Mark of the Fated

A LitRPG Adventure

De: Ricky Fleet

Narrado por: Adam Stubbs, Erin Bateman

An impending apocalypse. An opportunity to prevent it. The challenge? Earn humanity's survival by saving fantastical worlds from their own destruction. Simple, huh?

The vast comet should have destroyed us....

When it slowed, then landed, everything we thought we knew about the universe changed. And for Mark, things just got far stranger and much more dangerous.

They came from another dimension, condemning our selfish, greedy ways but sensing in us a potential to change. So when they chose Mark as a volunteer in their deadly trials to save the human race, how could he say no?

Join him on his quest for loot, levels, and powerful abilities. He'll need them all as he fights in kingdoms large and small, battling demons and dinosaurs, vampires and robots, orcs and...fairies?

For Mark, the price of saving the planet looks to be a world of hurt. Maybe he would've been better off if the comet hadn't landed so softly, after all?

Don't miss the beginning of this new LitRPG series that promises a mix of action and adventure, swords and sorcery, and a sprinkling of dark humor.

©2022 Ricky Fleet (P)2023 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Amazing Book 1

This was flat out one of the best audio books I listened all year and im craving so much more. There are elements of humor, LITRPG, world building and conquering, and so much more to this story. Fans of HWFWM and DCC will find similar elements throughout this book. I must I really think Ricky Fleet has something amazing started and I can only anxiously wait to see where it goes from here.

Adam Stubbs and Erin Bateman gave a great performance from the beginning to the end of this book.

snarky mc

a very quippy and snarky MC, very enjoyable for me but some might think it's too much.
very well narrated for a wonderful listening experience

epic story

quite a different view of the litrpg genre, but more an adult take on new world exploration. it's a bit dark but not overly so. I would recommend

This is a GREAT story!

This was a ridiculously good listen. I couldn't stop listening even when it meant going to work tired the next day. This book stays far away from the mc that can't believe they just offed someone for their own survival. Then we get a chapter about their feelings and inner debates on how to come to terms with a new reality. This mc may have been thrust into this suddenly but he makes decisions and just deals with what's thrown at him. Really good story and plotline. Looking forward to many more episodes as good as this first one.

I received a free code in exchange for an early and honest review. I kinda failed at the early part but not the honest part.

Not bad.

Action packed. O was hooked at the spider lair. not a bad starter to this seiries.

Steady

Enjoyed the story and performance and when taken together they add up to a worthwhile listen.

A really good story with some beginner writer flaws.

So I feel like this audiobook should have a higher rating. Due to Audible’s idiotic 5-star rating scale, numeric reviews are almost useless for predicting the actual quality of its’ titles. As a result, the current 4.3 star rating puts this book below the 4.5 star barrier which is generally the cutoff point for a listenable audiobook. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of books on audible with 4.5 or higher ratings that are objectively terrible. Because there are… there are thousands of them. I have mistakenly purchased 100s of them over the years.

Back to the rating of this book though. It’s definitely way better then almost any of the other LitRPG books with a 4.3 or 4.4 rating. The story is excellent. The plot and universe are interesting and this author has struck a great balance between character development and story progression.

But I’m not saying that this book does not have flaws… In my opinion, Ricky Fleet has fallen into a couple of traps that plague new writers, especially in the GameLit genre.

First, this book is jam-packed with a plague of unnecessary/clunky/overwrought metaphors and similes. Especially in the first half of the book, there are multiple of these per paragraph. By the second half they are not as prevalent but unfortunately tend towards dated, pop-culture references; at one point the MC belts out a Katy Perry chorus, for god’s sake, just to emphasize an already idiotic metaphor.

Which leads to my second complaint. This author and thus their MC suffer from a horrible sense of humor. It’s the kind of humor where every single joke is either a lame, pop-culture reference or it’s the kind of joking around that people grow out of by their late teens. They grow out of it because no one has ever laughed at a single one of their jokes.

It’s three steps down from throwing out extremely un-clever puns. Where everyone understands that you’re trying to make a joke, but rather than being funny or contributing to the conversation, it actually forces everyone to stop, make note of the annoying interruption, then roll their eyes and try to start the conversation up again while turning slightly away from the joker in an attempt to stop them from interrupting again… Unfortunately Mr. Fleet was clearly writing this book while high out of his mind on caffeine and therefore it’s riddled all the way through with this type of humor.

Now normally if I read the above criticism I would avoid this book at all costs, but it’s in spite of these issues that I am recommending Mark of the Fated and on top of that complaining that it should have a higher rating. This is because the story that’s being told is so good that it kept me listening even though I found the MC and some of the writing to be annoying. And that almost never happens to me.

So be forewarned that you might initially be turned off by the MC being kind of a knob, but stick with it for a bit because the story really is worth following. I say this having just spent the credit on the sequel. So, in my opinion at least, this book is worth a try.

Great series! Grabs your attention and gets you involved!

Kind hearted hero gets railroaded into saving another world! Fighting way beyond his capabilities he always just squeezes by. Can’t wait for the next episode!

Slow but gets good

Bit of a slow starter but honestly it's make up for it once it gets started. I've enjoyed listening to this story a lot and I like where everything is headed.

Nice twist on the apocalypse.

Overall, this is a new twist on the apocalypse. The story is well thought out, and I hope to see more of it. The characters are well developed and have depth.

Very nice narration with distinctive voices.