The Grind

The Pickaxe of a Thousand Attributes, Book 1

By: Dan Sugralinov, Andrey Nechaev

Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May

Egor, a fresh college grad from Russia, takes his classmate's advice and joins a popular VR game, hoping to earn some cash.

With a tight budget that won't cover a full account or a fancy VR immersion capsule, he opts for a free trial account and fires up his ancient gaming console.

Laggy gameplay, crappy graphics on his old TV, a sluggish internet connection—who cares about all that when you're not there to play?

Egor's plan is simple: mine ore in the sandbox and slaughter hordes of rabbits, all in the name of scoring some sweet loot. Little does he know, he's about to stumble upon an item that will make the game's elite players stop at nothing to take him down…

©2024 Dan Sugralinov and Andrey Nechaev (P)2025 Podium Audio

A great companion to the disgardium series!!!

I feel like Dan Sugralinov has reached the Master level of his craft and my only complaint is that his novels are too short.

I have been a huge fan of the disgardium series and is still my favorite series in the litrpg genre. The game world is familiar if you've played WoW and outside the game takes place in a realistic consumerist future.

The characters are well defined and the story really flows. After reading Scythe's adventures in icy gorge, I wasn't super interested in this book, but I'm so glad I purchased it. And having the same narrator really helps. My only critique is the length of this novel was shorter than I wanted. And maybe that a few of the characters names are the same as in the Dis series (defiler, krag,and crawler).

Can't wait for the next book!

Another Prelude I never knew I wanted

A) Not many authors can create and maintain a self consistent world spread across multiple book series, characters and time frames. But Dan Sugralinov does it extremely well.
The details and Easter eggs (sup Crag), and the fact that the real world is so seamless and well integrated into the virtual game is what really elevates his stories from plain fun to epics that you can reread over and over again and always find something new. Some new hint or insight into the characters, or some piece of world building backstory that’s the ties into another story. It’s awesome and refreshingly consistent. And most of all, it feels real and grounded in reality, like I’m listening to personal accounts from a future not to far away.

This was enjoyable, fun, and gives insight into the future of Phil’s world, and the world maybe 25-30 years before Alex Sheppard was born.

B) Daniel Thomas May did an excellent job as always.

C) I’m glad to see Torfu again.

D) Egors story is mentioned in passing in Disgardium somewhere. And if it as epic as it sounded, I really can’t wait! Probably should reread Disgardium again pretty soon …

Anyway, this is definitely a must buy. See about also reading the Knockout, Level Up, and Disgardium series for more of the same world building, adventures, awesome stories, and characters

Another good start to be a pretty good series

For those of you who have read some of the other authors' works, you'll know that it does have a set, you started in the sandbox something op something extraordinary and then you go from there but it is a good start to a good story. With a strong possibility for a good series

Another great story in the works

If you love the Disgardium series like I do, then just hold on to your seats. This is the beginning of something that will be absolutely beautiful. Book 1 ended with me just wanting more already.

Not bad...

Definitely not the worst work by Sugralinov, though also not the best, this story falls into its place within his overall universe rather comfortably. As usual, there are obvious, albeit minor, plot holes, common sense defying steps that characters take, and general reluctance of the author to level up his writing skills - well, at least he is more or less consistent throughout all of his series. The translation is good, and, as often the case with this author's books, is somewhat better than the original (I have all of his audiobooks in both Russian and English). All in all, it's an OK filler that one must have, whether begrudgingly or not, if for nothing else but to see the connection with the main story line and have that "ah, so that's the story of that ax!" moment. 4 out of 5.

The narrator is doing an overall good job, though he should either practice his female characters a lot more, or dial down his attempts to impersonate female voices - simply going falsetto isn't the solution, dude! Another thing that I have problems with is his voicing of the MC's mother. Given MC's age of 24 and that girls back in the days of MC's birth (approx.) used to do it earlier in their lives, she should be in her mid to late 40s. Yet, the narrator makes her sound like she's at least 70. For all of that, a very generous 4 out of 5.