He Who Fights with Monsters: A LitRPG Adventure

He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 1

By: Shirtaloon, Travis Deverell

Narrated by: Heath Miller

Selected as one of Audible's best audiobooks of 2021

Jason wakes up in a mysterious world of magic and monsters.

It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil.

He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.

After cementing itself as one of the best-rated serial novels on Royal Road with an astonishing 13 million views, He Who Fights with Monsters is now brought to you in professionally formatted audio.

©2021 Shirtaloon (P)2021 Podium Audio

Story does so much right, but can be quite preachy

From the vast majority of perspectives, this book was fantastic. The world building was intriguing with enough rewarding details to understand for me to keep at it for days or even weeks at a time. The plot does a great job giving you a confusing and deep blank slate, then keeping you excited for the next section of the space to be written in - especially where abilities are concerned. The supporting cast was also very strong, giving some multi-dimensional characters to unpack and even connect with. I only found 2 notable areas where the plot fell short. The book did a fine job bringing different plot lines to intersect, but I've seen much better execution elsewhere. Also, in part due to the laws of the universe and in part due to the nature of MC, much of the story feels of little consequence, with many plot lines just moving the story forward in an expected way, even if the path took a couple extra turns to get there.

Then, of course, there's the insertion of a slew of real world political hot topics into the story. I'm not talking about undertones and deep motivating factors in the story, I'm talking literal speeches and sly comments from MC that feel more like skimming a Reddit comment section on socialism than a novelist sharing a thoughtful perspective. Out of the 29 hours of reading, I probably spent 1 hour listening to MC whine about disliking religion and religious people and 3 hours listening to indignant thoughts on class and economic inequality. I've sat through literal sermons that felt less peachy than this story in some parts. A part of me wants to address or refute some of it, but that's not the point. This is a fun litRPG, and it's good at being that. Stop trying to be the next Atlas Shrugged, it's just not working.

As a final complaint, I think the author greatly overestimates the effectiveness of talking nonsense to people. If you randomly say "Hey you slept with my wife" to a stranger in a restaurant (yes this actually happens), they don't stammer about trying to defend themselves and then leave the restaurant forever in shame. They tell you to shut up and stop lying, then go about their day. The book is literally full of this sort of conversation and I almost want to strip another star for it, but I like the world building too much to give a 3 star review.

MC pushes socialism and atheism so hard it hurts.

It was a good book fun characters and a really neat world. the magic was also a fun mash up of litrpg and cultivation! that was really cool. the only downside was the literal preaching of socialism and lesser pushing of atheism.
Im not against an MC with a strong view, but if they do then they need someone that can actually challenge that view to prove it. not just straw men for the MC to punch in the face. Make him prove his point and tie it to the plot.
This book did not challenge the MC much at all.

but i still enjoyed the book and will read the next one!

Amao

Book is amazing and narration... I wish I had a higher level of vocabulary cause its even better.

long easy listening

I enjoyed this audio book. litrpg are my favorite genre. that being said I enjoyed about half to three quarters of the book before getting board. the story started to be more about other characters then the main and most of it was political talk. involving bureaucratic rich people and how he's playing a mind game with them. by the end of the book I had almost forgot what the main character name was because it's was just talking between other one. it's like the author changed his mind halfway through and to stop making the RPG book and just went to a straight fantasy political Mass war kind of book I will not be coming back to the second one.

Really great story

Absolutely love this story, setting and characters. The magic system is amazing and the potential I see in this series excites me. Anti climatic ending and a little disappointing but the book is so good that I will wait semi patiently for the second. Heath Miller does a splendid job bringing the characters to life and is enjoyable to listen to.