Accidental Thief

By: Jamie Davis, C.J. Davis

Narrated by: Roberto Scarlato

Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

An everyday loser, stuck in the game.

Hal Dix was stuck in an unlucky life. His wife is a successful executive, while his IT help desk job led nowhere. Even his daughter's daycare teacher thought he was a loser. He couldn't catch a break.

Now a strange woman at a flea market sells Hal a bootleg release of a highly anticipated game. It is just what he wished for, and he can't wait to play it during his long weekend home alone. His luck has finally turned around, right?

Hal should be careful what he wishes for.

Join the adventure in this first book of an epic LitRPG fantasy trilogy. Play along with Hal and his new friends in Fantasma, as he becomes an Accidental Thief.

©2017 MedicCast Productions (P)2018 MedicCast Productions

A Fun Listen

Hal Dix is the unluckiest guy in the world. He's stuck in a boring IT job with a bully for a boss and a successful wife who makes parenting look easy. Hal plays role playing games for fun, and he's just been duped into spending all his spare cash for a bootleg version of a game that doesn't exist yet. Except when Hal tries the bootleg disc, it works. And it transports him bodily into the world of Fantasma.

Hal awakens in the game and immediately runs into trouble. Framed for the murder of a powerful city warden, he's arrested and sentenced to death. He needs to use all his wits and the points he's allocated to his luck stat to survive.

This is a solid LitRPG, an enjoyable listen. Hal is a good MC to follow, a bit awkward at times but not a sad sack. He's just reacting to events in the beginning, but soon takes control and becomes someone to cheer for. The action was fast paced. The game mechanics were incidental to the story, they didn't play a major role and it would be a fun fantasy listen even if you're not into LitRPG. The stat sheets are very short and aren't repeated too often, and Hal doesn't spend any time agonizing over point allocation. Although this is book one, it ties everything up neatly and can be read as a standalone.

The narration is really well done! The narrator performs subtle voices for the various characters and kept me listening and immersed in the story. If you're looking for a LitRPG for a teen or young reader, this book doesn't have any sex or swearing, but there are fight scenes and some references to adult themes. I requested a copy of the audiobook, and I'm voluntarily leaving a review.

good narrator. bad story

the excellent narrator is the only thing saving this horribly cliche story with little to no character depth

returning this book

the writing is not good. I almost never write horrible reviews but this book is bad. I just told my wife to try to listen to this and I had to turn it off. the Narrator is strange- I even clicked on a few of the later novels to see if he was still narrating and he is. So not sure what other people are enjoying about this series.

the story is so incredibly basic - the main character is not someone to enjoy and follow. i just can't listen anymore. i keep thinking that maybe I could read this and it would make it better but I listen to the writing and it's not good.

gonna return this - even if I bought it for a dollar.

Should have stat dumped in wisdom

Couldn't get past the first half. If I had hope that the MC would grow and become less of an immature idiot who feels so sorry for himself when his own actions compound the situations, then I might have been motivated to finish or at least continue the story. The magical luck stat kept showing up in personal interactions, which are not at all luck-based, and with the luck magic I have no hope that he's going to figure out that he needs to change himself rather than depend on the situation to work for him. Somewhere along the line you have to learn to take control of the situation, not hope everything works out and then blame somebody or something else when it doesn't.

not a huge fan

wasnt a huge fan of this one. i was happy to see a lit rpg with the MC being a rogue cuz it seems like every char is always a mage or at most a spellsword. but i didnt really like how no one else seemed to have stats. an it bugged me how the MC keeps saying how unlucky he is when he has a job, a wife/kid who has a great job but I'm suppose to feel bad for him? and i thought it was weird how he kept sayin its a game but telling everyone he was married, but was fine with murdering ppl without a second thought.

Trite, tropey, and predictable

The book followed a typical d&d plotline. No big surprises; I felt reluctant to continue listening.
Finishing became a tedious task, at least for me. I've been reading fantasy for over a decade ave have read a lot, so perhaps I'm spoiled - a newcomer to fantasy works and to role-playing games might enjoy and learn from the book.

WAY WAY too much time reading over the stats!!

As in the heading the author spent way too much time reading over the stats over and over again with very little change in the first 8 chapters the stats were read out 13 time with nothing changing except a point here and there.

This was done so much so the book was hard to get through not only did the author spend so much time on the stats but then they also continue to read out what was in the main characters inventory which makes utterly no sense and took away from the book.

When you look past those things the book was not bad however extremely short when you take out all the stat and inventory fluff.

Overall the book was so so the ending was welk without spoiling anything weird and fell flat in my opinion especially if there's going to be a second book.

Drivel

Boring and Derivative. I am a big fan of the lit RPG genre but the story was just sad. It was completely unoriginal and broken. MC was not believable. And the skill system was stupid. Clearly the author has never thrown a blade. I know it’s a fantasy book but an cubical dweller turns into a master thief at level 11 and in a three week period. Narriation was good however so keep up the good work.

Painful to get through

Let me start by saying that I had high hopes for this book but was disappointed by the narrator. It was like listening to William shatner only with a deeper voice. He read very slow and would pause mid sentence. I had to listen to the book at 1.5x speed to make it semi bearable to listen to.

As for the story, I thought the plot was weak. There was a serious lack of character growth. There was no transition or plot between engagements. I really don’t enjoy writing a bad review but I seriously felt gypped after listening to this one.

It's okay but a bit generic. Kind of boring.

It's not a bad LITRPG, but not "great." It focuses too much on dumbing down things and falls a bit flat. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone Fantasy lovers or hardcore LitRpg fans. The author sort of treats his readers like "casuals" or idiots. It's probably not intentional but I'm personally passing on reading this series any further.
This story is basically an author insert. Characters aren't particularly memorable. They fall flat...And even I was tired of the main character constantly saying, "trust me." The author attempted some kind of "humor" between Kay and the MC, but it legitimate fell flat, all the time. -_- They fought guards the entire time...Only guards. No named villains. Just easy mode boring guards.

It's not an awful story, but it's not that exciting either. The Litrpg elements probably made it worse. Calling this a LitRPG is stretching the truth. This is a general adventure story that the author played in his head for five minutes before writing this. Something you'd probably see in a cartoon. As a small unmemorable flashback.

The Land, Chaos Seeds (By Mr. Kong) is LitRPG done right.

didn't like it

another older man entering a fantasy world and not taking advantage of his knowledge. boring