Thieves' Dungeon Book Review

Thieves' Dungeon is another Royal Road book that I recently read. The book is written by NoDragons, the author first started writing the book 5 months ago. Since there the book has been finished, its actually the only complete book that I've read on Royal Road. Here is the link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/27261/thieves-dungeon

This is a dungeon core book, for those that don't know what I dungeon core book is I'll elaborate. Basically, a dungeon core book is an entity that creates a dungeon, traps, monsters, environment, the whole deal. The dungeon gets stronger with each adventurer's struggles or death, and the adventurers get stronger by fighting in the dungeon. There are many dungeon core books out there but each have slight differences. For this book there were quite a few differences from the typical book. First difference, there isn't one elemental choice, the dungeon builds upon each attunement, as they're called. I liked this a lot, it gave the dungeon a lot of versatility. Second difference, there isn't a guiding sprite/fairy/guide, the dungeon is all alone. This was a negative part about the story for me, usually the guide is funny and keeps the story interesting with dialogue between the core and guide. Because of that, I felt the story fizzles out.Third difference was every adventurer actually posed a threat to the core. This made tensions higher, in a good way. The last main difference is, in my opinion, another bad thing. The only way the dungeon really gets stronger in this book is by killing adventurers. This balances with the fact that every adventurer poses a threat to the core, but I still didn't like how it actually changed the story. Many core books, for instance Elemental Dungeon, has adventurers that return and grow with each delve along with the dungeon. Through that, you gain the entertainment of dungeon and core. This book was different, the dungeon tried with all its power to kill every adventurer that entered. Overall, there were some positive takes on cores and there were some negative takes on cores in book.

I thought the book started out promising, but it went on too long and it just became mundane and boring. There were conflicts that I felt the author just forgot about. The core was "fighting" with the gods and the author seemed to forget about that for the majority of the book. I felt like the same thing happened with many secondary characters, the dungeons creations. One was his creation's creation, a mini golem that the author only revisited twice. I wanted to read more about that little guy and the rest of those characters. Overall, I felt like I disliked this series more and more as it went on and do not recommend it, the initial promise sadly dissipates.

The Wayward Bard Book Review

So sorry that this is late, completely slipped my mind yesterday. I should be back to the norm for next week. For this week, I read The Wayward Bard, a series by Lars M. The book was published on April 21, 2018 and there are two total books in the series. Both books can be found on Kindle Unlimited.

Daniel works a boring desk job, but one day he sees a huge amount of money soon to be transferred to his company's account. Dirty money sent by the mafia. The 8,000,000-ish euros have not been transferred yet though, and Daniel jumps at the opportunity. Rerouting it through many different places, the money eventually ends up in Daniel's account. Before being discovered, Daniel decides to take a 2 year vacation in the exclusive, expensive, and incredibly realistic experience of 5D (all five senses). His plan is to roll a bard, max charisma, and have his 2 year vacation be filled with music, women, alcohol, and gambling. He ends up arriving in the middle of nowhere though, only one village in sight. He tries to access his money to buy a portal, can't get it, and pisses the banker/mayor off with all his anger directed at her. Now, Daniel is stuck. He has no money, no combat ability, no skills other than music, and a town that hates him. That wayward bard will have a lot of work ahead of him.

I really enjoyed this series. From the author's disclaimers I guess bards are a stereotype for harem and stuff like that, but thank goodness there wasn't any in this. This series had a really unique magic system, which I really enjoyed reading about. I have yet to read any others with a system like it, and it was well explained too. The book was funny and had great characters as well. The characters were, for the most part, all pretty likable and fun to read about. The book was filled with great bad puns, which are always fun. The characters all developed and grew in their own way as well. One of the negatives I saw was that the author contradicted himself a few times. Nothing big, but the author said Daniel didn't lose his temper much, not true. It was smaller things like that, but like I said, nothing major. Another thing I didn't like was it seemed like the author forgot about things. For instance the main character gets something special in book 2, and while the book focuses on it a lot at first, it isn't really mentioned too much after, much to my disappointment. I felt like the author could have come up with a better explanation rather than just not focus on it too much. Overall though, I really recommend this book as I really enjoyed it, and none of the negatives were major ones.

Vainqueur the Dragon Book Review

This is another book review for a royal road book, however it also has part of it out on Amazon. It seems like there is a new chapter roughly every three days. The book started six months ago and is still currently being updated with new chapters, and the author is Void Herald. Here is the link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26534/vainqueur-the-dragon

Vainqueur was a mighty dragon, the best in the land a while ago. Then after just a brief 50 year nap he wakes up and sees a thief trying to steal from him, and his Goblin protectors of the hoard are nowhere in sight. Dismayed and angry, Vainqueur toys with his food, only for his food to reveal an incredible secret, the system. The system makes it so that people can level and grow in different classes, all you need to access it is to be knowledgeable of said system. Never before had any dragon, much less one as great as VAINqueur discovered such an incredible secret. Vainqueur blesses Victor with the chance to become his chief of staff and he sets out to amass the greatest hoard ever know to man, er, dragon that is.

I loved this book. Vainqueur is very pompous and egotistical, but not in a knowing way, which makes it really fun to read. All the characters are funny, except for one of the races, the economics of the world is hilarious and awesome. All around, it is just a really funny and good book. I can't tell you how many times I laughed aloud. For as funny as it is though, the characters don't really grow or change too much, but for a story like this that wasn't an issue. The book was obviously meant to be comedic, and it excelled at what it was meant to do. I loved the world setup, but I do wish there had been a bit more background to some of the things, and there were a few parts I wish the book hadn't skipped. For instance hopefully hilarious training "montages." Overall though, great book, really funny, but needed a but more background and less skipping around. If you are looking for a good read though, I can wholeheartedly guarantee you will enjoy it.

