Douglas Sundseth
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Return of the Runebound Professor 3
- De: Actus
- Narrado por: Ramón De Ocampo
- Duración: 20 h y 14 m
- Versión completa
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Historia
The Survival Exam is over and Noah’s group have more eyes on them than ever before. Azel, the demon trapped within Noah’s mind ever since his arrival on the mortal plane, finally took mortal form once more. He’s held back only by Noah’s favorite solution to every problem he faces, but he’s far from the only threat the group faces. Noah’s powers didn’t come without offending a few cosmic beings and their agents are closer than ever before. If they discover he possesses Sunder, then not even immortality will be enough to protect him and his students.
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Becoming tropy, less interesting.
- De Brandon en 01-17-25
- Return of the Runebound Professor 3
- De: Actus
- Narrado por: Ramón De Ocampo
Solid Series Continuation
Revisado: 07-26-25
Following the exams that ended book 2 of this isekai/possession progression fantasy, Noah and Moxie are at loose ends until the next term starts, so it's time to start knocking things off of Noah's TBD list.
It's never that simple.
We do see the end (or at least a major mutation) of several major plotlines, good character development for all the supporting characters, the introduction of a couple of major new powers, and a great deal of in-depth exploration of the magic system.
Much of that was to the benefit of the book (though the magic system will likely only be of interest to serious system geeks). What we really didn't get was much in the way of "professor-ing", which is at least part of what drew me to the series.
But the plot is well-paced and makes sense within the gameworld, and we definitely do not end the book in the same place we began it.
This is a nice series continuation, and I have no reason not to continue my series recommendation. This has been a fun ride throughout.
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White Wolf
- De: John Conroe
- Narrado por: Lily Ganser
- Duración: 17 h y 38 m
- Versión completa
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Historia
Stacia Reynolds, the famous White Werewolf, plucked from her quiet Vermont life and thrust into the supernatural world. Rescued from mauling by the Hammer of God himself, transformed into one of the most skilled weres in the world, stepping from impoverishment to fame and fortune, and destined to become partner to the most powerful witch ever. This is a story for Demon Accords fans, told by Stacia, in her own words.
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I love this series, but this narrator is BAD!
- De Anonymouse en 06-26-24
- White Wolf
- De: John Conroe
- Narrado por: Lily Ganser
Character study with limited new plot
Revisado: 07-26-25
Another in Conroe's series of character histories, telling the main story (plus a bit) from a different point of view. In this case, that PoV is Stacia Reynolds's.
While some of the other books showed significant sections outside of the main plotline, Stacia's origin story was in a book in this series, and she was onstage for the vast majority of the action. The result is that we see only a different viewpoint, not really much in the way of different information.
The good news is that Stacia is both interesting and likable, so seeing more of her is enjoyable. The bad news is that trying to relate her plot without just repeating the stories of the other books leaves a very disjointed narrative.
The reader of this book does a good job with exposition, but has occasional serious lapses, including pronouncing "id" as "I.D." in some places, but not consistently. I like her voice and the way she evokes the characters, but I got taken out of the story by insufficient attention to detail.
I enjoyed this book, because I've read more than 20 books in the series, so I could fill in the gaps. But this would be really frustrating for anyone who hasn't been following the series closely. And as a standalone piece of fiction, it's really not well done.
Only recommended to readers who are entirely up to date with the entire series.
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Darkkin Knight
- De: John Conroe
- Narrado por: Lily Ganser
- Duración: 13 h y 24 m
- Versión completa
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From the Demon Accords Universe: Meet Katrina Westing. One of Tatiana Demidova's fixers, deadly fighter, borderline psycho. She can make personnel problems literally disappear. Turned at age 12, trapped in a child's body for 170 years, rescued from personal hell by Chris Gordon. This is her story.
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Narrator Issue
- De Nellie n AZ en 06-29-23
- Darkkin Knight
- De: John Conroe
- Narrado por: Lily Ganser
Character study, runs parallel to the main plot
Revisado: 07-24-25
This is a character piece on Katrina Westing, the vampire that was turned when she was a child and then aged to adulthood by Chris.
The parts of the story occurring before "God Touched" are quite entertaining, giving us an interesting background for this character and providing more details on the world. She is well drawn, and the events also provide more background detail for the supernatural world of the series.
