Jeremy Roney

Cut way too much

Revisado: 10-24-24

While I have enjoyed most of these full cast dramaticized versions.. this segment in particular is awful. They cut far, far too much. There are points where characters are fighting and using attacks.. and we don't even know what attacks are being used. "Oh, don't worry.. I can control the magnitude of these things".. What things? Whooshing sound effects tell me nothing.

Honestly, the only reason I could follow the intramural fights at all was because I have listened to the normal version of this book several times over.

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More like a training montage

Revisado: 06-26-24

I have no idea how this is so highly rated. The previous books were much better. This one felt like the epitome of tell, don't show. Most of the book was basically a training montage being described in excruciating detail, with all the parts we actually want to hear about left out.

Worse still, the book basically starts off by skipping the party straight to peak tier 6, then keeps them there for half the length of the book (and multiple years) before literally skipping tier 7 entirely and skipping straight to peak tier 8. We don't see any of it. This book is failing at literally every aspect, which honestly isn't terribly uncommon for progression novels.. but now it's failing at the progression aspect too.

I still have half the book to work my way through, but at this point I'm honestly not sure if I want to continue on with the series.

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Another series re-recorded with inferior narrators.

Revisado: 03-12-24

I listened to these books a long, long time ago. I have most of the collection in my library. For some reason, a couple of them are missing. I believe this was because I got then from a library back in the day and didn't need to buy them.

Now, I'm listening to the series again after watching the D+ show. I had to buy this one.. and it appears Audible no longer offers the version with the original narrator. You know, the version that all the rest in the series in my library are narrated by.

Worse, they've chosen to split the book up between three narrators. They didn't even do it as a "full cast" type production, but instead have each chapter narrated by someone different depending on who the PoV character is. The guy doing Jason is fine, but the other two? The girl's voice is strangely tinny, which is really annoying. She also reads each sentence as if it is all on its own, even when they should be naturally flowing from one to another. The guy doing Leo isn't much better. He has the same issue with unnatural pauses, and sometimes those pauses even change the meaning of the sentence. For example, when asked if the god's name was Vulcan he said "Usually......... We don't use their Roman names", instead of "Usually we don't use their Roman names".

I absolutely hate how Audible (or the audiobook companies) are constantly re-recording successful audiobooks and replacing them with newer (presumably cheaper) narrators, then dropping any support for the older (and superior) version.

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A real slog

Revisado: 01-10-24

I'm only about a third of the way through this one, and to be honest it feels like it hasn't even started yet. It still feels like it's in a sort of interlude between books 1 and 2.

Multiple things about how Nexus works seem to have been retconned. In the first novel it only worked in very close proximity, and larger groups or areas required special technology to enable connections. Now? He can connect to people all over the entire world at will. Whole groups of people can connect to each other, with no assistance. Why? No idea.

Much of the story so far as just been long winded internal monologing verging on characters outright soapboxing to themselves. When that isn't happening, the reader is repeatedly subjected to chapter long descriptions of torture, murder, and various other crimes from the point of view of the person being mistreated. It gets old fast.

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A worrying trend.

Revisado: 01-03-24

In my review for the first book I mentioned that the story really seems to meander around. Unfortunately it continues to do that here. It isn't until the very end of this book that we finally start to see hints of some larger story or goal.

While I did enjoy the story overall, and certainly plan to come back for the next one, I have to say that this one wasn't nearly as interesting as the first. Some of the charm was lost when it became apparent that nothing ever really seems to stick around. Every project or development is ephemeral.

For example, the main character may spend several entire chapters setting up a base of operations in fairly significant detail.. only to depart that location immediately after finishing up, and never returning. Various pets or projects are described I'm extreme detail, only to vanish entirely for the rest of the book.

Other times you're left wondering if entire chapters were left out. The character uses skills she's never even practiced before, like illusion magic. Or she pulls out pets or projects she's never worked on to get herself out of a situation. Or she sits down to meditate randomly and somehow turns her crow into a swan with no explanation whatsoever. She apparently thinks it'll transition from one form into another before eventually becoming a phoenix, but I don't recall that ever being mentioned before this point.

So, yeah. I liked it. I'll be back. But there seem to be a lot of flaws accumulating that are souring the experience. I almost think the author is going for some sort of unreliable narrator kind of thing, which would make sense given the MC's condition.. but if that's the case then I don't feel that it's working very well. It's just coming across as confusing and unsatisfying for the reader.

