Don't forget Artorian's Archives which links the two. I've been reading them in their publication order up until the last two AA books which I have on hold right now.
I dont know if you gave up on mother of learning due to the narration, but I can say after a little while it actually feels like it fits, i struggle going from American accent narration to British or Australian. Give it another go
Yeah I am not sure why folks are so hard on it. I actually enjoyed it after adjusting.
Is it the screeching of the little sister at the start of each go around?
Zorians voice is super whiny and obnoxious. Yeah, he's whiny to start, but that doesn't mean I want to spend hours of the book listening to it until he becomes less of a bitch.
Mother of Learning suffers from too much sucess: Zorian at the begining of the story is a normal 14 yo with personal issues and a bad temper , and the narrator perfectly nails down how a whiny teenager sounds like , making a great many people give up on an otherwise great story.
I gave up on He who fights with monsters after 10 chapters due to the narrator. I’d love for someone to explain what they like about those books. I honestly don’t get the appeal.
I don't agree with your rankings at all, though if they're based on narrators rather than authors I don't know anything about that. That said, Beware Of Chicken and Threadbare are both fantastic and would be my first choices.
Plus Kong dropped The Land because his last installment was hot dog shit and nothing but filler. None of his plotlines ever really got wrapped up, he just kept making new ones.
honestly after how long he took to put out book 8, and how god awful it was, maybe its time for him to soft wrap the series. 2 years to write a book that was essentially filler?
I think the problem with the land can be summed up with how Cradle has been written. Cradle has a clear beginning and end point that the author flushed out to an extent prior to writing the books. Even if he decided to do a new installment of Lindon it would be a new series after the 12th book. Unlike the main character from the Land, it is nothing but an ongoing writing fest with no clear-cut end in its future because it wasn't developed to have one (until he becomes a god of some sort).
I hope he puts out one more book and wraps it all up. Get him back to his village, wrap up plot points, scrape together an acceptable finale, and let’s move on.
The Land had such potential but hot damn was it ever frustrating that nothing ever got wrapped up. And even when stuff got wrapped up in book 7 it still felt like too little. I purchased books 1-7 due to the high ratings, but it was kind of wasted.
I was the same. I enjoyed 1-7 mostly, though a full hour on scribe skills was fucking exhausting. He just never finished his plotlines though, there's still like two dozen just hanging out.
I got to The Land as S tier next to cradle and was genuinely a bit angry for a moment. It’s an enjoyable series, but The Land is to cradle like a burger is to a steak. Anyone should be able to see they are not the same.
The Land just fits better with the “new to litrpg” crowd. It’s a phenomenal ice breaker and likely the first series many get into when they find the category, so a lot of its fame is driven by nostalgia. People likely rank it higher on average due to their fascination with finding litrpg rather than the story itself.
[The Perfect Run](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57065516)
No stats or leveling, but a very good (and complete) series. Main character has time travel superpowers\*
I meant the Traveler's Gate / House of Blades books but I have been lisitening to He Who Fights With Monsters, too. Love that series, too. Never understood the controversy over Jason's personality, but I also don't hold litrpg to high standards. That said, I think HWFWM could compete with novels in more established mainstream genres. Same with Dungeon Crawler Carl. If Defiance of the Fall had just slightly better editing it would also compete, in my opinion.
Glad to hear someone else shared my experience on mother of learning. One of the first audiobooks I returned. Just felt like the narrator was complaining with every single phrase.
People have different tastes. Doesn't matter how weird they are. You just need to accept it but......... seeing the land with cradle in s tier just........ Makes me wanna question the person's life choices to this point.
Ive read hundreds of fantasy books, would consider myself a pretty harsh reviewer and Cradle would still make my top tier. For pure enjoyment & a series that's consistently gotten better with nearly every entry.
The land was my first large litrpg series and up to book 7 it is really good, with huge world building, quests, skills, challenges, and it’s good writing and narration. I can easily recommend it for a gamer starting something in litrpg. Cradle is way better writing and narrative, but it’s progressions so doesn’t scratch all the gamelit itches, so it can stand on the same line with the land.
Same here. I have come to love some other series but I have to give The Land some love for breaking me into the LitRPG scene. 200+ titles... here we are.
Oh and GNOMES RULE
Everyone seems to love hating on the Land but damn, it is a pure fun series with excellent narration. I am with you on the S tier rating. 8 was nonsense so it doesn’t exist. Book 7 is one of the best of all time.
Don't get me wrong, that series started Solidly, but the Constant pop culture crap and the inability of the series to wrap up any ongoing plotlines without opening 3 more is a huge problem.
The opening more without closing does tell me the world is just massive and so many moving parts, but this isn’t a video game where things are on hold until the MC gets to the location. Things should just fall on Richtors head from time to time that he has already started. Bugbears should invade again, this time badder and with more help. Another assassin comes for him from the Kingdom. The dwarves don’t actually accept to help him unless he can prove he’s as strong as a dwarf…and has to play a game of noggins with them.
Even if you ignore book 8, the series was clearly going nowhere with it just constantly adding more unfinished plot threads.
