Tower Defense, Base building, Gamelit. A fun read.

Give me the TLDR:
Book 1 of what will be a trilogy. A light read, tower defense gamelit book about an Aussie stuck on an island slowly and attacked by creatures from the deep.

Alright give me more:
Following a plane crash our protagonist finds himself on an island. Rather than the regular levelling system he finds he has a single power, "Befriend Animal" and capacity to purchase items from an ethermeral shop. Stuck on the island he spends his initial time trying to work out how to even gain the basic necessities, only for his foraging to be interrupted as dark clouds roll in and an announcement "Beginning Wave 1".

Why I liked it:
The book is written as the persons journal, as he details each day passing and how he begins to deal with the way his life is changing. This is a light book, in that it doesn't delve too much into the person deeply reflecting on the horror of his situation (though certain events do trigger some reflection), but he instead takes it in his stride. I find this style books really nice as a mix up, from the often more emotionally intensive books that are part of this genre. For audiobook fans this is doubled down, with the Aussie narrator giving a "No worries, mate" attitude to all but the most dire circumstance..
I find the tower defense angle also really entertaining. As part of his "welcome to the apocalypse pack" the progonist gains access the capability to clone items he makes by hand (for a price), as well as a slowly developing build menu. With more mechanics being slowly introduced as the story progresses. This leaves the character to have bouts of developing new tech (even if its a pointy stick) followed by times of working out what to spend his money, to aid his survival. I have a soft spot for base building and McGuiver like constructions and this story hits both.
I've never heard any other stories by the narrator, but he does a good job. His pacing is good, his accent adds to the character. Gaps between sentences are good and he does his job well.

What poked me the wrong way, but were not deal breakers:
I'd say I have two bug bears, oddly these slightly go against what I was talking about earlier.
The first is that, as the story is written as a journal, I feel that this could have been executed better, with me sometimes thinking "Would a person write this in their day to day journal (compared to a memoir)", "Why is he writing now?!" etc...
The second kind of goes against my statement of my enjoyment of it being light. I'm not sure if this was the writing or the narration but I felt like a couple times the story felt like it had a lighter tone, than the events being described should hold.
Disclaimer: I'm not a writer, just a reader and I'm fully aware its better than I could write ^_^.

Do I recommend this:
Absolutely, I blitzed through this story in a day or two, listening to it enough that I had to make sure I didn't start to do a dodgy Aussie accent when talking IRL, I really didn't want to put it down. I loved the tower defense and ingenuity of it. There are lots of developments that occur that really pulled me in and aspects of the world building that added to the draw. I enjoyed that merely living on the island was actually a challenge in and of itself. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes base building, TD games or is just looking for something different.

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1 person found this helpful

i got this book for free and it was good :)

it was good not great just good Narrator seamed like a novice but he did ok the story its self was simple which is good and bad over all i like its and ill probibly get the next one as well

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Really enjoyed this

Loved this book ! Loved the style and the idea ! Amazing work by the author to keep me interested and itching for the next one ! Brilliant work by the narrator ! Thank you ! Worth a listen, hopefully book two will follow asap !

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awesome

It's a really great book. Lots of base building, strategy, and action. the author has set up a great base for the series. I'm really looking forward to book 2.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this title

I got a free code for this book from the author, but I will most definitely be watching out for and paying for the sequel!

Cody Whitfill does an excellent job of bringing the concept of the tower defence game into the GameLit arena, with humour, a lead character that I came to like within minutes, a varied side cast of supporting characters, an enjoyable plot, and very good pacing.

At the same time, I found that Sam Arenson's narration drew me into the story, very much making Nigel, the lead, come to life for me.

If you're enjoy gamelit, and have ever liked a tower defence game, then I'd definitely recommend that you try this one out.

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