The Land: Founding by Aleron Kong (Audiobook)

The Land: Founding: A LitRPG Saga: Chaos Seeds, Book 1 by Aleron Kong

Self-published. Read by Nick Podehl. Produced by Tamori Publications LLC.

Tricked into a world of banished gods, demons, goblins, sprites and magic, Richter must learn to meet the perils of The Land and begin to forge his own kingdom. Actions have consequences across The Land, with powerful creatures and factions now hell-bent on Richter’s destruction.

This is definitely a winner for the largest number of sub-titles within one title. I have no idea where I heard about this book or why I got it.

Listen time: ~32 minutes on 1/21/2018.

This book did not click with me at all. It is about (stop me if you’ve heard this before) a guy who accidentally gets transported to a real fantasy world after playing a game (a virtual MMORPG). It is, I think, a comedy targeted at an audience demographic who plays online games or tabletop RPGs, i.e. people who will “get” the in-jokes.

I listened to four audio chapters while I was trapped in the shower, and afterward, it was a fairly easy decision not to continue. I would describe the first four chapters as boilerplate setup chapters heavy on exposition, the kind of chapters I have written plenty of times before and been embarrassed about.

On the plus side it is competently read by Nick Podehl, who actually sounds a bit like a cut-rate Luke Daniels. I would consider listening to other books read by him. I don’t think I would consider reading any other LitRPG books, though. It’s possible it gets better, but I just don’t have time to wait for it. Maybe when I run out of other audiobooks I’ll skip ahead to the middle to see if it improves.

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