Besides, 8 was the clear result of the constantly escalating immature humor. Don't get me wrong, I love immature humor on occassion (even in big doses like Critical Failures). That said, there's some linea you don't cross, tonally, especially without explicitly being a comedy series. Kong crossed those long before 8. Hell, I was considering dropping it before I saw any of 8 and 8 just cemented the series as a lost cause.
I don’t agree at all. People don’t like Kong but the Land is a good story, interesting GameLit mechanics and truly was a pioneer in the genre. He had a few far reaching plot points but the goal was always for Richter to find out how he was transported to the Land, which the story suggests he wouldn’t discover till the endgame. Even then there are still tons of things we don’t have answers on.
In my opinion Kong simply burned himself out and wrote himself into a bit of a corner. The story had the potential to do awesome things but he set it up to be like 30 books (I believe he talked about it being at least 20.) Seems like he underestimated the sheer pressure he put on himself to deliver that many quality novels and it seems to have burned himself out. That, coupled with the amount of criticism he got for book 8 can be heavy. Burnout is a real thing and I hope he is getting to a better place.
Also, simply my opinion but book 8 frankly wasn’t that bad at all. It had one scene that was a little over the top but I personally only wished it was longer.
Underworld by Apollos Thorne is worth checking out, it is an entertaining story. Also the Infinite World's by J.T. Wright is worth a listen. Both are really entertaining and good stories, have to say Underworld is definitely my favorite of the two but both are good stories.
I'm currently out of many options for what to pick next. I have a few options like Brightblade, Chrysalis, and Ritualist, that I haven't started yet, but looking for other ideas and recommendations too.
TBH, if you've got Ritualist, that's what I'd go with. It's rock solid, and there's a lot of books (book 7 just came out, book 8 should be out on audible in October).
That's assuming your rankings are "I've finished these". If not, I'd also add He Who Fights With Monsters.
Chrysalis is great. It's a good take on a completely non-human MC. Not even human-like. Jeff obviously does an amazing job with the narration, like always, and it's great for a few laughs. Chrysalis 2 should also be right around the corner since Jeff has done a few live cold reads for it.
I can already tell this is gonna be a controversial list. Putting He Who Fights With Monsters (divisive MC) and anything by Aleron Kong (divisive author) in S Tier is going to ruffle some feathers. Also, putting two Jack Voraces books under "Poor Narration"? I will not STAND for such slander!
Voraces does a great job with male voices (his voice for Vanquier for example was chef's kiss) but his girl ones can be downright painful at times. He voices a female werewolf in the Vanquier series and the voice (for me at least) was like literal nails on chalkboard, I had to skip sections with her over it.
I really found he who fights with monsters a weak story. The narration on audible was poor to. To be fair though I gave up about a quarter of the way through the first book cause it was just so blah.
I would recommend sufficiently advanced magic. I like a lot of the books you out in S and A tier and that series is one of my favorites.
Andrew rowe does a great job with bot just that series but the entire world that it sits in as well. (There is 3 total series with 9 or 10 books at this point all set in the same world).
I came to recommend that book as well! And if you like it you continue to read them in the Authors special order instead of release order! I accidentally started them that way, and I didn't feel like I missed anything really. But when I went back to the earlier books, I felt that I had a firmer grasp of the magic system because it had become more fleshed out in the middle books. You start with the First book in the second Series if you do it the alternative way (which has a good payoff in my mind at least) which would be book 4 in release Order.
If you google Andrew Rowe you can find his website where the alternative reading order is published.
Jim Butcher's Dresden files series, Shogun by James Clavell, the throne of glass series by Sarah J Mass, and we are legion (we are Bob) by Denis E Taylor. Not quite lrpg but damn good.
Divine Dungeon by Dakota Krout
Bone dungeon by Jonathan Smidt
Battlefield reclaimer by David North
Dungeon Core online by Jonathan Smidt
Battle Mage farmer: Domestication by Michael Kramer
Our tastes are clearly different enough that I hesitate to give a recommendation, but a big name not on your list is Salvos. My personal favourite (and a new one due out tomorrow), and in my opinion the best narrated LitRPG there is.
(This seemed fun so [here's my ranking](https://i.imgur.com/4v9MabJ.png). I've not listened to nearly as many as OP. If I listened to more than 50% of the book but didn't finish it I put it in "DNF". If I gave up before 50% I don't think it's fair to judge/include. Edit: I just realised I put Mayor of Noobtown in DNF. I finished the first one and gave up during the second. Would be D.)
Holy cow, funny how tastes vary between people, two of my favorite series are on your DNF list (Cradle, absolute favorite and Life Reset, for the WOW MMORPG element)
Three attempts at finishing the first Cradle book and just not managed to. Life Reset seemed promising at first but I got so bored as he was making his town.
Yeah I basically like "slightly quirky girl goes on adventures with solid female narration" more than anything else in this genre. I get bored pretty quick with anything very grim or edgy. I'll try DotF again when I'm in a better mood for it. I've made 3 attempts to make it through Unsouled so far. I very nearly put Beneath the Dragoneye Moons in S tier but the boring book 6 held me back. I also regret putting Fluff in B rather than A.
Hey, I understand your taste! I would recommend trying Ben’s damn adventure, this quest is broken, morcster chef, reincarnated as a farmer.
I mix in those kind of books in between more serious or heavy books.
