand on the author’s… err, I mean Ard’s (keys are like right next to each other) face. Professional studies have been released linking extreme violent tendencies to excessive clicking noises… just sayin’.

P.S, It’s pronounced Ree-Gayled, not Ree-Gal-D. Damn Canadian dictionaries need better oversight. No doubt A-boot it!

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Mostly good with a cascading caveat

Revisado: 04-07-25

This book is entertaining, but if I were to break it down on a macro level, there’s one major faux pas that causes so many minor issues it’s hard to ignore. The author tries to convince the readers that our MC is a leader or at least someone to be followed. Sorry, but almost all his actions plus his failures in grasping both logistical and tactical issues on a regular basis make him far better suited as a support class/follower. He says his team is exceptionally gifted, yet always falls back to the tyrannical mindset of Overlord Protector and doesn’t trust them to do their jobs. Normally this wouldn’t bother me in these types of stories, but the author brings it up so often, it’s impossible to ignore. The cringe factor gets further compounded when our male narrator tries to pull off a drill sergeant’s voice or rages with some volume escalation. Nope, just nope. It’s painful.

Ok, I lied. There’s another issue that is making me wince and roll my eyes every time it comes up. The mental crap, whether it’s psionics with Sophie, battling demons, or seeing his past love, is frustratingly awful in most cases. Not going into more detail as this is self explanatory.

Roz is holding down the fort though. I don’t care much for the main antagonist voice (Succubus), but 1 bad apple isn’t close to enough to cause concern.

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Decent distraction

Revisado: 04-06-25

While this was a membership freebie, I’ll just say I’ve definitely paid for worse. This book reminds me of the B Action Movies from the mid-late 80’s. At least it knows what it is and doesn’t try to pretend it’s a literary masterpiece.

Roz is one of my favorite female narrators as she has a large range of voice options at her disposal. Lewis, well, not so much. He tends to overact scenes to the point where it hits Cringe Level Alpha.

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