Halcyon Rising: Breaking Ground, Book 1

De: Stone Thomas

Narrado por: Chris Graves

My skill set brings all the girls to the yard.

And by yard, I mean the temple of a young goddess who's using me to build a fortified city around herself before the god of war can finish slaying every deity in the heavens.

He'd better not find us before we're ready. Spoiler: We're far from ready.

But hey, I get a cool skill out of it. The goddess allows me to view anyone's strength, vivacity, and other attributes as though they were numbers on a menu and then use their life experiences to make them stronger. I can unlock their special skills, too, and it's all stuff no one else can see.

Hence the girls: a beastkin builder, a negotiatrix made of slime, a half-elf gypsy who charms snakes - and more - seeking safe refuge and a place to belong.

Think our ragtag group can survive a divine onslaught of apocalyptic proportions? I know what I think. Come on in and find out.

©2017 Stone Thomas (P)2019 Stone Thomas

try it

I received this book free of charge for an honest review. kid survives an attack that kills the rest in his city. while escaping meets a God and becomes her priest. in order to avoid the fate of his previous home he must build a city that will withstand the attacking force, in his travels he eventually gains followers who come back with him for a life where all are equal instead of the lower classes they were treated as in their previous communities. that's a boring summary but I personally liik forward to maybe seeing more of this series

Pretty good with realistic expectations

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This is definitely one of those books that you have to set your expectations appropriately going in, or you are going to be disappointed. Having said that, I expected a lot of action, a harem element and game mechanics with a coherent story tying it all together. That is exactly what I got. If you aren't a fan of the genre, I'm 50/50 on if you'll like this book or not. I really enjoyed it. I thought the narration is great, the game mechanics were different, and the characters were engaging.

Harem + LitRPG

This was a better mixture than I had expected. The LitRPG is decent and the characters make for an interesting Mashup. Chirs Graves does a great Narration and made this an enjoyable listen.

If you're coming to this for the LitRPG aspect you might be a bit disappointed, it's an interesting system, but not the best LitRPG I've listened to. That said if you enjoy both Harem and LitRPG genres you'll probably enjoy this.

If you're unsure about the Harem idea, this isn't too overdone as far as the concept goes. This wouldn't be a bad one to dip your toe in to test the waters.

What a cool concept

I loved the concept of this book. The MC basically operates as a skills trainer for those around him in addition to being a semi-front-line fighter/priest/mayor/other stuff. I hadn't ever thought about a story told from that perspective before and it actually plays really well! The closest comparison I can think of is Felix in Super Sales on Super Heroes. There are some harem themes here, though there isn't anything super graphic from a relations perspective as you often see in such stories. It's a quick listen at under 6 hours, but I did very much enjoy my time with the various chanarcters and found myself cheering for their success throughout the entire book.

While I felt the pacing of the story was good, I often found myself wanting more information about the characters and the world in which they inhabit. I feel like a bit more "stuff" would have really helped to make the world feel more alive to me. Perhaps that's something we'll see more of in book 2.

The narration was good. I hadn't ever listened to Chris Graves before and I feel like his range of characters was well-suited to the story. Female and male characters were easily distinguishable from each other, which always helps in fight scenes. His choice of voice for the slightly insecure, yet driven MC was perfect. The only gripe I had was with the voice he used for the skill interface... he went for monotone and robotic, which it was, but that kind of took me out of the story a bit.

On the whole, it's an interesting book with a MC that has a skill you don't see often in the game-lit space. I'm glad I listened and will be on the lookout for the second book in the series!

**Note: I asked for and received a promotional copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review***

Such a cool story

This book was super dope, and as always a perfect narrative performance by Chris. Love the concept of the MC having more options when it comes to power.