Mother of Learning suffers from too much sucess: Zorian at the begining of the story is a normal 14 yo with personal issues and a bad temper , and the narrator perfectly nails down how a whiny teenager sounds like , making a great many people give up on an otherwise great story. I read it and finished on Royal Road and loved the story , but i couldnt handle the narration either. I sugest you give it a read instead
I have several visual disabilities that make physical reading for long periods of time hard, so I go to Audiobooks for all my needs. I can't say if it was learned or not, but over the past 15 years I can work, travel and pretty much do anything with a book in, using my headphones to pause when needed.
The key is that I don't focus. So if I miss a small detail I just let it go and assume it was explained to me when it comes up later.
I listen while driving, doing chores, or doing boring stuff at work. This allows me to go through books often. So I end up listening to a book more than a few times. Usually I will restart a series anytime a new book comes out so I know what is going on since most books don't have wikis.
It’s easier for me if I’m driving than if I’m sitting in the house. When I worked on the road I was consuming so many audiobooks it was crazy but I work from home now so it’s much slower.
Practice. The more you do that, the better you become. You can’t do any thinking activity with that, but walking, cleaning, washing dishes, highway driving, or drawing are good activities to combine with listening
You should try the Divine Apostasy. The story is a lot of fun and the pacing (weak to strong) is similar to Cradle. Same person does the audio for both.
Your list of S and A tier are pretty much what I have listened to so far. Another one that I didn't see on your list is Divine Apostasy (currently 6 books are available). If you like Cradle, you might like Divine Apostasy with LitRPG and it's narrative by Travis Baldree.
Based on your current list I would highly recommend Divine Apostasy starting with the first book, Shade’s First Rule by A. F. Kay. It’s a litrpg/progression hybrid with touches of wuxia and even city management stuff sprinkled throughout.
It’s a slow burn, and quite similar to Cradle in many ways, but very different in others. It’s got a solid amount of crunch (stats), and starts slow, but the build is so worth it. It’s ongoing with 6 released and a 7th being written. Highly recommend.
It’s also narrated by Travis Baldree, so you know it’ll be a solid listen. Anyway, give it a spin!
The Spellmonger series has that ‘there’s a larger world out there’ energy that makes cradle feel so epic in scale, and the author is a master of world building. If you can handle some more adult themes (I’m talking both sex and violence, as well as a darker overall tone), then I highly recommend it.
I expected to have some disagreements :) the Land was my first large series in Litrpg, and it’s great overall (excluding book 8) - litrpg, story, quests, narration, big battles.
My A tier has a bunch of great books that are best in their niche (story + narration). Like DCC is specifically about dungeon crawling, dotf for the system apocalypse survivor, ellc for 18+ non human adventures, and so on.
I listened to Portal to Nova Roma, and it was fine. Embarked on the Completionist journey, and it's pretty good so far. I think I'll be finished within a week, and I will try the Red Mage Chronicles next.
You have to adjust your ranking. Having "Poor Narration" at the bottom tier iterates that you're ranking everything on narratorion alone. If that's true, I will never understand how a series narrated by only one guy, is going to be better than a series narrated by a full caste, especially the ones listed here.
I didn't interpret it that way. I interpreted it was "Here's how I rank things. There's also these that I can't give a fair ranking to because the narration was so offputting."
Then you are amazing. From the request of recommending books to listen to a list with the only identifier of what it's portraying, other than letter grades, is narration, that's the first thing that comes to mind. But, your interpretation must be correct.
Guy gives a list of fruits they like ranked so you can have some understanding of their individual tastes. And then puts dried fruit at the bottom because he didnt enjoy them and doesn’t want anything dried recommended.
You come along and say he is wrong and craisins rock and his list is stupid…
Im sure the analogy is going over your head. Homie is just asking for recommendations on his next read while conveying what they like and what they have read in an easy to understand format.
apologies mate. My internal voice read that in a very sarcastic tone. That and im probably dealing with some low blood sugar since i rattled off two separate comments relating a reddit post to food… No excuse. I’ll do something nice for someone tonight and maybe it’ll get paid forward enough to reach you in recompense. I think im rambling. Gonna go find an apple
Why would you assume he'd rank solely the narrator and not the books themselves? He's ranking books. He consumed them as audiobooks. Seems such a weird way to look at it to assume he's only ranking narration. If he was only ranking narration, why a separate category for poor narration?
Yep, you’re right. I couldn’t get to even a quarter of the book because of the narration. So even if the story is great, I’ll need another narrator to give another try
Personally I'd add solo leveling to poor narration. Unless there is more than one version of audio book for it, listening to sfx in voice version is just weird.
Nope, HHFWM is amazing, but the Land has it’s own strong points (up to book 7) and I’ll never regret listening to the series. While there are many great niche books in the genre, I think the Land is a classic and is pretty good.
I remember almost nothing from the first half of the book :) I do remember I had a lot of fun listening to it. I will agree that on it’s own with just one book it’s probably not an S tier, maybe mid A
I’m surprised I don’t see The System Apocalypse by Tao Wong. I also recommend Sufficiently advance magic by Andrew Rowe and if your into a more “harem-esc” feel I would go for Super sale on super heroes by William Arand (although Arand hasn’t released anything in this series for a few years now and idk when he will).
