Hob’s review of Delvers LLC. by Blaise Corvin

UNABRIDGED

By Blaise Corvin
Narrated By Jeff Hays

Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
Release Date: 01-05-17

THE BLURB

Henry and Jason led normal lives in Seattle before they were abducted to another world. Their kidnapper, the vain, self-styled god Dolos, refuses to send them back unless they can accomplish an impossible task. Oddly, Dolos doesn’t seem to care if they succeed or not.

Luckily, Henry and Jason studied Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) on Earth. Unfortunately, a Japanese American EMT and a geeky IT programmer don’t have many other useful skills on a sword-and-sorcery world like Ludus.

Stranded in the middle of nowhere on an alien world, the friends have no real direction and only a few possessions including magic-granting orbs from an apathetic god. Undaunted, the two begin their insane adventure to return home…but basic survival and eventually paying rent will have to take priority.

This is a new LitRPG series that …. What is LitRpg? Well that is a Question with no correct answer right now. But basically it is a Fantasy or Scifi type of book that flirts with breaking the fourth wall by adding RPG elements in to the story. Usually this is done by the MC going in to a video game. At which point his choosing new spells each level. and using armor that only works for his class become part of the story .

Robert Beven is one of my Favorite authors of these types of books and has been for years the term LitRPG is only around a year old though so I want to post Robert’s Definition of LitRPG

LitRPG

“Being a high-functioning drunk, I was able to suss out the meaning without too much trouble, but in four years of writing books custom tailored to this very specific genre, I’d never even heard or seen the term used before.

So what is LitRPG?

LitRPG” is a combination of “Literature” and “RPG”, an acronym for “Role-Playing Game”. It’s a quickly growing genre which involves characters who spend most or all of their time inside a game. It could be a virtual reality setting, as in the case of Ernest Cline‘s Ready Player One, or it could be more literal, such as with the hilarious Caverns & Creatures series of novels and short stories by a very talented author whose name escapes me at present.

I’ve known since the beginning that the premise of my books is hardly an original idea. They’re pretty much the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon from the 80s, but with more violence, bodily fluids, and gratuitous swearing.

And less Uni.

But now it’s a recognized genre! That’s such great news. Now, when people ask me what kind of books I write, instead of mumbling some gibberish about comedy/fantasy about gamers who get stuck in the world of their game, I can simply say, “LitRPG!”

And then they’ll say, “What the fuck is LitRPG?”

And then I’ll have to explain what LitRPG is, and follow it up with some gibberish about comedy/fantasy about gamers who get stuck in the world of their game, but they’ll walk away long before I finish. It’ll be awesome.”

As a side note Caverns and Creatures is very poorly reviewed here. I mean it. It is more of a recommendation than a review.

But let’s get back to Delvers LLC’ The cover is ok but looks better with a goblin in it.

The title kind of put me off at first. But when I got to the point where it is explained I thought it was awesome. The narrator, Jeff Hays was new to me but I thought he did a great job and will probably pick up some of the other books he has done.

Now for the story part! Well you know how in both definitions of LitRPG I posted above that it involves video games in some way. Well this book doesn’t do that. See that’s why it is so hard to nail down the definition of LitRPG.

It starts with 2 guys practicing a bit of sword fighting. They study Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) like I do. But I have been a master for years. Believe me I look great for my age I wrote a book on HEMA back in the 1600s.

They suddenly get transported to a different world and are greeted by a narcissistic God named Dolos. He tells them he has been taking people from all kinds of worlds for a thousand+ years and putting them here as an experiment. Right away they see some goblins and automatically think they are up to no good. Just because they are caring some humans trussed up for slaughter. That seems like racial profiling to me. They break in to the goblins home and proceed to kill them all. Only to find that the goblins had rescued the people and had been treating their injuries ……. Just kidding they were going to be lunch, one of the humans was already served. But I still say it was harsh treatment.

So no video game in this one but Dolos did give them an object that would grant a magic power so we do see them leveling up. I have to say it was done well.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In a Genre that is getting to be very specific Delvers LLC. managed to redefine the definition. I thoroughly enjoyed the narration and story. It had plenty of character growth and fairly good interactions between the side characters as well as the main. All in all a good solid Audiobook I highly recommend to those who are new to LitRPG as well as those that have been loving it since before it had a name like I have. I give Delvers LLC. 4.5 goblins out of 5