Tag Archives: Nick Podehl

Book Reviews

Hob’s review of The Land By Aleron Kong books 1,2, and 3

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This is a combined book review of the first 3 books in a series The Land: Founding: A LitRPG Saga: Chaos Seeds, Book 1   The Land: Forging: Chaos Seeds, Book 2 and The Land: Alliances: A LitRPG Saga: Chaos Seeds, Book 3 as always I wont give spoilers.

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For those not familiar with the concept of LitRPG. It is a genre of scifi and fantasy novels where the protagonist is in a game world of some type. This can be a virtual world or an actual other world Unfortunately, a lot of times it feels kind of like reading the logfile of a game with childish dialog added in.

This series is actually pretty good I would say it’s in the top 10 LitRPG series I have read so far but it has some major flaws that I will point out.

First of all, this is one of the human sucked in to game world forever kind of litRPG, and so far we don’t know much about how that happened. But what we do know is so generic I would say at this point it is the worst getting to the game scenarios I have come across. Once our hero is in the world the story is pretty unique though. With a major focus on building a town instead of just raiding dungeons and stuff.

The main character was a Medical student back on earth but we would never really know that if it was not said flat out.  Even in his own thoughts when he is injured he never even remotely thinks anything technical. And in this third instalment of the series he seems to be turning ever more in to the obnoxious teen with his yelling out Fuck Yeah and using Rick and Morty references and worst of all, when referring to large loot drops screaming out give me the Cheddar.

Congratulations! You have found the word Cheddar. Item weight 0.05 kilograms. Item Durability 13 out of 62 Item class all too Common. Item quality subpar.  Traits makes Protagonist look like a stupid douchbag teen Cooldown five minutes.

I will admit I may be geting a bit sick of LitRPG in general. So many of them have the same faults. For this series, I have been listening to the audiobooks read by Nick Podehl and if it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t want to continue this series.  That being said I am vaguely curious to see where it will go. If it goes anywhere that is. In the second and third books not much happens to move the plot along.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The excellent narration and the fact that the main story arc is original is enough to keep me coming back. But somehow the shortest book, book 1 at just over 9 hours had more stuff happen then the combined 22 hours of books 2 and 3. Hopefully more will happen in the next book and the progression of the protagonist to a teen hipster will stop or at least slow down. I give The Land: Founding: A LitRPG Saga: Chaos Seeds, Book 1 4 stars and both  The Land: Forging: Chaos Seeds, Book 2 and The Land: Alliances: A LitRPG Saga: Chaos Seeds, Book 3 get 3 stars

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Book Reviews

Hobs review of Reign of Madness by Kel Kade

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Reign of Madness: King’s Dark Tidings, Book 2

UNABRIDGED

 

OK this review will be shorter than most. No that doesn’t mean I should be done now, shut up Bob!

It will be kind of short because I just reviewed book 1 a few days ago. and Much of what I liked or didn’t like is the same.  I listened to the Audiobook Narrated by Nick Podehl. He is the reason I picked up this series in the first place and he did a great job as always.  This one was a bit longer than the first coming in at a respectable 19 hrs and 20 min. It is rare that a series gets longer each book instead of shorter, But it’s almost always a good thing when it does.

I did like this one more than the first as far as plot goes. Relationships had kind of firmed up and some of the characters had matured in this second installment.  One of the group  dies though and of course it’s a woman’s  fault. Wait I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,  the women are not written that well they are all lovesick teeny boppers  that do stupid things for men..  I was in no way saying women are at fault for things usually just in this book. Seriously I love you!!!! Don’t hurt me…….

The action scenes where really good again but even more one sided. Most of this book took place at the dueling contest that the group had been traveling too in book  1. but he didn’t even break a sweat taking out every blade master in five kingdoms and that is just a bit too much  disbelief to try and suspend.  Rez actually did get hurt once. It was at the same time when the one guy died but it was because of ….. Moving on….

Final thoughts

There was plenty of action consisting of great fighting scenes. even if it did feel like Rezkin was playing with God mode on. A lot of good one-liners and running jokes kept me amused.  Still I don’t know why this book has “This book is intended for adult readers” warning on it. The plot makes it a teen book  at best and I didn’t notice anything that would make it deserve more. But you will need to judge that for yourself. Reign of Madness is going to get 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Book Reviews

Hob’s review of Free the Darkness (King’s Dark Tidings, #1) by Kel Kade

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Free the Darkness: King’s Dark Tidings, Book 1 UNABRIDGED

I was kind of bullied in to getting this book by Audible. for the last 2 months it has been the only series to be recommended that I haven’t already listened/read. When I noticed that it was Narrated by Nick Podehl I caved and got it. and Nick did a great job on it. I probably liked the book way more then I should have because of the fantastic job he did reading it. audible

Why shouldn’t I have liked it  that much?  Well let me tell you a bit about the plot first. It starts out in a training montage. A 5 or 6 year old boy broke his leg with bone showing and he is expected to tell what he did wrong, and then set the bone by himself. Really? I dropped a table on my foot at 12 breaking 5 bones, and finished moving the table before I went hopping to show my mom a foot 3X normal size. I was laughing as I said “Hey ma I think I hurt myself”. At 15 I grabbed my kneecap from the back of my leg and pulled it back in to position. I did both of those things without screaming. But there was a whole lot of cussing and  laughing. With the knee. It was hilarious because my Mom and my Girlfriend had to pull my jeans off so we could see what was wrong.  But it is physically impossible to set a broken shin with ripped skin by yourself. You just can’t reach it.

Now lets skip to when our hero, Rezkin, is 19. He has mastered every weapon ever made is a master healer and spy and everything else. (I have a theory about why Rez is so good at things but I am not going to say.)  Additionally he lives his life by all the rules he has been taught. After a bit of confusion and everyone he has ever known laying dead around him he rushes up to his master as he is about to die.  He tells Rez rules 2 to kill with compassion and rule 1 to honor and protect….He sees all of his friends that have died before him and says “my friends” …..he dies. Now Rezkin was never told how one gets friends or what they are really so he is just a Tad confused about his life’s purpose.

When he gets to the closest town that he of course has memorized he goes to a inn that is pretty much full. A girl about his age asks to sit with him as there is no other chairs. As they talk we learn that Rez is the most beautiful man ever Like OMG SEXY.  So of course she says I am so glad we are friends now…..

To me it felt like a kind of well written teen fantasy, But as I am writing this I pulled it up on Goodreads and disappointingly  it says flat out “This book is intended for adult readers. It contains graphic violence, creative language, and sexual innuendo.” While that stuff is true it’s no more than a PG-13 at best  You will see more violence in a video game,  and more sexual innuendo in a Animaniacs cartoon…..HELLOOO Nurse.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, ridiculous plot and I don’t know why I liked it but I did. The girl fights over Rez and him being so oblivious to it are pretty funny  add that in to A lot of persistently running jokes and you get a quite amusing book. The action scenes, while being completely one sided, are written well.  As i said before it was excellently narrated by Nick Podehl, and to me that is the biggest point in its favor. So I am not sure how it earned 3.75 stars out of 5  but it did. So Check it out I guess.