When the timeline reaches the start of the series, things become more sketched in. We see only things not shown in other books (understandably), but since this is a long series, that means mere mentions of things from15 or more books before.
Entertaining, but only for fans of the series; this would be a bad place to start.
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Limitless Lands Book 5: Invasion
- De: Dean Henegar
- Narrado por: Jack Voraces
- Duración: 12 h y 24 m
- Versión completa
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Historia
The war for control of Hayden’s Knoll begins as a massive army invades the zone. Raytak gathers his forces and marches the legion out to meet the foe. Allies and friends rally to the cause, but will their support be enough to stem the tide? Thousands will clash, and with every swing of his sword and every command given to his army, Raytak is one step closer to remembering those he loves. Can he protect all that he and his friends have built? Will he finally be reunited with his family? Find out in Invasion.
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Hey look, a LitRPG series that is completed!
- De Dan en 11-21-20
- Limitless Lands Book 5: Invasion
- De: Dean Henegar
- Narrado por: Jack Voraces
Disappointing series ending and terrible narrator
Revisado: 07-22-25
This is the last book in a series I bought some time ago. Had I not bought all five books at the same time, I would not have read this, as the series is not very good. But since I had it, I decided to finish the story I started some time ago.
Before getting to my review of the book as written, I need to say that my opinion was formed in part by the way the book was read by Jack Voraces. He is perhaps the worst professional narrator in the business. His dialog voices are gratingly horrible: his children's voices are screeching and weirdly emphasized and his accents are worse than Dick van Dyke's Cockney accent in Mary Poppins. (He should never be allowed to attempt an American accent under any circumstance.) It's possible that the terrible narrator made the writing seem worse than it actually was, but I can only review what I have.
This series has a serious "How do you do, fellow kids" problem. There are several young people playing characters in the game here, and none of them shows any resemblance to actual children. These characters seem to have been included to add a cute and entertaining break from the war storyline of the rest of the book. At this, they fail abjectly. This is exacerbated by Voraces, of course.
Another major distraction in this series is the character names. I could have understood bad PC names as explained by trollish players, but the NPC names are at least as bad. They might be usable in a straight comedic book, but this book intends seriousness, and the names detract from the effect significantly.
The game design seems to be interesting, with what seems to be a detailed wargame with historical roots. Unfortunately, the author was not able to make the play of the game match its design, spending too much time on recitations of stats and being apparently incapable of creating a mental map for the reader.
Finally, I did like the epilogue, but even there, the transition from the action of the story to that denouement was abrupt, removing impact from the story itself.
The premise of 'dying military hero gets one last hurrah in a VR video game' had promise. The series started out fairly well, but the combination of the narrator and the writer's inability to write compelling military fantasy did not realize that promise. (For a better military LitRPG, see, for example, "Warlords of the Circle Sea", by Ember Lane.) My decision to finish the series was a classic example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Avoid this series.
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Monster Hunter Bloodlines
- Monster Hunter, Book 8
- De: Larry Correia
- Narrado por: Oliver Wyman
- Duración: 14 h y 11 m
- Versión completa
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The chaos god Asag has been quiet since the destruction of the City of Monsters, but Monster Hunter International know that he is still out there, somewhere - plotting, waiting for his chance to unravel reality. When Owen and the MHI team discover that one of Isaac Newton's Ward Stones is being auctioned off by Reptoids who live deep beneath Atlanta, they decide to steal the magical superweapon and use it to destroy Asag once and for all. But before the stone can be handed off, it is stolen by a mysterious thief with ties to MHI and the Vatican's Secret Guard.
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Waited so long and what I got wasn’t enough
- De Anonymous Person en 09-11-21
- Monster Hunter Bloodlines
- Monster Hunter, Book 8
- De: Larry Correia
- Narrado por: Oliver Wyman
Limited Story, but good fight scenes
Revisado: 07-22-25
2.5 stars
I have really liked this series, but this book was a bit of a disappointment.
Larry Correia writes combat scenes as well as anyone, and that's as true here as anywhere. But a book needs more than combat scenes, and this book is nearly non-stop combat. The combat is in aid of the story, but when you see the same enemy killed 20 times in one book, it gets a bit samey.
