Rune Seeker 2

A LitRPG Adventure

By: J.M. Clarke, C.J. Thompson

Narrated by: Ralph Lister

Length: 25 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Hiral must grow before a sky-island plummets. Fallen Reach is in danger, and only Hiral and his surviving teammates can save it. Gathering their strength after the loss of their friends, the Builder and Growers race across a hostile landscape to save their homes and obtain the power they need to battle their nigh-unstoppable enemies.

The companions must survive dungeons gone wild, the hunger of the dead, and the wrath of an ancient power that was once the hope of an entire people. Still, Hiral will not be deterred, and is ready to cut a path of destruction through his enemies and achieve the loftiest goal of all … to become overpowered. And probably explode.

The next exciting instalment of the hit Progression fantasy series from J.M Clarke, bestselling author of Mark of the Fool, and C.J. Thompson. Continue a weak-to-strong progression into power and a detailed LitRPG system with unique classes, skills, dungeons, achievements, survival, and evolution. Explore a mysterious world of fallen civilizations, strange monsters, and deadly secrets.

©2024 J.M. Clarke and Carter J. Thompson (P)2024 Recorded Books

The written equivalent of a potato.

Is a potato good? Maybe, depends on how you cook it. This book checks all the boxes in that one would think make a difference. A race against the clock to solve a problem that’s central to the plot, check. Large group of characters to support the MC, check. A similar unique magical system, check. But for some reason this book literally boarded me to sleep at my desk at work while doing some random repetitive takes that I often use audiobooks to get through. I just kept hoping that it would get better, but alas not even for a moment. 2/10 for storytelling 8/10 for delivery of audio. Just not interesting while being technically proficient.

Ruined by the Narrator

The story is very good. I loved the explanation of the "race" attribute!

The narrator is horrible! All the voices are to similar to tell who is who. Worse, it sounds like everyone is always yelling at each other. Listening for to long gives you a headache.

Progression

I've been enjoying this story and like how the characters progress, the fight scenes are well written and varied, and we get more information about the things mostly only hinted at in the first book. I would have liked a little more breathing room between fights and dungeons, but I know that in this genre progression is the key thing and that requires fights. I'm expecting--or at least hoping--that in the next book we will see more interpersonal interaction as the story broadens back out to include the Shaper and grower societies we were introduced to in the first book. The narration was decent but character voices still lacked sufficient differentiation, imo. Still, a good story and worth the listen.

Story is a solid four stars

Story progression, characters, and the adaptation to each fight keeps you wanting to know more. The person reading you the book will leave you confused on who is actually talking and when the person stops talking and he is back to reading the narrative.

Combat over Story

The story is interesting but absent. I am halfway through the second book and have the same single issue. it seems like 70-80% of the books are a series of never ending combat scenarios. The story progression definitely takes a backseat to combat. I will finish the second book, but have no expectation of the story suddenly taking off and saving the series for me.

Yes

It’s worth the credit, you will not regret it. Keep it up author, can’t wait for the next one.

The hollowness of Hollywood has made it to LitRPG

The narrator has been an artist I've trusted in the past so I gave these books a try. He has a good sense of tempo while reading action or dioloh scenes. He reads his female character with a slight rise in tone, to indicate that it's feminine charectet but keeps it within his range of easy vocal tension which helps him not sound like he's mocking women when he speaks with a high voice. There are some narrators out there that are ruining good books because they don't know how to manage their vocal cords within their own range.
The one good thing the writer has going for him is he can create a tempo within the fight scenes, which is not easy. The real problem is no one hires good editors anymore. I don't know who produced this book, if it was Audible or somebody else but this book needed an editor more than any other book I've read over the last 3 years and there's been some bad ones. One of the first rules any good writer says, and everybody knows this but "Write what you know." The author clearly knows nothing about danger and threat, yet he wrote two offle books about a group of people under constant threat. For some reason he thought that reasonable people, or people even with a lick of Common Sense, would stop and have a conversation about their feelings or some fake banter while the enemy that they can't see is right out last the light, just killed one of them. I mean the writer tells us through the eyes of a character that the enemy it's just right out there stalking them and close. But for some soap opera drama he has the characters stop and chit chat loudly about their feelings of not belonging, and he still wants us to take them serious as potentially dangerous badasses. You dont have to be some special forces person to know that you shut the hell up when you're under threat and you don't know where the threat is at. Hell, a 6-year-old kid going on a caper to steal some cookies, knows it's a dumb idea start chit-chatting and yelling to friends bad jokes while they're trying to sneak a cookie. You don't know what you're writing about. it's awful. I don't trust you as a writer. Do you think your Reeders are dumb? All we hear is you as a writer pupeting every character you create. Not one of them is authentic, you're just daydreaming a bad daydream. You need to hire a good editor. They could have pointed out inconsistencies and maybe you might have learned something.

Great book

I really enjoy this book and the series so far. I’m glad I took a chance on this series because I was pleasantly surprised about how good the author did with progression and keeping me entertained. Can’t wait for the next book.

Mehhh

The concept is great, but this 2nd book is not doing it for me. Hours listening and I couldn't care less about the side characters. Left and Right are cool, but Hiral has some thiccccc plot armor. He's got a tattoo for like literally everything. Dropping this series, sorry.

to much focus on fighting for fighting sakes.

fighting and conflict in general should add something to the story, move the plot, or offer the reader insight into the characters and their development. if every other scene is a fight and for no other reason then to fight the impact of conflict dissipates and the reader stops caring. a good author but less fighting and More Story would be appreciated.