A great series

This is a great series has some fantastic characters and the progression is at a good pace

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love these books looking forward to the next one

I already have these individually just bought to listen to the 3.5 story and as support. I also wanted to relisten to them again before book 4 comes out on Kindle this month. If you've not tried the story before and you're into progression fantasy then this is an amazing deal all the books so far in one. it's a western cultivation with aspects of gamelit in a sci fi type setting. One of my favourite series so far

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Nice surprise

I was not really sure about this book but despite a rough start, this turned into one of the more enjoyable gamelit/cultivation stories I've read recently . I really like the MC and all his companies and all the back stories.
Performance was fantastic . Can't wait for the book 4 and 5 .

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Loving it!

Picked this up because it looked liked a good deal. Very glad I did, only downside is that I'm already onto book 4 which at the time I am writing this, is the most recent book in the series. Can't wait for more.

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love it

It's an awesome combination of story and narrator. I would recommend it to anyone who likes this genre or any fantasy for that matter.

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Nederland boring

good mixed of lvling and compatible with just enough back stories to keep me interested

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Slow but steady

its slow paced, but the mc gets slightly stronger than everyone else at his level really fast and stays that way for the whole thing, so it never feels like your constantly waiting for him to become competent. watching him grow is satisfying. this is one of those progression stories that counter balances the mc's op stuff by giving lots of people op stuff making him just one of a few special people, not all of which are on his side. this is a more slice of life style story, there is a lot of combat but almost no plot tension or true villeins, just difficult times and training scenarios. so read this to relax or have it in the background as it isn't a super intense page turner, just interesting to think about while doing something else. the world building is the main drawing point of this one over similar stories as it exceedingly well put together with almost no holes or issues that I could find.

I couldn't find any simple explanation or blurb for the 3.5th book anywhere so i'll provide one here: is just the 3rd book from the other parties perspective, the group with the healer we met in the first book. it interesting and not too long so if you're like me and don't like long tangents about unrelated things, don't worry because this isn't that.

the performance starts out sub par as the voice actor shouts every line of dialogue as if the characters are yelling across a room at each other, but he stops doing this about half way through the second book so bear with it. otherwise I would call it adequate but not exceptional.

I rate this 5 stars for being the gold standard for its genre. but be careful if you don't like said genre.

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Don't Use Cheat Characters

First thing I noticed this character started off a bit under normal what is unusual for the genre I wa actually looking forward to it. Well that did not last long the author starting giving him every advantage to the main not stoppingnhe gave him the most powerful skill I have ever seen, once he managed to get past the weakness nearly unlimited mana in this book gave him basically a god skill becoming a one man army that's not all wait to see one of his allies.

if you want a balance book,where the main earns things don't bother.

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Middling at best.

This will probably be my longest review so the TL:DR is 'It's okay, but nothing special. Have a credit to waste? Buy it. Otherwise, nothing to write home about'.

Now the full review. Let me start by saying the books aren't bad. There's an interesting universe being explored by the main character that you are being brought in on. You'll meet characters, learn cultivation mechanics, hear somewhat well-constructed lore, and see a blend of science with magic in a universe run by cultivation. It builds together well enough and will keep your interest. This is where my praise ends.

Firstly, the voice actor. All the larger speech moments are strange. It's almost as if the actor is shouting in pitch and lack inflection. The reading of the story is completely fine and is actually pretty decent. The problem only arises when there are large conversation periods and it really grates. Liz is pretty much monotone except for the first and last words spoken. This isn't noticeable outside large spoken parts but once you do notice, you can't stop and eventually, I started getting a headache. I ended up only listening for a few hours and then breaking from it. Other character's voices also have this problem.

Next, the slice of life. At first, this was fine. Everyone needs downtime. Accounting for it is a nice thing to see. The problem is that the author takes this way too far. There's more downtime than there is action or driving plot points. I also don't understand the push to have therapy normalised and pushed in this book. It feels... out of place? Almost like the author feels that it needed to be pushed because they weren't sure how to handle scenes of extreme violence and integrate character traits and flaws into the aftermath of battle. Pushing an almost constant therapy line every five minutes seems like a cheap cop-out to exploring character depth. To be honest, if the author didn't want to explore this they never had to. The violence in this series is minor at best. I guess the only explanation I can think of is to say this must be a political message. The authors attempt to have therapy normalised by encouraging it through their characters. Fine, but if that is the case, they've made a poor attempt at it. It made the characters seem more pathetic than anything. There needed to have been a traumatic event portrayed in great detail, some clear suffering and internal struggle on the main character's part that they needed to overcome. Then they fail because they refuse to accept fault before growing and accepting they need help, getting that help and coming out a better character because of it. Then all the comments would have held weight. The main character even has a story they could have exploited to do this. Instead, you have a seemingly together character being told by a seemingly together character that they need therapy... Sure. Anyway, my overall point is that the entire series is marred by over-the-top downtime segments that feel out of place.

Next, let's talk about the characters. It appears to me that the author has pulled from perceived personalities they have around them in real life. I say that because in book one I was impressed by how real a couple of characters felt. The responses they gave and so on. This impression faded quickly though. The problem is that every character is pulling from this same, limited pool of personalities. They all feel the same and by book 2, no character feels different from any met so far. As such, by book two, you find yourself listening with disbelief as yet another overly helpful, cheerful person enters the stories sphere. I mean, it gets boring.

I have other things to say, but I've not yet finished book 3 so I'll end this here for now. I may edit this again later.

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Nothing wrong with it, but even after 20 or so hours, was never gripped.

Do not like writing negative reviews, and you may love the books, but personally, though there was nothing wrong with any of the elements, I never cared for any of it, or was drawn in to the action.

I listen to/read a LOT of fantasy and RPG Lit, and the narration is fine, and the story slowly flows along.but it felt (to me) more like a TV soap, than a page turner.
I kept on listening for 20 or so hours, and it never hooked me.

Noting wrong with the characters or story, the writing is not jarring, the narrator did a good job, but I never laughed, cried, became hooked to find out what was happening next, or made guesses about the world expecting plot twists.

The world building was fine, and some good ideas, but it never had me craving to find out more.

Some characters are fleshed out with interesting backstories, and they never acted strangely, apart from one, who I found less annoying after their backstory, which justified their actions, and allowed them to be more interesting, the rest I never cared about.

If you are the sort of person who puts a book on for background noise, or you like plodding stories to listen to before you sleep, then this may be great for you.

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1 person found this helpful