Blessed Time

A LitRPG Adventure

De: Cale Plamann

Narrado por: Neil Hellegers

Some disasters can only be avoided if you know they’re coming....

On Karell, you are either blessed by the gods, granted a unique power and the ability to gain experience and levels, or you are forgotten. Micah Silver was a boy picked for greatness. Chosen by the gods to bear a mythic power, he longed to take his place amongst the heroes and legends he grew up reading about.

Unfortunately, his primary blessing only allows him to travel into the past by sacrificing his class, wealth, and levels - a psychological burden that Micah is reluctant to shoulder. But, even if Micah is unwilling, fate has a way of forcing you to face your destiny...and running away can cost you everything.

Over and over again...

Experience the start of a time-looping LitRPG series where a reluctant hero is forced to fight against an impossible catastrophe. Using his talents for enchanting items and summoning creatures, he must retrace his steps and grow stronger in a potentially futile effort to prevent tragedy and protect his family.

©2021 Aethon Books (P)2021 Aethon Audio

Time After Time

Cale Plamann creates a unique litRPG experience by allowing the protagonist the choice of rewinding time after every 5 years. It differs from Groundhog Day in that while he returns 5 year younger again, he maintains his skills and levels gained in the previous 5 year; although, not the life experiences or personal relationships. This provides him, and only him, the ability have a re-do in the event that he was unsatisfied with what his past 5 years had wrought. As you might have guessed, he was not the same naive boy since each time tragedy befell him and his family and friends; along some sinister actions he was forced to mete-out.

All-in-all, it was refreshing story and a performed by one of my favorite narrators, Neil Hellegers.

Good story, not great for audiobook format

This is a pretty solid LitRPG. Decent story, main character experiences a good variety of challenges and grows from them appropriately. The only failing with this doesn't really have anything to do with the story. The LitRPG genre has a tendency to include a 'Status Update' every so often, detailing the characters stats, skills, levels, etc. These work well in text, but can get awkward in audio format. It breaks the sense of immersion to have the narrator pause the story for a minute and a half to work their way through some stat block. That being said, it is a minor detail that one can't really work their way around, considering the genre.

Ultimately, good book. I look forward to more from the author.

Just an amazing start to a series.

Loved it will definitely be picking up book 2. The story is engaging and I like the main character.

Looking forward to the next one

Looking forward to the next one, I’m not sure where it’s going to go but it’s looking promising

I loved every second of this

love it. I highly recommend it. will there be more books? it felt like an actual ending. :D

Unexpected Gem

I was really surprised how much I really enjoyed this book. The concept and story are really neat. I enjoy having an honest and upfront character. I also really enjoyed how dark it can get sometime. A lot of books in this genre shy away from truly horrible stuff happening but this doesn't. Finally, there are some good laughs. Cant ask for more and can't wait for the next one.

good book

for those who hate time skips i got bad news for you. for those who like em like me then give this book a try!

Great start

I loved the time regression aspect. Time jumps are handled well. We get a bigger picture of where things are going at the end of the book. The narration was very well done.

Decent series

This is one of the series that is good to pass the time. Not crunchy but not drab. I like the overalls storyline and love the characters. Keep going you got fan waiting for the next one. Neil does a great job bringing out this series.

Time Loop Needs more Heart

I will begin by saying this is my first time-loop. I’ve attempted a few others but never got past the first few chapters. With Blessed times and Micah, it was much easier to get invested into the story, that said there were a few bumps that almost made me put the book down once or twice.

Story: The Story of Micah and his problematic blessing which involves being able to turn back time by 5 years, with a cooldown of five years, is a complex one. For one, when Micah first receives this blessing he is 16. In his immaturity, he assumes the Gods are having a laugh and focuses on the other abilities that were granted to him. Eventually the “moment of crisis” arrives and Micah realizes the gods knew what they were doing all along, something that you’d think a boy who studied up on all the gods while working in a library would have arrived at sooner, but—then we wouldn’t have the first timeline where Micah lives a benign life hiding his true ability and blessing. From this point on his life gets way more complicated even as Micah grows stronger, wiser, and even "less human."

Pacing: As mentioned above, this is my first time-loop story. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the genre to “skip forward” a lot and “only slow down” at moments of import, but a lot of character development, especially relationship development, happens off-screen because of this. More on that in the section on Relationships. That said, when we arrive at those moments of importance, they do deliver. Yet, I found that the further I read into the story, the more frustrated I got with each setback that force Micah to turn back time again. My biggest frustration was how Micah seemed to "accept" the bad circumstances he found himself in and "give up", holding out until he could use his ability, but that was something he thankfully grew out of later in the book.

Characters: There are a handful of characters in the story, but unfortunately none of them ever felt really fleshed out aside from Micah. Joe “the girlfriend in multiple timelines” was probably second after him, yet hard for me to connect to. I like the idea of a free-spirited girlfriend who doesn’t like to be sheltered but wants to fight alongside her boyfriend even if that means putting her life on the line—but other times her “free-spiritedness” involved an unnecessary recklessness that in one instance, involved stealing someone’s hat because “it was a crime against the gods and fashion for him to wear it”. Minor point, but I gave up connecting to her or liking her after that. The biggest hurdles to connecting to the side characters will be addressed below.

Relationships: The relationships in Blessed Time felt “forced” and “scripted”. The same setup was repeated to the point that if we spent a chapter allowing Micha to connect with anyone, whether family, a friend, or his girlfriend, you knew that in a chapter or three, they were about to die or—something bad was going to happen to them. I would have to “listen” through the whole story again to verify this with 100% certainty, so for now, I’ll say that I’m 85% certain this happened each and every time we were given a “happy moment of connecting to characters that were otherwise ignored and only brought up when the MC needed to feel something,"--at least until the final timeline of book 1.

I’m not saying interactions with these characters didn’t happen—just that any short-lived "show" of "growth" was indicative that this person was about to meet a bad end. This may be another “side effect” of the “pacing of a time-loop” story, but it did throw me out and make me put the book down more than once because instead of relationships feeling "genuine" they felt "necessitated."

Enjoyment: One of my favorite points about this story was its sense of adventure. Whether Micah was a part of a guild hunting monsters, delving into dungeons, or fighting monsters while enslaved, or fighting monsters with his summoned demons, they all brought with them a refreshing sense of power growth, world-building, exploration, intrigue, and enjoyment that kept me going on even when I was struggling with how the relationships in the story worked.

The Gods: Another interesting element of this story were the gods themselves, whom we and Micah meet towards the end of the story. Throughout there was a definite sense of “someone’s pulling Micah by the strings” even while Micah appears to be making the best of each choice and situation he finds himself in. Nothing I can say will do this justice, especially given our final introduction to them is the last chapter of the book and is in itself a teaser. But they were exotic, enthralling, convincing, and probably at the top of my list of why I’m looking forward to reading the second book

Delivery: I have to say, despite the two times I set this book down not happy with some of the elements mentioned above, the ending was enough to convince me to give the second book a try. While I don’t feel that Micah got a true moment of victory, there were enough minor victories to make the grimdark, depressing elements in the middle of the book, worth working through. So if you, like me, reach a moment where you’re just not sure if the book is worth finishing. All I can say is the final chapter really sold me.