Dimensional Traveler

A Deckbuilding LitRPG

By: John Champaign

Narrated by: David Winter

Stephen Crawford is trying to finish his PhD dissertation when he's transported to a magical land he's previously only experienced through gaming. With a strange new capability that causes him to capture (and remove from existence) places, things, and people, he's trying to make sense of his situation and make his way back to Earth.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 John Champaign (P)2024 John Champaign

A well done book

First of all, great job with the story.
It is well written and the narrator does a great job of voicing all the different characters.
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes rpgs.

Pick a card, any card, no not that one

Role Playing Game characters almost always have outlandish abilities and skills, whether high intelligence or amazing fighting strength. Stephen can use his focus to trap basically any person, place, or thing into a non-physical "card" in his mental inventory and recall it whenever and wherever he happens to be, assuming he has the energy to do so. Our hero finds himself skipping across unfamiliar lands, meeting strange creatures and aggressive adversaries, in a simple quest to return his friends to their normal lives and go home. The narration from David Winter keeps your interest even when the story feels like it's "on rails" with a predictable progression. The pacing and overall length feels appropriate for a new entry into LitRPG's growing popularity, and the deckbuilding mechanic is a fresh twist that pushes fists and swords to the back seat. Now that this story is over, I wonder where Stephen will visit next. [disclosure: I received this title for free and listened at 1.75x]

What if?

This was my first exposure to a deck-building litRPG, and I wasn’t sure what I would think of the genre. However, I thought Champaign used the idea as a very cool foundation for his universe’s magic system.

If you’ve read other books by Champaign (e.g., Endless Seas), you know that he is gifted at coming up with great “what ifs” and following them through to their logical conclusion. This book is no exception, though at times, I was grumpy with the outcomes the characters ended up confronting—even though I agreed with the author that they were probably inevitable! The scenarios that characters grappled with in this book gave me food for thought for a long time, and I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel.

The performance of the audiobook was engaging, and gave a lot of personality and heart to the core characters. An easy read/listen!

Interesting World Building

this was my first book of deck building. I love the Litrpg genre in general and thought I would give this a try. Character building was consistent. The magic system of capturing people places things as cards was an interesting take. only thing I was really "meh" on is the time jumps seemed little abrupt. Narrator has a good range of voices and did a good job bringing the story to life.

Card game story

Interesting concept of obtaining cards. I had to relisten to parts because I got confused by abrupt jumps.