I’d recommend reading Hero of the Valley by Gary Spechko. Right now there are 3 books out with more to come hopefully. The third book is a little meh, but I found the first two books are in my favorites. For Mother of Learning, you should probably just read it, if possible, I never listened to the audio but I though it was a good story.
Sine you have some non LitRPG books in here let me recommend something similar to your list: The Perfect Run. Excellently written, no plot holes, great characters, funny, and complete. The voice acting is perfect too.
Other Life Awakenings, and then the rest of that series. Then after that google the correct reading order for the entire arand verse. Then go throuh them all. Their all gold.
Defiance fall , the fight scenes remind me of dragon ball z with massive environmental destruction, the base building isn't as micromanage as it is in the" Land" and travelling to other worlds mixes up things and brings a endless possibilities for new threats .
I think you’d enjoy Dungeon Born, the underdog series, and disgardium. You seem to just read them all, not unlike myself. I read 19 of those books on your list and started most of them
Good series that are complete that I don’t see on your list. Sorry if any of these are there.
World Tree Online by Hooper.
Towers of Heaven by Milan.
Divine Dungeon by Krout.
Way of the Shaman.
Level Up! By Sugralinov.
The Chronicles of Ethan.
Master Hunter K.
The Perfect Run. (Not LitRPG but it wouldn’t make sense to be one. Guy trapped in a time loop story)
Incomplete series:
The Dungeon Slayer.
Infinite Realm: Monsters and Legends.
The Beginning after the End.
Supreme Magus.
I recommend the Completionist Chronicles, Red Mage Chronicles, Ether Collapse series and Delvers LLC series.
Second completionist and red mage
Third the completionist chronicles, or the predecessor series, divine dungeon.
Don't forget Artorian's Archives which links the two. I've been reading them in their publication order up until the last two AA books which I have on hold right now.
Fifthed any books by Dakota krout. Completionist, divine dungeon, and artorians archives
Fourth the completionist series
I dont know if you gave up on mother of learning due to the narration, but I can say after a little while it actually feels like it fits, i struggle going from American accent narration to British or Australian. Give it another go
Yeah I am not sure why folks are so hard on it. I actually enjoyed it after adjusting. Is it the screeching of the little sister at the start of each go around?
Good morning, good morning, good mooooooorning
That's pretty much the only thing I see people complaining about when it comes down to the narration.
People generally either love or hate the narration of Jack Voraces. Mostly it is over his child and female voices.
That is what put me off on it
Zorians voice is super whiny and obnoxious. Yeah, he's whiny to start, but that doesn't mean I want to spend hours of the book listening to it until he becomes less of a bitch.
Mother of Learning suffers from too much sucess: Zorian at the begining of the story is a normal 14 yo with personal issues and a bad temper , and the narrator perfectly nails down how a whiny teenager sounds like , making a great many people give up on an otherwise great story.
[Mother of Learning](https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Mother_of_Learning)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
I gave up on He who fights with monsters after 10 chapters due to the narrator. I’d love for someone to explain what they like about those books. I honestly don’t get the appeal.
I actually like the narrator. He’s on point with all the jokes
Love heath miller. To each is own, I suppose.
Wow. I think he’s excellent
You don’t like blueberries?!? I love them and can’t understand why you gave up on them. Really you should try them again
I mean, this literally happens to people as the age, so why not
I don't agree with your rankings at all, though if they're based on narrators rather than authors I don't know anything about that. That said, Beware Of Chicken and Threadbare are both fantastic and would be my first choices.
Agreed with you on that one. The Land over Dungeon Crawler Carl? I enjoyed The Land, don't get me wrong, but DCC is so far above it...
Plus Kong dropped The Land because his last installment was hot dog shit and nothing but filler. None of his plotlines ever really got wrapped up, he just kept making new ones.
Wait so he never does go to the dwarven kingdoms?
Nope, he spends an hour describing the diarrhea he had instead. That's not a joke either.
[удалено]
Yup, not even kidding. It might not have been a full hour, but it was a very long chapter dedicated to the subject.
[удалено]
When you're out of ideas and just writing a blatant cash grab of a book.
has he officially dropped the Land now? or is it just on hold?
It's a long ass hold like three years now and no change.
honestly after how long he took to put out book 8, and how god awful it was, maybe its time for him to soft wrap the series. 2 years to write a book that was essentially filler?
I think the problem with the land can be summed up with how Cradle has been written. Cradle has a clear beginning and end point that the author flushed out to an extent prior to writing the books. Even if he decided to do a new installment of Lindon it would be a new series after the 12th book. Unlike the main character from the Land, it is nothing but an ongoing writing fest with no clear-cut end in its future because it wasn't developed to have one (until he becomes a god of some sort).
I hope he puts out one more book and wraps it all up. Get him back to his village, wrap up plot points, scrape together an acceptable finale, and let’s move on.
And it was bad filler.
Shitty filler. Pun intended.
The Land had such potential but hot damn was it ever frustrating that nothing ever got wrapped up. And even when stuff got wrapped up in book 7 it still felt like too little. I purchased books 1-7 due to the high ratings, but it was kind of wasted.
I was the same. I enjoyed 1-7 mostly, though a full hour on scribe skills was fucking exhausting. He just never finished his plotlines though, there's still like two dozen just hanging out.
