Asgard's Fall

Digital Rebirth Chronicles, Book 1

By: Robert Hinshaw

Narrated by: Pavi Proczko

Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

Noah didn’t expect much from entering the virtual reality world of Asgard’s Fall.

Even the danger of the experimental full immersion technology didn’t put him off. It beat living in a nursing home, and it was supposed to let him feel young again...at least until modern medicine and his body gave out. 

But there was something wrong with Asgard’s Fall. Most of the time, the “gods” running the game didn’t act like AIs were supposed to. Some of the players took things too seriously, like they knew something about the game that Noah didn’t. Forced to rely on skills he abandoned a lifetime ago and new digital abilities that resemble ancient magics more than modern code, Noah has to unravel the mysteries behind Asgard’s Fall. And in doing so, discover an ancient threat that has forced a world long hidden from mankind into the light.

©2021 Robert Hinshaw (P)2021 Podium Audio

Honest Review

The Good: it’s a long book ( I hate -10 hour audiobooks). The narration is excellent. The author clearly did a ton of theology and religious research bringing the story to life. There’s a TON of detail in this book which is excellent for immersion.

The Bad:

1. This book masquerades as a LitRPG book, but it’s not really. It seems more like the author didn’t know how to provide abilities or increase strength in characters and chose the easy way of making it a “level based system” with stat points to make increases. Given the story (without providing spoilers), the LitRPG elements make no sense when all the abilities and strength the character receives comes from blessings and gods’ favors.

2. WAAAAAAAAAY too much introspection. It borders on absurd. The MC will have 5 minutes of thought processes, but by the time he’s done thinking, the story moved forward 5-10 seconds in story time. That’s too much. A lot of the hours in this 33 hour book comes from introspection. Be warned. The actual story progression is about half the book’s length. An example: Jim realized he’s holding the spear in his left hand. If he hadn’t been holding it there, the monster wouldn’t have died. But he luckily placed it in his left hand. Had he have used his right hand to hold the spear, X, Y & Z would have happened. Possibly even A, B, & C would have happened, but luckily he held the spear in his left hand. He was suddenly very thankful it was in his left hand. He just felt so tired and things were just moving way too fast. All of these other (insert more alphabet letters) things may have been his downfall. (And you can create more written content to replace all the X, Y, & Z’s increasing this tiny part of a fight way longer than it should be). There is a point when too much detail turns any scenario into a snail’s pace. This happens ALOT in this book. To the point I would skip forward just to finally here an outcome of a scene.

3. The stats. Oh good lord…the stats. The author lists out the MC’s stats so often and they’re so long. I love stats. I love levels. I love loot. But this was egregious. One time in this story, the entire stats (level, base stats, HP’s, SP’s, MP’s, abilities, ability levels, and Gods [he has like 6] are all in a character’s stat sheet and each God gives him 4-5 abilities) were read to the listener. He then used experience points to increase his level, and immediately they read every single part of the stat sheet again! Not just providing changes, but everything again…immediately after…. So once 5 minutes of stats goes by, the world comes back to life for the listener and he answers a question or something you’re waiting to find out. It’s brutal.

This is a hard one to recommend. I loved the story (when the author actually got on with the damn thing), and I loved the performance when there have been Pavi Proczko books in the past I thought he butchered. So I definitely heard growth from the narrator standpoint, and I definitely want to support this author, because it’s clear he put his heart and soul into writing this. I would not listen to it again, but I’d be interested to listen to a sequel if a lot of the aforementioned issues were fixed. That’s the best I got. I won’t say don’t listen to it. I enjoyed a lot of it. But I also can’t tell anyone to spend 33 hours on it. Skip Forward is your friend at times. (probably not helpful…I know…)

fun story but sometimes annoying

I liked the story and characters but the listing of attributes really started to annoy me. Did a lot of skipping parts because of that.

Boring, dark, rambling and tedious

I really got bored by this book. It just went on and on into every little detail. The writing was excessively dark, the author appears to be trying to put the main character through lots of pain to do something. Its just awful to see how the world treats people in it. I thought the premise sounded fun, but it was just tedious. I'd really suggest skipping this book. The magic system was interesting, all based on gifts of gods. The book goes into norse gods, greek gods, roman gods, irish gods, egyptian gods, etc. I think it would have been much better with out all the darkness, and add some comedic relief.

good narration can't save this story

the author just really wanted us to feel for this sad old man. the character in this book is so passive and just does whatever everyone tells him. I got halfway through the book but couldn't bring myself to finish it . Like when he finds out about his past and how everyone he knows lied to him he just meekly says ok and just goes doing the same thing.

Action and lore heavy

super fun from start to finish! the RPG gaming aspect worked really well for the tale. Hinshaw also took care to give the gods their own personality, and stay true to their nature/history. without having to compromise either. def looking forward to book 2.

What Trash wow

This book tried to like a Lit RPG and wanting a dark path, but it lacked any sense at all. This was such a waste of a credit. So let's get it clear the MC is a 97 year old former intelligence officer, but he doesn't know how to keep a secret. He lacks the simple emotion control and seems to want to save everything and everyone.
If anyone has ever listened to or read any books by any CIA officer which are all over the place you can see they're very cold and mission focused. This guy is concerned for his kids and kids he didn't know he had, but gets distracted by the first group of people he comes across and wants to save them, but abandons his friend to save them.
This author has no idea about any agency guys or personality or he wouldn't have a spy being so dumb . This is probably the worse spy I have ever heard of in my life. He gives all his information to everyone and doesn't see the value of hording information which is what any agency guy knows. save your credit unless you want to waste your time wondering how an agency guy can be so dumb about his literal job.

wow

I'm so ready for the next book in this series I can't wait to see where this story takes me.

not perfect but damn was it good

only gripes were the refreshers on his stats at times being annoying because lot of the times they pop up nothing happened.

fun read, glad in was what I was looking for when I first found this. lots of interesting characters and fun action and intrigue.

Awesome story

Love the concept and how it all unfolded, great narrator. Very captivating and hard to put down

meh?!

personally couldn't get past a few hours because of the book I don't enjoy a character who is forced to do things because someone else forces him the man is or was 97 he is young again and feels like a 16yr old with his inability to do anything to stop things from happening.. it feels like a character rape to become who the author needs him to be when a man given a second chance will do everything in his power to enjoy that opportunity

not best litrpg book

struggled to finish and ultimately gave up. story jumps all over the place and has pieces of litrpg but more of an afterthought vs true litrpg. imho