I do like the new character, the daughter of a former MHI employee who died heroically. She is written interestingly, if frustratingly at times. I rather like what Correia did with an the old enemy as well. He's still evil (probably), but he is much more complex than he was originally presented as.
I'd be more willing to accept this writing style if the story went somewhere other than the entrance to the next big adventure, but this book is largely a setup, and it's too long to maintain interest with that as the payoff.
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Jake's Magical Market
- De: J.R. Mathews
- Narrado por: Travis Baldree
- Duración: 20 h y 41 m
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Jake is working at the neighborhood market under his apartment when the world ends. He expected nuclear war, a computer virus, or even climate change burning everyone to a crisp to bring about the downfall of civilization. But cruel and arbitrary gods from another world? Who would have guessed that? When these cruel gods shuffled Earth like a deck of cards, nothing was in the same place anymore. Monsters, dungeons, and magical items appear scattered across the globe. And suddenly, everyone has access to a new, strange magical card system that gives them magical powers.
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Lots of 5 star reviews
- De Noah M en 01-09-22
- Jake's Magical Market
- De: J.R. Mathews
- Narrado por: Travis Baldree
Fractured and incomplete, but somehow compelling
Revisado: 07-21-25
When I picked this book up, I thought it would be a cozy LitRPG. It's many things, but that's definitely not a major one.
There are several interesting stories in this book: system apocalypse, orphan in a big city, military fantasy, cultivation in the wilderness, time travel, .... And the author can't ever seem to finish one of them before moving on to the next Just as it seems that one plot thread will reach some sort of resolution, the story is hijacked by events, which gives a very disjointed feeling to the book.
The protagonist isn't the most sympathetic character I've read, and I don't particularly believe his various reactions to the strange collection of events he is subjected to. But the author did manage to grab my interest with each of the plots in the book before dropping it for the next one, so there's definitely something here.
I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone else, but I'm going to continue with the series, because I really want to know where this is going. Not the most ringing of endorsements, but there you go.
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Shattered Dreams
- Ultimate Level 1, Book 1
- De: Shawn Wilson
- Narrado por: Johnathan McClain
- Duración: 12 h y 33 m
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Max wanted to be a [Baker]. Settle down, bake stuff, and enjoy life. The gods, however, ruined that dream. Given [Baker] and a rare black skill, he is now running for his life, trying to grow strong enough to return home. Now, Max must find a way to grow strong enough to survive the people and the god hunting him.
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Awesome, weak to strong, MC must hide ability
- De Randall en 07-23-24
- Shattered Dreams
- Ultimate Level 1, Book 1
- De: Shawn Wilson
- Narrado por: Johnathan McClain
Solid LitRPG with an innovative premise
Revisado: 07-21-25
The writing in this book is weak, with cringy dialog and occasional grammatical errors. But the storytelling is good enough for me to look past that.
The story begins with the protagonist attending the ceremony at which Skills are assigned to young people at their coming of age. The protagonist, who wants a simple civilian skill that will give him a good life, ideally Baker, so that he can work in the bakery owned by his girlfriend's family. He gets that skill, and a forbidden skill.
The book follows his adventures learning how to use that skill. As is typical in this sort of book, the skill is deeply broken, giving him rapid access to power far beyond the ability of a normal adventurer. Along with that power come powerful enemies. And in the end, it looks as though there is something world-shaking behind the current situation.
The narrator is not among the better narrators I've listened to lately. He regularly chews the scenery in a way that the text doesn't support and distracts from the story being told. He doesn't ruin the book, but he's a net negative.
This book was better than I expected. I like the protagonist and his party members, I'm enjoying the plot, and the story is holding my attention very well. I'll definitely be continuing with the series. Recommended.
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The Magicians
- A Novel
- De: Lev Grossman
- Narrado por: Mark Bramhall
- Duración: 17 h y 24 m
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Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he's still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.
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Not an average book
- De Kyle en 04-30-11
- The Magicians
- A Novel
- De: Lev Grossman
- Narrado por: Mark Bramhall
Cynical Magical Academy
Revisado: 07-19-25
Harry Potter x The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but with cynical jerks in all the main roles.
The writing is good, with believable main characters who act like college students. Unfortunately, they act like entitled college students with trust funds. The setting is nominally the present, with a veneer of magic. But the way the magic works is even less coherent than that in Harry Potter. The magician characters alternate between being able to accomplish nearly anything with their magic to seemingly forgetting everything they ever learned.