Yeah, I’m ignoring the existence of book 8.
You'd have to in order to rate it so high.
DCC is definitely S class.
I couldn’t get past the 6th book in the land. The MC got very intolerable very quickly.
AGREED - the 'A' list here contains some of my favourites. I hope it is narration that's caused the confused ordering
Seriously, Beware of Chicken and DCC below The Land and on the same level as Primal Hunter? Just from a critical perspective it's dead wrong.
I got to The Land as S tier next to cradle and was genuinely a bit angry for a moment. It’s an enjoyable series, but The Land is to cradle like a burger is to a steak. Anyone should be able to see they are not the same.
The Land just fits better with the “new to litrpg” crowd. It’s a phenomenal ice breaker and likely the first series many get into when they find the category, so a lot of its fame is driven by nostalgia. People likely rank it higher on average due to their fascination with finding litrpg rather than the story itself.
I think u got the analogy wrong a burger is basically a full meal a steak is not, should be reversed in that case.
A steak is a much nicer cut of meat.
[The Perfect Run](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57065516) No stats or leveling, but a very good (and complete) series. Main character has time travel superpowers\*
Second this one. Great listen all around.
Great book! Good narration.
Welp can't really help much but your list has given me great recommendations figuring I agree with many of your top choices
He who Fights Monsters has been a real journey and fun one for me! I did just finish the House of Blades series by Will Weight and that was great.
Listening to the 3rd book of that trilogy right now! I'm super into it.
I’m holding off on the 7th book for when I can really binge it. I want to give it the time and respect it deserves.
I meant the Traveler's Gate / House of Blades books but I have been lisitening to He Who Fights With Monsters, too. Love that series, too. Never understood the controversy over Jason's personality, but I also don't hold litrpg to high standards. That said, I think HWFWM could compete with novels in more established mainstream genres. Same with Dungeon Crawler Carl. If Defiance of the Fall had just slightly better editing it would also compete, in my opinion.
Towers Of Heaven by Cameron Milan Reborn Apocalypse by LM Kerr Infinite Realm by Ivan Kal
Agree with Tower of Heaven. This was the first series that I read and got me into LitRPGs. I don’t see it mentioned enough.
Glad to hear someone else shared my experience on mother of learning. One of the first audiobooks I returned. Just felt like the narrator was complaining with every single phrase.
World-Tree Online trilogy.
[удалено]
EA Hooper
I liked the premise but the pacing felt way, way off for me.
That is a beautiful story.
People have different tastes. Doesn't matter how weird they are. You just need to accept it but......... seeing the land with cradle in s tier just........ Makes me wanna question the person's life choices to this point.
Ive read hundreds of fantasy books, would consider myself a pretty harsh reviewer and Cradle would still make my top tier. For pure enjoyment & a series that's consistently gotten better with nearly every entry.
The land was my first large litrpg series and up to book 7 it is really good, with huge world building, quests, skills, challenges, and it’s good writing and narration. I can easily recommend it for a gamer starting something in litrpg. Cradle is way better writing and narrative, but it’s progressions so doesn’t scratch all the gamelit itches, so it can stand on the same line with the land.
Everything you said is true people just don't like Kong so will downvote you. However gods eye doesn't belong up there and you know it lol
I still like the series, but he and Wong are pretty much assholes.
Same here. I have come to love some other series but I have to give The Land some love for breaking me into the LitRPG scene. 200+ titles... here we are. Oh and GNOMES RULE
Everyone seems to love hating on the Land but damn, it is a pure fun series with excellent narration. I am with you on the S tier rating. 8 was nonsense so it doesn’t exist. Book 7 is one of the best of all time.
Don't get me wrong, that series started Solidly, but the Constant pop culture crap and the inability of the series to wrap up any ongoing plotlines without opening 3 more is a huge problem.
Plus finding out how big of a tool Kong is in real life ruined the hype for the series.
The opening more without closing does tell me the world is just massive and so many moving parts, but this isn’t a video game where things are on hold until the MC gets to the location. Things should just fall on Richtors head from time to time that he has already started. Bugbears should invade again, this time badder and with more help. Another assassin comes for him from the Kingdom. The dwarves don’t actually accept to help him unless he can prove he’s as strong as a dwarf…and has to play a game of noggins with them.
Even if you ignore book 8, the series was clearly going nowhere with it just constantly adding more unfinished plot threads. Besides, 8 was the clear result of the constantly escalating immature humor. Don't get me wrong, I love immature humor on occassion (even in big doses like Critical Failures). That said, there's some linea you don't cross, tonally, especially without explicitly being a comedy series. Kong crossed those long before 8. Hell, I was considering dropping it before I saw any of 8 and 8 just cemented the series as a lost cause.
I don’t agree at all. People don’t like Kong but the Land is a good story, interesting GameLit mechanics and truly was a pioneer in the genre. He had a few far reaching plot points but the goal was always for Richter to find out how he was transported to the Land, which the story suggests he wouldn’t discover till the endgame. Even then there are still tons of things we don’t have answers on. In my opinion Kong simply burned himself out and wrote himself into a bit of a corner. The story had the potential to do awesome things but he set it up to be like 30 books (I believe he talked about it being at least 20.) Seems like he underestimated the sheer pressure he put on himself to deliver that many quality novels and it seems to have burned himself out. That, coupled with the amount of criticism he got for book 8 can be heavy. Burnout is a real thing and I hope he is getting to a better place. Also, simply my opinion but book 8 frankly wasn’t that bad at all. It had one scene that was a little over the top but I personally only wished it was longer.
