Beyond All Expectations

A Science fiction fantasy LitRPG Series

By: Michael Chatfield

Narrated by: Tristan Morris

Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

The event of myths and legends has started! The first spawn points have started to open, issuing forth creatures and people that were banished from Emerilia long ago.

Dave and the Pandora’s Box group are advancing their plans and building projects as fast as possible. When an opportunity arises to take their projects to the next level, they’re going to have to use all of their tricks and crafting abilities in order to seize it.

The Stone Raiders and the Terra Alliance that they have formed will undergo its first baptism. The time of peace has ended.

In this event, they need to be the strongest to protect what they care for. Either they will die again and again losing levels and people of Emerilia, or they will be able to stand, their strength growing to new heights.

©2017 Michael Chatfield (P)2018 Michael Chatfield

Better but annoying and frustratiing

It bothers me how the narrator says "tube". He also still can't say "woohoo" correctly.

I will start with the good. The first half of the book is full of action and dangerous situations. There is a no nonsense feel and things get done without any fluff being added in. (The fluff comes back though) This is where the positives stop so hold onto your pants.

First off, the amount of repetition it infuriating. Starting with the the way the narrator talks, his inflections, and the pauses in between words leave so much to be desired. Throughout the books he doesnt change the way his characters talk. This wouldnt be a big issue, Except the author uses the same phrases and expressions dozens of times, even hundreds of times, throughout the series.

Information is repeated and reiterated multiple times through each book. It is redundant and annoying that I have to sit through the information again and again. Next there are the character sheets, I have said it once and I will say it again, it needs to be managed. 4-5 minutes each taken out of my day for a simple two or three things changing is absurd. State the highlights and move on. (Dont get me started on the class quests and castle descriptions).

Next! The sense of danger is gone. For how much the author says "Emerila is in danger" or "The fate of Emerilia will be changed forever" doesn't add up to anything. No one is really injured or dies. Where is the sense of dread and loss I felt at Boran Al's Citadel? Or even when facing the Lich in the Alef college? No one is in true danger and that takes the excitement out of the story. Even one characters brush with death was swatted aside by literal plot armour. I could see it a mile away.

Moving on to the baby. Dave and Dea's kid, why is she here? She has added nothing to the story except maybe one heartwarming exchange when she was born. There were no problems with the pregnancy, the baby wasn't kidnapped, the baby never even had a damn fever. There is no worry! It pisses me off when there could have been such emotions produced if something happened to the child during pregnancy, the rage Dave and Dea would have if the baby was kidnapped, or even the simple parental confusion and worrying over the baby having a fever. As far as I am concerned. Koi is a useless and completely neglected character and plot point.

As a side note I think Fire and Mal's child's name changed from Daniel to Desmond between book 7 and book 8, but I may be mistaken.

Concluding... I like series instead of novels.
This series has taken a lot of my time but my heart is barely in it like it was in the beginning. It may seem like I am looking for things to find fault with, but after listening to 8 of these books, they just seem to jump at me one after another. Even for all of its faults, I still find myself smiling and enjoying the book at times, making it all worthwhile. In for a penny in for a dime.

TL;DR : The narrator is lacking in his performance and the story is a sense of "Shock"/"Wow" factor being rinsed and repeated. There is no sense of danger or real threat. The author seems to be just prolonging the books. I have mildly enjoyed the series and recommend it if you enjoy long winded stories. I will continue out of etiquette, however I do not have high hopes for the later books.

Why is the story less about Dave???

I’ve really enjoyed the series, Michael Chatfield is a phenomenal writer, but why are we separating from Dave? There was very little interaction with his character....I hope that on the following books, he returns as the main character. Still a good book though.

Pre-review

Reading the reviews is sometime hilarious. I know I am still going to be annoyed by the 5 minute character sheet reads, adjust a few stats right back into another 5 minute character sheet read. That is absolutely horrible and probably annoys a Lot of people.
That being said I am just purchasing book 8 right so I guess it wasn't annoying enough to keep me from finishing the series.

One of the reviews by Kindle Customer titled "a great story" who is reading a science fiction Litrpg book complaining about the science? magical coding and spells are cool with them but not how they handle Hydrogen. LOL!! BTW, from reading the review I dont see the issue with the science. Hydrogen is/can be solid, it is one of the lowest density solids. Yeah you have to get it down to −434.45 °F for it to be a solid but I don't see an issue with that on another planet. I guess I will have to listen to the book to figure out what the gripe is, cause from the review that is exactly how Hydrogen works or could work.

I will update the review after the listen is over. Can't wait to start

not my favorite in the series so far

narrator read almost the entire book like it was the last chapter it got a bit annoying other than that good way spend a couple of hours

Good but...

have you ever watched a show that you love just loved and the same thing happens alot i.e. the good guys winning all the time? by that I mean you know they are going to win no matter what? that's kinda what's going on here. I love the series the only thing is there isn't enough doubt being sold to convince me things are more on the edge and you dont know which way the scales are going to tip

Doesn't Get Better

Been nice about this series and keep holding out. Started really great in book one and proceed on. That's it. Proceeds on with great ideas executed in interesting ways, but written in a way that just is not that interesting. The relationships between the characters feels more important to the author than the plot of the story; these relationships feel like a highschool romance more than a bunch of older characters. The humor is very sitcom manilla.

Going to finish the series, but am growing to hate these novels the longer that I go. They are not bad, but it just drags on and find myself not caring what happens to this plot or the characters.

Ratings of 4.8 are really misleading. This series if very middle of the road and unimpressive.

Trebuchet!

The narrator pronounced trebuchet correctly!! My new all time favorite fantasy narrator! May he narrate many more.

Good to okay

Not to get too many spoilers but I really been disliking how the main character has become a side character and the side characters are more of the main characters.... like Dave needs to go dungeon hunting or on side quests!


The narrator did an awesome job as always!!!

This has been such a fun read

I am really digging the character development the storyline pacing and the way that things are shaping up. My opinion so far is that Steve needs a short story side arc by himself.

A Great Story

I love the story, but the science is just terrible. I understand that its scifi, but the whole Hydrogen thing was painful to listen to. They go to a planet covered in ice and dig up blocks of frozen hydrogen. It doesn't work that way. Also, with the technology they had available they could have created Tritium at home. Any cursory research would have pointed out the many errors in his depiction of how hydrogen works. I still really enjoyed the series and this book, but I needed to complain about this bit. I can ignore a lot of small issues but this was just ridiculous.

want more!

brilliant never thought that when starting the first book i would fall in love with a book series as much but have to admit this series has done it and fits so many genres sifi, gamer lite, fantasy, adventure, comedy and even romance and never gets to a point where one is over shadowing the others just the right blend cant wait for the next book to come out on audible want to finish the series as soon as possible