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  • Challenge

  • Unbound Deathlord, Book 1
  • By: Edward Castle
  • Narrated by: Jeff Hays
  • Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (330 ratings)
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Challenge cover art

Challenge

By: Edward Castle
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
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Summary

When virtual reality becomes real enough that people feel as if they're being transported to another world, Valia Online arrives.

A man running from his past joins the game to forget it all. Calling himself Jack Thorn, he chooses an undead race, Deathlord.

A mage by choice, and a swordsman by necessity, he soon finds out that he'll need to use much more than magic and steel to survive; strategy, creativity, and carefully chosen words can often accomplish what simple attacks can't.

As the game becomes too real and touches a part of him that he'd rather leave buried, he is faced with two questions: Who is he, really? And who should he become?

Challenge is book one of the Unbound Deathlord series, a LitRPG saga.

©2016 Edward Castle (P)2017 Podium Publishing

What listeners say about Challenge

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

character sheet at the end of every chapter

I found it REALLY annoying that at the end of EVERY chapter it would recite the main character's character sheet data, it completely breaks the immersion from the experience and find it disjointing in the flow of the story. (this is on top of all of the times that the MC checks his own sheet after any investigation or tweaks he chooses to make)

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the best in its genre

One of the best LitRPG around, up there with awaken online. Definitely worth a listen to.

Really looking forward to getting stuck into the second book!

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great tale and a new angle in LitRPG

Dammed fine read. This is a very well written and thought out book. I cannot recommend it highly enough if you are a fan of this genre.

The Main Character is well crafted and his background story and behavior is nicely feed to the reader through the book. The twists and plot movements are well telegraphed, without being obvious and feed nicely into the flow and yet still deliver a twist or two which neatly fit the story but were unexpected none the less.

World is balanced and nicely thought out. I eye to scale was clever as well as a stable form of leveling up which stops characters becoming over powered titans in their first battle, though there was a tiny bit of that in the early chapters. Still much less than other authors use so I was willing to forgive the author.

For a first book it is well edited, good plot and a good length, so excellent value for money. Looking forward to the next in the series.

The reading style and characters are well done and very listenable too. Others have commented that the list of the stats is too long at the end of chapters and by the end i was fast forwarding for a couple of minutes at the end of the chapter as it added nothing to the story, but i had also read the book. I would reduce this in the audible books as it is just dull, but not a reason to not get the book!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

awful

Book is about a sexest and over privelaged person that expects everything to be handed to him. The land and LIfe reset is superior to this book in every way.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good

good for litrpg. who likes the world of games will enjoy it. aiting for next one.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good story but MC a whiny little b

Another excellent performance by Jeff, as always brings the story and characters to life.

Not a bad story but the MC would argue with himself. He's an annoying, spoiled little bollox. I don't understand why he wasn't toned down a little, I nearly gave up because of his constant batching, grow a set of balls.

I'll give the next book ago and hopefully he's grown up a bit.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

loved it but one thing

the only issue i have is the stat readouts after every chapter but i just skip them.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Decent, with some issues

A very well thought out game world, but unlikeable main and passable outside world sections.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Twaddle

The biggest load of twaddle i have ever read how such drivel gets past the board i don't know

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Love Jeff but not the story

My heading encapsulates everything I feel about this book. I always enjoy Jeff's narration but the story wasn't for me. I can't quite put my finger on why but it just didn't connect with me for some reason.

Would I give this another chance down the line? No.

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