He Who Fights With Monsters Book Review

Previously I have been told that I should review something on Royal Road or other sites like that. Now, 1,465 pages (or 166 chapters) later I am up to date on the free, open version of He Who Fights With Monsters. He Who Fights With Monsters is written by Shirtaloon on Royal Road and ScribbleHub. For those of you who aren't aware, those are both sites where authors can post their books, usually a chapter at a time. If you read on Kindle or something like that, I suggest using WebToEPub to turn the story into a PDF then send that to your Kindle. He Who Fights With Monsters has a new chapter on every weekday, Monday through Friday, and has been going on for about six months. Here is the link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26294/he-who-fights-with-monsters

He Who Fights With Monsters begins with the main character, Jason, waking up naked in the middle of a hedge maze with no recollection of how he got there. Soon after he fights some mutated gerbils, kills a cannibal trying to find his next meal, gets magical abilities from some rocks, and kills some more cannibals. All in all, quite eventful. The main character Jason tries to make the best of this new world he finds himself in, his outrageous personality and political mind quickly putting him near the tops of some different social circles. Throughout the book Jason meets a wide variety of people and monsters, and kills a variety as well. Jason ends up creating a very dark and evil seeming power set, which is always fun to read about.

I really liked this book. It started off really great and slowly it lost some appeal but it was still a good book, within the last little bit the story has definitely picked up and is great once more. There wasn't ever a time where I did not enjoy reading the book, I just preferred the start and the more recent parts. Jason is an awesome character, he keeps the story funny and interesting. He is accomplishes many things through manipulation, which is really fun to read. He uses his innate weirdness to push someone else into doing what he wants, but it is always in an outrageous and funny way. I really enjoy the main character and the other characters are great as well. The book is LitRPG but doesn't really show damage or anything like that. I like how it is used however I do have one complaint about the LitRPG aspect. Spells and abilities will have different costs, but it never really gives it a numeric value or compares it to Jason's overall mana capacity. You don't know how much more a moderate mana spell costs compared to a minor, and you don't know how many times Jason can use it. For all I know, Jason can either use a moderate spell anywhere from five times to five hundred or more. The book never really gave an amount for that and I don't think it will, which is an annoyance. I like how the combat is written, but I don't like that I don't know how many times Jason can use something and I found that annoying when reading. Jason does have character growth, which I appreciate, and so do the people around him. The dialogue was believably written and usually witty and funny. I loved how the abilities fit together, especially for Jason, however it did seem like it made him overpowered. The story had good development as well and the book was always kept interesting and kept me wanting to read more. Overall, it was a really good book with a good story and even better dialogue however, the combat and abilities could use some refining. I will keep reading this book with each new chapter that comes out and it is definitely a book I can recommend.

Please let me know if you like me reviewing Kindle, Royal Road, or yet to be published books in the comments below.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic Book Review

Sufficiently Advanced Magic is a book written by Andrew Rowe. It is part of a two book series called Arcane Ascension. The first book was published on February 26th.

Arcane Ascension takes place in a world filled with magic. Upon reaching a certain age, one enters a spire for their judgement, where they go through battles and puzzles. They either die, or finish and receive an attunement. Attunments allow you to use specialized magic. There are guardians, given special strength and defense. There are shapers, given the ability to create and manipulate objects. There are elementalists, who can control fire, wind, and electricity. There are dozens more, each with unique abilities. Corin is the son of a low class noble, years ago his older brother took his judgement and never returned. Now, Corin has made it his mission to get a great attunement and climb to the top of the spire to ask the goddess herself to bring back his brother. For Corin though, it becomes much harder with a support oriented crafting attunement and the strongest people on the continent hunting him because he saw more than he should have.

I really liked this book. I loved the development of Corin. As it is crafting based, there was very good progression but Corin was also unique in the fact that he wasn't afraid to battle. He would make cool trinkets that would give him the upper hand in any type of battle he was in. I liked his friends as well. There was believable, and witty, dialogue that made reading the book fun. I also really enjoyed the world the author crafted, I'm sure there are others similar to it but it still felt unique, and I doubt anyone else executed it in the way Rowe has. I really enjoyed the variety of powers others had, the challenges Corin faced, and the variety of what Corin could make. It all fit together in the coolest way and made this a great book. The book was more of a Gamelit book though. There weren't really statistics, save for mana capacity and amount, which wasn't shown often. However, the book definitely had the concrete statistics feel, the abilities and items were well described and had obvious limits. I didn't really find much wrong with this book except for the ending and the passage of time. To elaborate, the ending was bad. It ended on an odd note and left the story hanging open. Amazon calls it a finished series, which I hope it isn't but maybe it is, and the author has started writing other books for different character origin stories. There are now two books for one of those characters, and I am wondering if he is going to return to this series. That second point was the time. There are close to 1400 pages in the series, but everything takes place in about six months of time. It is a busy six months, but it still seems like it would be longer. There isn't a dull moment for the book but I think the book makes the time pass weird. What I would think would be over a year, only happens in six months. That is the thing I don't like about it, I think the author tried to just say that it all happened in six months, when in actuality it would have taken much longer. Overall, great book. Great story, good character development, witty dialogue, and well defined abilities and skills. I definitely recommend this book, I think you will enjoy it.