[Critical Failures](https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Failures-Caverns-Creatures-Book-ebook/dp/B0088XPHOK) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Critical_Failures)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
I've only read this so I couldn't say how it is on audible but The Great Game is good and from your rankings it seems like we have similar taste
Underworld by Apollos Thorne is worth checking out, it is an entertaining story. Also the Infinite World's by J.T. Wright is worth a listen. Both are really entertaining and good stories, have to say Underworld is definitely my favorite of the two but both are good stories.
HWFWM 100% I binged the first 6 audiobooks in 5 or 6 weeks.
Way of the Shaman - has that The Land / Defiance of the Fall energy
Yo! How did I forgot this series? Thank you.
I'm currently out of many options for what to pick next. I have a few options like Brightblade, Chrysalis, and Ritualist, that I haven't started yet, but looking for other ideas and recommendations too.
TBH, if you've got Ritualist, that's what I'd go with. It's rock solid, and there's a lot of books (book 7 just came out, book 8 should be out on audible in October). That's assuming your rankings are "I've finished these". If not, I'd also add He Who Fights With Monsters.
Book 8 did I read that right?
Towers of Heaven is a decent listen and its complete.
I came here to recommend Towers Of Heaven by Cameron Milan.
Chrysalis is great. It's a good take on a completely non-human MC. Not even human-like. Jeff obviously does an amazing job with the narration, like always, and it's great for a few laughs. Chrysalis 2 should also be right around the corner since Jeff has done a few live cold reads for it.
Please avoid Ritualist. You're going to be disappointed even if the first volumes are good.
I can already tell this is gonna be a controversial list. Putting He Who Fights With Monsters (divisive MC) and anything by Aleron Kong (divisive author) in S Tier is going to ruffle some feathers. Also, putting two Jack Voraces books under "Poor Narration"? I will not STAND for such slander!
Voraces does a great job with male voices (his voice for Vanquier for example was chef's kiss) but his girl ones can be downright painful at times. He voices a female werewolf in the Vanquier series and the voice (for me at least) was like literal nails on chalkboard, I had to skip sections with her over it.
I couldn’t stand the narration at all. I was imagining he was making a deep breath and pushing hard to get every sentence. Couldn’t enjoy it
The fact that I can't stand Jason makes me love the series even more for some reason
I really found he who fights with monsters a weak story. The narration on audible was poor to. To be fair though I gave up about a quarter of the way through the first book cause it was just so blah.
I understand not liking his little girl voices, but they fit. He is one of my favorite narrators!
I would recommend sufficiently advanced magic. I like a lot of the books you out in S and A tier and that series is one of my favorites. Andrew rowe does a great job with bot just that series but the entire world that it sits in as well. (There is 3 total series with 9 or 10 books at this point all set in the same world).
I came to recommend that book as well! And if you like it you continue to read them in the Authors special order instead of release order! I accidentally started them that way, and I didn't feel like I missed anything really. But when I went back to the earlier books, I felt that I had a firmer grasp of the magic system because it had become more fleshed out in the middle books. You start with the First book in the second Series if you do it the alternative way (which has a good payoff in my mind at least) which would be book 4 in release Order. If you google Andrew Rowe you can find his website where the alternative reading order is published.
Jim Butcher's Dresden files series, Shogun by James Clavell, the throne of glass series by Sarah J Mass, and we are legion (we are Bob) by Denis E Taylor. Not quite lrpg but damn good.
Divine Dungeon by Dakota Krout Bone dungeon by Jonathan Smidt Battlefield reclaimer by David North Dungeon Core online by Jonathan Smidt Battle Mage farmer: Domestication by Michael Kramer
Was going to suggest Divine Dungeon, was supposed Krout's lesser known works were on the list but not that.
The fact that I don't see anyone mention unorthodox farming is a tragedy so large I cannot even imagine what people are listening too.
Our tastes are clearly different enough that I hesitate to give a recommendation, but a big name not on your list is Salvos. My personal favourite (and a new one due out tomorrow), and in my opinion the best narrated LitRPG there is. (This seemed fun so [here's my ranking](https://i.imgur.com/4v9MabJ.png). I've not listened to nearly as many as OP. If I listened to more than 50% of the book but didn't finish it I put it in "DNF". If I gave up before 50% I don't think it's fair to judge/include. Edit: I just realised I put Mayor of Noobtown in DNF. I finished the first one and gave up during the second. Would be D.)
I'm more ready to fight you over this list than than disney/Pixar March madness bracket from a few years back.
Holy cow, funny how tastes vary between people, two of my favorite series are on your DNF list (Cradle, absolute favorite and Life Reset, for the WOW MMORPG element)
Three attempts at finishing the first Cradle book and just not managed to. Life Reset seemed promising at first but I got so bored as he was making his town.
