Den of Thieves

Pantheon Online, Book 1

By: S.A. Klopfenstein

Narrated by: Christian J. Gilliland

Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

A world of villains is no place for a hero.

Imprisoned for a crime he barely remembers, Gunnar is forced to labor in an underground prison camp. But if he works hard, he earns time in a beta test for the first fully immersive online RPG.

Pantheon Online is beyond anything Gunnar has ever experienced, but the game is inextricably linked to his reality as a prisoner. He may not be the best or the brightest criminal, but if he fails to perform...things are not going to go well for him.

Gunnar must quickly learn to navigate a cutthroat city of thieves and assassins, garner the favor of a goddess, earn his way into a guild, and try not to be the brunt of all the AI's deprecating jokes.

But there's more going on, and the further Gunnar progresses, the more he realizes that he is in for the ride of his life.

Or is it...for his life?

©2022 S.A. Klopfenstein (P)2022 Podium Audio

This was really good

I really enjoyed this it wasn't cookie cutter it wasn't predictable and was a fun read. I also find both the real world action and the game world intriguing and I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Good story without burying you in stats.

The story can be a little predictable at times, but the twists are good. I really enjoyed the story and purchased the second book immediately after finishing the first. My only dismay is that I'll finish the book and have to wait until the next release.

Pleasantly Surprised

I bought this one because I was in between series and was very happy with the choice.

Exactly what I wanted

This book is to me right in line with what LitRPG should be. It wasn't overly complicated, it didn't oversell itself, but it was full of little reminders that the author planned out a narrative intentionally, with lots of twists at just the right moment, and story beats that circled back around to give a deeply satisfying experience.

As far as the narration goes, it was well done with good variety to the characters. I did have one complaint, but it was more specific to me. I don't have a lot of spare time in the day so I'll often listen to audiobooks in the shower on a bluetooth speaker. It's not a great speaker, but I generally don't have issues with its clarity while showering. In this case however, I found that the narrator's voice often tended deeper than most, which did at times harm the clarity in this particular situation.

Of course, with half decent earbuds or headphones this was not an issue. I only mentioned it because it's not something I've run into until now.

Anyway, this story was very enjoyable, and I'm excited for the next.

Den of Criminals

Really good beginning to a new series with a new take on the Trapped in a Game genre. Not too heavy on stats most of the time, but some character sheet dumps when needed. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Retribute story but still good troops

This is one of those times where you read a story and you see that this author could do so much more but but there's sort of paint my numbers you know what's going to happen there's no real curve balls It's a great way of setting up for FutureBooks and hopefully now these got the Paint by number tropesOut of his system he can be more original

Excellent

Love the characters and the story even more. Great intro for any looking to foray into gamer-lit. The MC is believable with strong sense of good. His guide is funny with out being corny. Great listen here.

This was good!

It was a little repetitious with the notifications but not as bad as others. The story is good and the MC is well balanced.
My only real complaint is sometimes the audio level drops or raises.
I will be getting book 2.

Just Bad

I cannot believe that the author of the Shadow Watch Saga, which was pretty good, wrote this stinker. There seems to be no point. I tried to give it a chance, made it to Chapter 18, but could not waste anymore of my life on it.

Not what I thought

You read the title and description and think it’s going to be able some grimdark action or at lease in the darker side, nope not at all, if your into the hero type books that’s exactly what this is. Mc joins the thieves guild, but hates stealing or robbing complains about it the entire time. The way he gets noticed by the guilds, he saves someone and doesn’t leave them be hide, so now everyone thinks he’s special and not like everyone else aka hero. Also what made me stop is when he forgave the lady that tricked, killed and stole XP just because the game system said he shouldn’t trust her, and that’s the reason I don’t read hero books because they do stupid thinks like that.