The plot is scattered, and there are some continuity errors that drew my attention, but it flows fairly well. The resolution is in keeping with the rest of the book, so if you like what comes before, you'll likely enjoy the way that it ends.
It's an interesting exercise, and I can see why some people really like it. I did not, and will not be continuing with the series. It does what it intends to do well (as far as I can tell), but what it intends to do is nothing that I want done.
Not recommended.
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Fists of Justice
- De: Christopher G. Nuttall
- Narrado por: Tavia Gilbert
- Duración: 12 h y 26 m
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The war is over. But the scars remain. Emily's New Learning has been good for Beneficence. In the years since she arrived on the Nameless World, the city has been at the forefront of technological advancement and social development. Thousands of newcomers are moving to the city, railways span the gorge and drive into Zangaria, the first steamboats are plowing the ocean wave and a whole new banking system is reshaping national and international trade. A true golden age appears to be on hand. But all is not well.
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The problem is not the point... It's character development.
- De RED en 03-25-18
- Fists of Justice
- De: Christopher G. Nuttall
- Narrado por: Tavia Gilbert
Diversion from the main series plot
Revisado: 07-18-25
After the events of the previous book in the series, Emily travels to attend a funeral with the family of her boyfriend. When she arrives in their home city, she finds that an entrepreneur is trying to build an extensive railroad network, but he may not be entirely on the up-and-up. And there is some sort of godlike being killing people in the city as well.
Excellent, high-tension magical action highlights this book. The difficulty of balancing an imminent financial panic with an existential magical threat, and relationship issues (of course) makes for a compelling plot. That said, the resolution is a bit hand-waved. I don't think it would be quite so simple to untangle the mess left at the end of the book.
The character work isn't Nuttall's best. The conversations between Emily and her boyfriend's mother are cringy and don't feel like they are believable for actual people. The romantic relationship, likewise, doesn't really ring true.
In many ways, this book feels like a sidequest from the main series, presented at least in part so that the author could show off his feelings about religion and business. But the problems are strawmen, not in the sense that they're easy to solve, but in the sense that they don't address the complexities of the situations they raise.
Nuttall would have done well, IMO, to have spent some time researching the Credit Mobilier scandal revolving about the 19th century construction of the transcontinental railroad in the US. The situation could have been much more interesting than it was, particularly had the religious problem not been used to shortcut the financial problem.
I like this series, and I even enjoyed reading this book, but it could have been much more entertaining with more attention paid to character and less to veiled political screeds. I don't regret my time with this book, but would not recommend it to anyone not already committed to the series.
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Hard Wired
- A Jon Reznick Thriller, Book 3
- De: J. B. Turner
- Narrado por: Jeffrey Kafer
- Duración: 5 h y 20 m
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When an ex-Delta Forces operative dies in a car wreck in Miami, the FBI dismiss it as a tragic accident. But Jon Reznick isn't so sure—especially when he learns that his teetotal former colleague was apparently drunk at the wheel. Reznick's one-man investigation quickly enters dangerous territory when it becomes clear that this was merely the first in a series of mysterious deaths.
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Never a dull moment with Jon Reznick!
- De shelley en 01-01-18
- Hard Wired
- A Jon Reznick Thriller, Book 3
- De: J. B. Turner
- Narrado por: Jeffrey Kafer
Decent writing to a non-sensical purpose
Revisado: 07-17-25
This book starts with the buddies of the ex-special forces soldier being killed under mysterious circumstances (which seems to show up at least once in every suspense series). It then progresses through the just-as-typical, "The government doesn't believe that there is a conspiracy" phase.
And then it goes off the rails, <spoiler>with the government trying to first imprison, then rendition the protagonist, to stop the terrorists.</spoiler> Nothing about that last part of the book rang true for me. I didn't believe the characters, I didn't believe the storyline, I didn't believe the climax (though it was entertaining to read), and I definitely didn't believe the denouement.
There's some good adventure writing in this book, but too much of it reads like the worst sort of conspiracy-nut ranting.
If you can turn off your critical faculties -- entirely -- this isn't a bad techno-thriller (though it's very short). Ultimately, I was more annoyed by the silliness than I was captured by the paragraph-level writing. Not recommended.
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