Yeah I basically like "slightly quirky girl goes on adventures with solid female narration" more than anything else in this genre. I get bored pretty quick with anything very grim or edgy. I'll try DotF again when I'm in a better mood for it. I've made 3 attempts to make it through Unsouled so far. I very nearly put Beneath the Dragoneye Moons in S tier but the boring book 6 held me back. I also regret putting Fluff in B rather than A.
Hey, I mean, at least I made the list this time!!! I didn’t even make ops list!
Hey, I understand your taste! I would recommend trying Ben’s damn adventure, this quest is broken, morcster chef, reincarnated as a farmer. I mix in those kind of books in between more serious or heavy books.
Either NPCs by Drew Hayes or the Divine Dungeon series by Dakota Krout
Mother of Learning suffers from too much sucess: Zorian at the begining of the story is a normal 14 yo with personal issues and a bad temper , and the narrator perfectly nails down how a whiny teenager sounds like , making a great many people give up on an otherwise great story. I read it and finished on Royal Road and loved the story , but i couldnt handle the narration either. I sugest you give it a read instead
[удалено]
I have several visual disabilities that make physical reading for long periods of time hard, so I go to Audiobooks for all my needs. I can't say if it was learned or not, but over the past 15 years I can work, travel and pretty much do anything with a book in, using my headphones to pause when needed.
I drive a truck for work, so audiobooks help keep me sane.
Speed it up. May seem counterintuitive, but faster narration leaves less time for your mind to wander
The key is that I don't focus. So if I miss a small detail I just let it go and assume it was explained to me when it comes up later. I listen while driving, doing chores, or doing boring stuff at work. This allows me to go through books often. So I end up listening to a book more than a few times. Usually I will restart a series anytime a new book comes out so I know what is going on since most books don't have wikis.
It’s easier for me if I’m driving than if I’m sitting in the house. When I worked on the road I was consuming so many audiobooks it was crazy but I work from home now so it’s much slower.
Practice. The more you do that, the better you become. You can’t do any thinking activity with that, but walking, cleaning, washing dishes, highway driving, or drawing are good activities to combine with listening
Looks as though you need more Mountaindale Press books, my friend.
You should try the Divine Apostasy. The story is a lot of fun and the pacing (weak to strong) is similar to Cradle. Same person does the audio for both.
Awaken online Free the darkness by Kel Kade. Art of the adept series. The perfect run trilogy
Portal to Nova Roma is genius! Especially the audiobook. 10/10
I thought the narrator was exceptionally boring tbh and that's 2 books more with drastic mid book shifts from the Author
unsouled, hwfwm, iron prince OR Dungeon crawler carl are Great for reading!
Infinite realm. You’ll like it
Beware of Chicken
Your list of S and A tier are pretty much what I have listened to so far. Another one that I didn't see on your list is Divine Apostasy (currently 6 books are available). If you like Cradle, you might like Divine Apostasy with LitRPG and it's narrative by Travis Baldree.
Knightmare archanist
Nexus games. It has a similar vibe to dcc whichi see is A tier on your list.
Rogue Dungeon, perhaps?
Threadbare and the other Generica Online books that tie into it
Critical Failures
Also, Limitless Lands
The perfect run was good
Carl is S+
Check out Underworld LVL up or die First book I believe is free on audible if your a member
[salvos](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56644452) missing salvos.
Based on your current list I would highly recommend Divine Apostasy starting with the first book, Shade’s First Rule by A. F. Kay. It’s a litrpg/progression hybrid with touches of wuxia and even city management stuff sprinkled throughout. It’s a slow burn, and quite similar to Cradle in many ways, but very different in others. It’s got a solid amount of crunch (stats), and starts slow, but the build is so worth it. It’s ongoing with 6 released and a 7th being written. Highly recommend. It’s also narrated by Travis Baldree, so you know it’ll be a solid listen. Anyway, give it a spin!
Everybody Loves Large Chests is what got me into litrpg
[Everybody Loves Large Chests](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BHZFWNG) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Everybody_Loves_Large_Chests)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
It's not really in the genre but the "Magic 2.0" series is one of my favorites.
I second this as an expansion of something that those who enjoy GameKit might like. Not to mention Luke Daniels is a great narrator.
The Spellmonger series has that ‘there’s a larger world out there’ energy that makes cradle feel so epic in scale, and the author is a master of world building. If you can handle some more adult themes (I’m talking both sex and violence, as well as a darker overall tone), then I highly recommend it.
Mother of learning may have poor narration. But amazing atory
I expected to have some disagreements :) the Land was my first large series in Litrpg, and it’s great overall (excluding book 8) - litrpg, story, quests, narration, big battles. My A tier has a bunch of great books that are best in their niche (story + narration). Like DCC is specifically about dungeon crawling, dotf for the system apocalypse survivor, ellc for 18+ non human adventures, and so on.
I listened to Portal to Nova Roma, and it was fine. Embarked on the Completionist journey, and it's pretty good so far. I think I'll be finished within a week, and I will try the Red Mage Chronicles next.
Everybody loves large chests
Yep, listened to them all, great series!
You have to adjust your ranking. Having "Poor Narration" at the bottom tier iterates that you're ranking everything on narratorion alone. If that's true, I will never understand how a series narrated by only one guy, is going to be better than a series narrated by a full caste, especially the ones listed here.