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An outstanding start

Revisado: 12-26-23

As someone who has read quite a few litrpg series, this one stands out as a new favorite. I quite enjoyed both the story and narration. The premise is somewhat unique, there aren't any long lists of meaningless statistic pages, and I found myself interested in the story throughout. It did seem to meander somewhat aimlessly, and I worry that might become an issue in later novels, but for now at least it didn't really seem to matter that an overarching goal, villain, or other such device seems to be missing. Onward to book 2!

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Too much political soapboxing

Revisado: 01-12-23

Frankly, I'm just about done with this author. I'm generally on the left politically, and even I'm tired of paper thinly veiled attempts at guilt tripping people into attending political protests and rallies.

I'm also beginning to wonder how anyone exists in this world, because it seems nobody has a normal relationship.

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Narrator voices really hard to tolerate

Revisado: 09-13-22

The story was quite enjoyable, but as so many others stated the narrator was really hard to tolerate. The male voices were fine, but every female one was nails on a chalkboard level bad. Unfortunately the majority of the side characters are female as well.

A few seconds into the book you get to hear the little sister's voice for the first time. That's the worst of the lot, though the rest of the female voices are only marginally better.

For me it was tolerable, but only just. For many others I suspect they'll want to refund it before finishing the first chapter.

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Predictable, but an improvement from the first

Revisado: 06-23-22

The first entry left me truly annoyed by the main character at times. His moral choices seemed completely outrageous to the point I wasn't sure I could stay invested in the story. I did eventually finish, but it was touch and go for awhile there.

Thankfully, this one doesn't seem to have that problem. All said, it was a solid enough continuation of the previous story. Powerful ancient entities pulling strings in the background to use the MC as a pawn in their struggle to destroy or save all of existence and all that. There aren't a lot of moral dilemmas to work through when the existence of existence itself is on the line and you can't really do anything to hurt anyone trying to stop you anyway, right?

The only real failure that comes to mind is that it was unfortunately mostly quite predictable. I more or less knew which characters would live or die, the general manner of their deaths, how the little love triangle thing would go down, who would betray who, and the general shape the ending would take well before we ever got there.

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Some questionable decisions

Revisado: 06-16-22

I initially reviewed this book at two stars around the halfway point, where a decision by the main character left me uncertain if I even wanted to continue listening. I eventually did continue, and finished the book. I'll keep my original review below, but suffice to say the remainder of the story did improve my opinion of it a bit. I'd probably give it 4 stars if not for this moment. For those going in not wanting spoilers, just know that there is a point in the middle of the book where you might disagree vehemently with the MC's decision, and you might think it doesn't make any sense even from the MC's point of view. If you want more information, then here's my original review:

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I made it halfway through the book before reaching a point where I'm honestly not sure I can even keep listening.

Throughout the initial portion of the book the MC demonstrates that he has pretty flexible morals. He's a con man. He steals from the rich and tries to avoid stealing from the poor, but only because they're not really worth the hassle. He lies, cheats, and genuinely considers himself to be a bad guy. He tries to not be outright evil, but he knows he's pretty much a leech on everyone around him. That's all fine. His decision to forgive and accept the help of the demon that is inhabiting the body of an acquaintance of his (resulting in her death) was reasonable. Most of his decisions were.

Then we hit the evil sorcerer rapist, who openly admits he films sexual videos with young children, and who literally has a shop filled with the body parts of dead children he's selling.

MC's first instinct? Erase the guy from existence. Nevermind that his own life might actually depend on the guy helping him. Nevermind that the magic might be just as harmful to him. Drop the helpless act and whip out the power of a dark god to just end the conversation then and there. Great. My opinion of the MC went up a few notches.

Then it fell straight to the core of the Earth, formed a black hole, and sucked in the entire universe. He dismissed his initial reaction as being insane, argued that it would be immoral to kill the evil sorcerer, and used magic to force his demonic succubus sidekick to spare the guy. Nevermind that she was absolutely right to say if they didn't put an end to him, who would? Mortal authorities couldn't, and the powers that be in the supernatural world no longer enforced the old rules.

Apparently the MC has such a problem with killing anyone for any reason he can't stomach the thought of even the most vile individual dying, even if it means leaving them to continue doing vile things. Ugh. I feel like I need to rinse my brain after listening to that hot garbage.

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