Glenn J

CRINGY dialog, whiny wife, weak dad

Revisado: 09-26-24

I wanted to like this book. The author's later works are good and I took a gamble on this one. I suffered through the first book thinking it would pick up steam and get better. Man, was I wrong. The main character is weak and keeps doing and saying things that show he isn't very bright either. Low EQ, no spine, can't be objective and tell his wife when she is being irrational. It's like sitting in on a bad marriage counseling session but paying for the privilege to be there.

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Great book, fantastic narration, blasphemous

Revisado: 09-19-24

This is exactly the kind of book I like. It's reminiscent of the Good/Bad Guy series by Eric Ugland. Neil Hellegers does a fantastic job at narration as always. The language is a bit rough, but fairly par for the course until I hit on multiple instances of Jesus <explicative> Christ. I've always been of the opinion that people's language is a matter of personal choice and expression up until it gets abusive to another person.

As a man whose life has been changed by the Jesus, the author crossed that line with me.

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Fantasy Soap Opera

Revisado: 02-28-24

This is a meandering and seemingly pointless story of a wizard who is now a cook, that has a son. I bought it because I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Manning's writing ability and generally like his combination of plot, character development, humor and magic.

This reads something like the following:

"I'm a cook spending 10 chapters telling you about my boring life - AND NOW I HAVE A DARING SEXUAL ENCOUNTER THAT TAKES UP A CHAPTER - any my son is developing - AND NOW I DESTROY AN ARMY OF TROLLS! - and my son doesn't know who I am - AND NOW I HAVE ANOTHER SEXUAL ENCOUNTER - and Im a really powerful wizard who is trying to raise his son - AND NOW MORE WOMEN ARE TRYING TO HAVE SEX WITH ME BUT IM CONFLICTED and now my son is in a copper mine - AND NOW HE SPENDS TWO CHAPTERS DESCRIBING HIS HOMOSEXUAL ENCOUNTER..."

Way too much information on the fantasy sex lives of the characters. No point to the story. Loose plot ends abound.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Amazing narrator, gifted but depraved author

Revisado: 08-31-23

So - this series is a landmark LitRPG entry, some would say 'THE' landmark entry. The characters are funny and well developed and the narrator is amazing. The author has a growing tendency over the lifetime of the series to mix in ever increasingly putrid humor and references. What started as double entendre devolved into c**k jokes, then into bestiality, then detailed stories of rape and mutilation. I started with just hitting the +30sec FF but in this book (7) of the series there were whole sections of crap. Not worth wading through, IMO. I stopped in the first third of the story and walked away.

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I'm not sure I can adequately express my disgust

Revisado: 06-13-23

I've been a long-time fan of the Demon Accords series. As a matter of fact, I routinely re-listen to the first 8 or so books when I'm in between other series. They have become sort of a well-worn and comfortable companion over the years.

The series has definitely deteriorated since College Arcane, but each new book was at least 'OK', This one, however, is so epically bad that I'm seriously wondering what kind of drugs Mr. Conroe partook of while writing it. I'm even more curious at the utter lack of evidence of any editor worth his or her salt.

The story meanders from one impossible god-like feat by Declan to another. He is an eco-terrorist and proud of it. He has no problem killing hundreds of people for the crime of polluting Mother Earth. His ends entirely justify any means. The whole team finally ends up in a barn executing a group of unpowered, normal humans in cold blood.

The relationships with Chris and Tanya he spent years forging are (again) in disrepair for unknown reasons. The dialog is muddy and uninspiring, Interesting side plots spring up and then disappear with no explanation.

Finally, mercifully (?) the book just shuts off like someone stole the uncompleted (and unedited!) manuscript right off of the author's computer.

I greatly regret the almost 9 hours I spent waiting for this stinkfest to get better.

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My only complaint is that he doesn't write faster!

Revisado: 09-16-22

This is a great series. Well written with a solid balance of character dev, humor, action, strategy and plot. The narrator is fantastic, adding a force multiplier to the story. Really solid entertainment.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Great concepts, great author, poor execution

Revisado: 08-25-22

I like Jame's Hunters books in general. For instance, Viridian Gate was the kind of audio book series that is representative of the best LitRPG has to offer. It was with great optimism that I started listening to this series.

The premise is interesting, the characterizations are pretty good (redneck LitRPG character with real guts and a comic sidekick) and the magic system is pretty cool. But holy cow, the execution is soooo lacking. I found my mind wandering while listening to the point where the book faded into background noise. The bad part about that is that when I started paying attention again, I hadn't really missed anything important.

For instance, the main character will spend extended periods of time reading menu items, or reading a list of "x scales = y points" and by list, I'm talking about the entire list of 20 items where the ratio between items stays constant. The plot is meandering as well and after waiting and waiting for it to get better, I ditched at about 40%.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Flashes of brilliance followed by extended cringe

Revisado: 09-01-21

I really wanted to like this book, I like LitRPG in general and this book had just enough good to make me want to wade through all of the amateurish dialogs, cringe-worthy decisions, and occasionally moronic stupidity of everyone involved. What I think was meant to be endearing humor came across as ham-fisted writing.

To be fair, I've just come off of a LitRPG spree of truly excellent series including "He Who Fights with Monsters" ,"Veridian Gate Online', "Life Reset" and all of the books by Eric Ugland. Seriously first-class writing across the board and this book seemed like a high-school lit project by comparison.

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Very well done! Great series!

Revisado: 08-03-21

I am a firm believer that a good book with good narration creates a force multiplier. This is one of those series.. I found myself looking for excuses to go to the store, cook dinner, wash the car, etc. just so I could have more time to listen to this.

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Great story, we'll thought out and stellar perform

Revisado: 09-18-15

What did you love best about The Cycle of Arawn?

Probably the best credit I've spent on Audible. 65 hours of entertainment: engaging story, good mixture of drama and humor, solid ending.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Cycle of Arawn?

I was really impressed with the charter development and story progression. I loved the dry humor.

What about Tim Gerard Reynolds’s performance did you like?

He manages the voice characterizations effortlessly and narrates so naturally that it is easy to loose yourself in the story.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas