A Lonely Dungeon

Erryn's World, Book 1

By: Cathfach

Narrated by: Peter Kenny

Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

When a new dungeon is born, it wants nothing more than to have the most vicious monsters, the most cunning traps and the most shiny of loot.

There is only one problem...but it's a rather big one. It finished its first floor years ago, but it still hasn't been visited by any adventurers! In order to find someone—or something—to explore its floors, or perhaps just to find someone to talk to, this dungeon will have to go way off script. But it soon discovers that going off script brings problems of its own, and that adventurers are not the only thing this world is missing.

A Lonely Dungeon is book one of Erryn's World, a story about a dungeon's journey of exploration and self-discovery in a dark and devastated world.

©2020 Cathfach (P)2023 Podium Audio

An Interesting Exploration

This book is quite odd, compared to most other books. There are no supporting characters, barely a plot, and only a single instance of external conflict. Instead, it serves as an exploration and discussion on the world that will serve as a background for Unbound Soul, and a prologue for that series.

I found many of the LitRPG mechanics to be interesting in general, but nothing was really compelling. As always, Cathfach shines in her characters, and in a book with none, it was kind of boring. Nothing was bad about it, and the reviews saying that the dungeon is over sentimental are highly exaggerated, but I did loose focus quite frequently. Raw worldbuilding can be very dry without characters to liven it up.

I enjoyed this book, I think. At the very least, I was intrigued about how everything would turn out. I'll give this one a soft recommendation for people who liked the dungeon parts of Divine Dungeon, or the worldbuilding of World Keeper.

I like this one I really do there is a problem

I like this one I really do there is 2 problem though and that is with the editing there are points where there is repeating of the same sentence in the Short stories that sort of bugged me that's the Editor didn't pay attention other than that this is This is a good way to start off for someone who isn't really intellect litRPG yet and it's a way to introduce them and give them the structure of this story and pay attention to the way a story should be written another problem but it's not really a problem is that they should put book one and book 2 together If I were reading this without those short stories then I'd be pretty pissed off because it's like the story hasn't truly come to that place where you can Put down the book or in this case listen to the audio and If I were reading this without those short stories then I'd be pretty pissed off because it's like the story hasn't truly come to that place where you can Go Away from it And then pick it up again without feeling frustrated

Overpersonification and a scam of a book

It gets to be ridiculous how this dungeon just turned into an emotional wreck because people were dead. It was annoying to see it cornered as a character into a sad sack because the author wanted to show how human it was for absolutely no reason. Given how much effort they went through to tell us what a dungeon it just seems lazy to personify it this way. It just means instead of having to write for a dungeon, you can pretend to be writing for a regular person. An example? It starts burying human bodies in graves with grave markers. Humans it did not kill. Just old bodies it finds while looking. Very human, completely unlike a dungeon regardless of the excuses. It gets to be a cruch that the author abuses to change the story how they like especially towards the end. It’s annoying how much the author depends on personifying the dungeon to direct the story while ignoring any common line of thought that sort of mind might have. Just to excuse ridiculousness.

And the book is 4hrs long, followed by a 10 min epilogue before 2 hrs of side story fillers. This short book completely lies about how short actually is. That’s a third of the book that isn’t part of the story. 2 hrs of side story in a 6 hr book, ridiculous.