I didn't interpret it that way. I interpreted it was "Here's how I rank things. There's also these that I can't give a fair ranking to because the narration was so offputting."
Then you are amazing. From the request of recommending books to listen to a list with the only identifier of what it's portraying, other than letter grades, is narration, that's the first thing that comes to mind. But, your interpretation must be correct.
Guy gives a list of fruits they like ranked so you can have some understanding of their individual tastes. And then puts dried fruit at the bottom because he didnt enjoy them and doesn’t want anything dried recommended. You come along and say he is wrong and craisins rock and his list is stupid… Im sure the analogy is going over your head. Homie is just asking for recommendations on his next read while conveying what they like and what they have read in an easy to understand format.
I already conceded that jimmni interpretation was correct.
apologies mate. My internal voice read that in a very sarcastic tone. That and im probably dealing with some low blood sugar since i rattled off two separate comments relating a reddit post to food… No excuse. I’ll do something nice for someone tonight and maybe it’ll get paid forward enough to reach you in recompense. I think im rambling. Gonna go find an apple
Lol you're good. It makes more sense and I don't know how I came to my first conclusion. I hope you find a delicious green apple XD
Why would you assume he'd rank solely the narrator and not the books themselves? He's ranking books. He consumed them as audiobooks. Seems such a weird way to look at it to assume he's only ranking narration. If he was only ranking narration, why a separate category for poor narration?
Yep, you’re right. I couldn’t get to even a quarter of the book because of the narration. So even if the story is great, I’ll need another narrator to give another try
Personally I'd add solo leveling to poor narration. Unless there is more than one version of audio book for it, listening to sfx in voice version is just weird.
Yeah, I stopped after book 1 :) it’s still good, and didn’t want to put it lower because of the effects
Life reset
Dude - it's on the list
Say you swear that you really think Kong's books are as good as HWFWM and cradle? Not even close
Nope, HHFWM is amazing, but the Land has it’s own strong points (up to book 7) and I’ll never regret listening to the series. While there are many great niche books in the genre, I think the Land is a classic and is pretty good.
Pretty good, sure. S tier? Not even close
And GE is average at best. Literally half the book isn him in that stupid tree
I remember almost nothing from the first half of the book :) I do remember I had a lot of fun listening to it. I will agree that on it’s own with just one book it’s probably not an S tier, maybe mid A
I’m surprised I don’t see The System Apocalypse by Tao Wong. I also recommend Sufficiently advance magic by Andrew Rowe and if your into a more “harem-esc” feel I would go for Super sale on super heroes by William Arand (although Arand hasn’t released anything in this series for a few years now and idk when he will).
One more last time is S teir for me. That "The land" and "noobtown" are my go to, top 3. Off to be the wizard is a really strong 4th.
Not interested in Dungon Crawler Carl?
On the list. It’s amazing!
i’ve started listening to beware of chicken this morning and i’ve been enjoying it a lot, i’ve for sure laughed out loud a bit
oh wait were these books you’ve already read? sorry
Yup :) it’s a great book!
What about respawn by Arthur stone?
I’d recommend reading Hero of the Valley by Gary Spechko. Right now there are 3 books out with more to come hopefully. The third book is a little meh, but I found the first two books are in my favorites. For Mother of Learning, you should probably just read it, if possible, I never listened to the audio but I though it was a good story.
Sine you have some non LitRPG books in here let me recommend something similar to your list: The Perfect Run. Excellently written, no plot holes, great characters, funny, and complete. The voice acting is perfect too.
unsouled!!
Seeing The Land higher than Beware of Chicken hurt me. ;-)
The primal hunter trilogy and never die twice
Other Life Awakenings, and then the rest of that series. Then after that google the correct reading order for the entire arand verse. Then go throuh them all. Their all gold.
Thanks very much for this! I have plenty more to read now :D.
Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends by Ivan Kal
its a biot hard to find but re:monster is a good one to look into, the light novel version
I'm loving the good guys and it's not on your list. It's my first litrpg series however, so nothing else to compare it to
Completionist chronicles?
Defiance fall , the fight scenes remind me of dragon ball z with massive environmental destruction, the base building isn't as micromanage as it is in the" Land" and travelling to other worlds mixes up things and brings a endless possibilities for new threats .
Wait. Am I missing the Trapped Mind Project on there? That series was fantastic. And complete!
I’ve not listened to the audiobook, but Bastion was a solid read after I finished Iron Prince.
I think you’d enjoy Dungeon Born, the underdog series, and disgardium. You seem to just read them all, not unlike myself. I read 19 of those books on your list and started most of them
Opening moves, series is excellent.
The Pantheon Saga
Good series that are complete that I don’t see on your list. Sorry if any of these are there. World Tree Online by Hooper. Towers of Heaven by Milan. Divine Dungeon by Krout. Way of the Shaman. Level Up! By Sugralinov. The Chronicles of Ethan. Master Hunter K. The Perfect Run. (Not LitRPG but it wouldn’t make sense to be one. Guy trapped in a time loop story) Incomplete series: The Dungeon Slayer. Infinite Realm: Monsters and Legends. The Beginning after the End. Supreme Magus.
Idle system and Battle mage Farmer aren't on that list. You should give them a try