Awakening

A LitRPG Story (Outworld, Book 1)

By: Mrdojo

Narrated by: Joshua Story

Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

What do you desire in exchange for your soul? Everlasting youth? A million dollars? Women? Power?

Bored high-schooler Adam Staples wants for nothing. Such an offer could only be a prank, right? Who would have thought that the prankster is a demon in disguise?

After selling his soul and turning into a half-demon, Adam finds himself orphaned and dragged into a realm outside of the world he knew. Training under his benefactor and enrolling in a school made for those who were gifted with powers, Adam ventures around the Outworld to hunt down the demon that turned his life inside out...and perhaps to squash a bit of the guilt he carries for what he had done to his family.

©2020 Mrdojo (P)2020 Podium Audio

Dragonball Z for your ears

Honestly, my headline sums up everything about this book. To start off, other than some semblance of LitRPG theme, there’s no real structure to the main characters build, not a real explanation, The main character is your typical overpowered almost anti-hero with little to no depth. Same thing with the other characters, they’re there as fillers so that the MC actually has other people to interact with.

For a first book this long I’d expect to actually have some type of substance, but found none. The only saving grace was the narrator who did a pretty good job with the horrible content he was given. I had about 7hrs left of the book and couldn’t listen to the drivel any longer.

If you want to hear about an MC that essentially can eliminate everything in his wake, has no real personality other than being analytical “must kill arch nemesis who made me this way”. It’s essentially Dragon Ball Z but without the really long episodes in the middle where they power-up. This is an audio book you listen to when you have literally nothing else to do and even then I wouldn’t recommend.

A lot of missed opportunities with simple errors

It takes a lot for me to be annoyed with a book. This I believe is on the author and not narrator. There are a lot and I mean a lot of repeating words/statements. Things that should not have escaped proof reading. These errors take away from being able to fall into the story. The concept and progression of the story and the story itself are perfectly fine. The issue comes from whomever let slide regular wasted words It never seems to stop

good story bad continuity

Plot is good but author should buy a Thesaurus. author also forgets his own plot points. trying to have interesting twists through memories the story forgets the mc already had things the twists try to give the mc.

many times while listening I couldnt help but think "I dont think he is using those words correctly." Other than all that, not terrible.

awesome story..... but

so overall I loved this story, I love the OP MC, just absolutely wrecking with a smile. my problem is with the reader.... he keeps misreading things like depleted for dilapidated multiple times.... which leads me to the author using phrases over and over and over. "he released a frightening burst of speed for every time someone moves faster than normal. other than that great book and looking forward to the rest.

Wow! what a book. Could not put it down.

Warning, don't read this book if you have something important to do.

Don't start this book if you do not have the next 24hrs free.

Don't start this book if you need to sleep.

it's that good.

I hope the author will deliver book 2 soon.

awesome

this is way better than the other reviews say, can not wait for book 2

Terrible writing

I want to start by saying you can yell the author really loved this story idea. It was very fast paced all centering around the MC and how op he is (a genre I really love and have read a lot of). however the writing was TERRIBLE and made it really hard to get into the story. The writer is very tell not show, and will often tell the thoughts of a character immediately followed by explaining the character doing whatever he was just thinking about. this got very annoying especially when the character thinks about the MC being dumb and in the next sentence he tells the mc he's being dumb. and this happened A LOT. The other thing that made it a hard listen was that EVERY CHARACTER had multie internal monologs explaining why the MC couldn't do something, followed by narrater backstory on why it was impossible, followed by the mc doing it. this also happened repeatedly with little increasing difficulty to the mc. it was always, everyone thinks it's impossible, then the mc barely does it or makes it look super easy, which in turn makes the paragraphs of description why it's impossible seem meaningless and not relevant. At least in other op stories, the trials get progressively harder, not this one. the only reason i gave it 2 stars was because I was able to struggle through it (with some skips here and there over pointless repetitive narration), and because you could really tell the author loved the story and had planned out some interesting events. but if you get turned off by bad writing, I would definitely pass by this book.

Pure Fun!

I really enjoyed this listen, its fast moving and no harem elements! My only complaint is that Joshua mispronounced a couple of words through the book, but other then that he killed the narration! Can't wait for book 2

A work of art!

skyhaven was awesome and the seven realms are amazing but this one is my favorite I can’t wait for the next book and hope this hits audible soon :)
Read it! love it! bye it!!!!

Needs work. . .

As another reviewer said, it's clear that this is a story that the other really cared about and wanted to put out there, but in doing so there were many scenes and elements that I can only assume the author forgot to write down and is left buried in their head. As a result, it feels like we're in a RPG with a new DM that didn't take notes and is just skipping around. If the author had gone back through and added in some explanations as to why things were the way they were and given us more insight into the MC's mind outside of "I'm a hangry emo asshat with a devil on my shoulder, rawr" then it would have been a lot better. Alternatively, this could have done well as a visual novel/manga as well, as it would have given the artist ample opportunity to draw in parts the author overlooked in their writing. Props to the narrator though, he did a solid job all in all.

Semi-Spoiler Below:

Also, the dark persona really doesn't match with the vibe I was getting in the beginning before the 7 year time skip. There should be at least a little character development when the MC goes from "Please get these kids somewhere safe" to "Oh, the village right down the road is being burned to the ground and probably murdered or enslaved by bandits you say? That's cool, but you're going to abandon all of them and read this map for me so I don't have to."

Just horrible. Series dropped at 6 hours!

An amateurish Summoner a la Eric Vall wannabe, even got Joshua Story (which is the only reason i didnt DNF earlier).

The plot is ok, but the execution is terrible. The pacing is terrible and used time skip all the time 2 weeks past, 5 hour past etc etc. and finally 7 year past, all the while when the MC stats increase and he get his power. No explaination at all until 6 hours in. This is suppose to be a litrpg and it skip it. Wow.


So what do you get to know is 6 hours? Nothing! There is only some random events that brings nothing to the story. The MC cluelessly moves forward with plotarmor. There is a few hints of people or things. But obly hints, no developement at all. Its super annoying. After 6 hours (25%) I know nothing about the MC or otherwise.

Oh yeah, his 7 year long master send him to school (after 5 hours of nothing) without a clue of the academy, the world or any rules. That is great as on his first day he has to fuse with demon to not get killed, after he passes out. Nothing strange to see here. The master couldn't help with that? Further more, he finds a slume and a big explosion destroys have the school and he passes out again. He actually passes out once an hour for the first 5 hour and gets to a dream world (which ofc is explained either). Horrible just horrible writing!! Dropped!

totally gripping

can't wait for the next book is it written yet!!!!!!!! need to know what happens next!!!?

Too much 'huh?'

i quite liked the mc although he's seriously op.
bad guys were all from one template ... 'i am unbeatable you minnow!' types
everyone is confused and the word 'huh' is definitely overused when the battles commence ... use a thesaurus mate!
if you can get over new enemies appearing for no apparent reason and the mostly unexplained 7 year gap in narrative while the mc achieves his superpowers the story is okay but I'm
not sure I'd rush out to buy book 2.