Blood Knife: An Urban Fantasy LitRPG

Death Smith, Book 1

By: Joost Lassche, Osirium Writes

Narrated by: Tim Campbell

Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

Interdimensional portals unleash alien monstrosities to feed on humanity—and transform survivors into superhumans—in this urban fantasy adventure.

The Age of Rifts began thirteen years ago when the first black sphere appeared on Earth, teleporting everyone within its radius to an alien realm where they fell prey to otherworldly creatures. Those who survived and returned home found white crystal shards grafted onto their chests. Imbued with energy, these Riftshards grant people supernatural abilities. Known as Rifters, they have become Earth's first line of defense against this unpredictable invasion, able to enter the spheres and fight the monsters and evolving with greater powers after every battle.

Lance Turner and Thomas Walker are nurses in London, England, when a Rift swallows their hospital and the hundreds of souls inside, including two battle-hardened Rifters. Across a toxic landscape as dangerous as the monsters who live there, the warriors do their best to protect the patients and physicians and lead them to safety. For Lance and Thomas, it is a trial by fire. Trained as healers, they risk their lives as combatants amidst unrelenting slaughter, emerging from the Rift with their white shards intact.

Now Lance and Thomas are rookie Rifters, earning their stripes as porters for R.A.M., or Rift-based Advanced Metallurgy, a company that sponsors expeditions into open spheres to mine for resources. But when they're betrayed on a mission and left for dead, Lance manipulates his own uncontrollable powers to save his best friend, becoming something unnatural even among Rifters: a Death Smith, capable of reanimating corpses—and controlling them as deadly weapons . . .

The first volume of the hit LitRPG fantasy series—with more than 350,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 Joost Lassche and Osirium Writes (P)2023 Podium Audio

where did it go?

The story is quick. there's enough space for you to take everything in but it sweeps you up and you lose track time and before you know it the books over. it definitely worth the credit hears hoping that the next book is longer.

Good story and world building. But super short.

I really loved the twist on the leveling system, world building and class. But as soon as things are rolling, it ends abruptly. If the 2nd book is also this short, I am passing it.

Terrific concept; fantastic performance; short

Book 1 of this new LitRPG series. The concept is terrific; the characters seem genuine and the pacing flows smoothly, the point of view smoothly focuses the listener in a natural way. You're definitely engaged throughout the story and while the story does provide the stats, the story is not stat heavy like other LitRPGs. The narrator is fantastic and definitely brings the characters to life.

As others have mentioned the book runs on the shorter side and leaves you feeling like you just listened to the novella instead of a full novel. But if you want a good LitRPG story and characters, spend the credit. (I just finished book 2 and look forward to the release of book 3.

What a lousy ending!

I had such high hopes for this story. The book just ended up being a prologue to the real story. The story ended terribly, and the main character really wasn’t all that. Now it looks like he’s just going to turn into a psychopath. The whole thing just seems to be a poorly written, knock off on much better stories out there by Korean writers.