Dragon's Realm: A 4X Strategy LitRPG Series

Warlords of the Circle Sea, Book 3

By: Ember Lane

Narrated by: Pavi Proczko

Length: 29 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's Summary

There’s a saying...

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and Connor is going from strength to strength!

He’s finally got his borders secure by taking Portsmouth. Not only that, but he’s conquered the adjacent land of Certaindeath and defeated Lord Zerg Zerg to take Zergatory. Things are looking up for our favorite warlord, and he’s rightly pleased with himself.

But there’s another saying...

Pride comes before the fall.

Join Connor, Edward, Ellen, Yosaku and the gang as they battle their way toward world domination!

Remember! There can be only one!

This is a LitRPG-Civ building fantasy tale that includes progression stats and settlement stats.

For lovers of 4X MMORPG civilization building games who enjoy a tale woven in the lands they spend far too much time in!

Warning! Contains curse words!

©2020 Ian Thompson (P)2020 Ian Thompson

Performance is good, the author is a fool

Over and over again, the main character gets tricked.. One would assume he would have learned by now. But no. He doesnt.

It feels insulting that we need to follow this main character since hes little more than a fool that wants to mimic manga/anime protagonists that thinks that friendship will overcome all. Let the main character die and lets follow someone that does not survive due to plot armor.

Also.. Dont write in a huge fucking cliff hanger and then switch to a new unrelated perspective doing something completely dull. It just makes people skip over the chapter and lose the plot.

Well that hit me in the feels basket….

There’s a lot to say about this book, but what stood out the most was the author’s ability to intertwine deep issues in a way that makes you think about your own life. The conversation by Ellen in which she discussed what “corporate” meant, had me seriously thinking about life. No matter how I thought about what I would consider to be a “good life,” I found myself thinking… “So what?” That’s not an easy thing to do with this type of genre. If I worked my ass off my entire life to achieve, what does it actually matter? If I set goals and achieve them all, who really cares? I don’t know…I really sat and thought for way too long about this.

***Minor Spoiler***

The real punch to the gut was the way the author used the Gods to epically screw with the character’s minds regarding their deaths. I’m a 40 year old man and Army veteran, and I have noticed I can tear up more these days, but it is almost always in reference to real life underdogs scaling their mountains and succeeding, pride in my daughter, or humanitarian efforts for disabled veterans. So I was completely caught off guard at 0100 this morning when the characters faced the reality of their deaths, and before I knew it, it was 0430, I hadn’t slept, and I felt emotionally drained. It’s very rare that an author can elicit that kind of response from me. I don’t know if I like thinking and feeling so deeply from a fantasy novel that I use for escape, but if that was Ember Lane’s intent, it was masterfully done. If what I’m saying is what you’re looking for in a fictional story, don’t hesitate to continue along this journey. If taking Feel Trips is not your bag of tea though, steer clear, because this one will bite you when you’re not expecting it.

A Fantastic Series

Another great book in a great series. I am eagerly anticipating the next installment. Highly recommended for light litrpg and world building fans.

Not as good as the previous books. Struggled to ..

finish. Will probably not continue this series. So boring and drawn out at times. Cya

A 30hr slog to nowhere

This book is all over the place and actively frustrating to read. The narrator tries his best, but the audio repeats from time to time. The pacing is erratic. The characters are as one-dimensional as they come. And the plot reads more like a horde of miniquests that prevent you from getting anywhere. Worse, the LitRPG aspects simply don't matter to the plot at all.

Buy at your own risk.

Series was so good

Really was enjoying this series, rich characters, an in-depth world with an interesting history. There were lots of cool things going on. Now somehow Nicola Tesla, nanites, and gun powder show up for no apparent reason. Everything else had been built up so well. Now Tesla, who had no inventions related to gunpowder had created cannons with specialized shot in a couple of days. So instead of using a Chinese person to invent and perfect gunpowder, the author uses a rich white guy. The other two inventors are also rich white guys though at least Jethrow Tull did do stuff in agriculture.
It seems to be a trend where LitRPG author is forced to write in the fantasy realm because that is what sells, but they really want to write alternate history. The addition of gun powder is about as well thought out as Kirk making a gun to fight the Gorn Captian, and that was written more than 50 years ago. None of the Alternative History stuff is needed or even fits in the formerly well-built world.
The lead fails his way to victory with the help of repeated deus ex machina.

Needs a womans touch

I like the story, but the women all sound basically the same, and I don't want to talk about the 25 year old sounding children.
Paving is a good narrator, but he needs a female partner for the women, and children's voices.
I had a hard time telling who was talking until a name was mentioned.

20hr Slow Motion Car Chase

There's enough here to keep it interesting. If book 1 and 2 were in the 4.7 - 4.8 range this is a 4.3 - 4.4 at best with the rating mostly saved by the last 3hrs. Interesting move by the author to suddenly stop providing the player analysis, bets, and player rankings. That is the first indication something is off with this book. This book balances heavily towards individual "character depth and development" by telling and not showing which for me translates to abusing the 30 second skip button. I like long books, but this should have been 15hrs tops. Hoping the next book is more focused.

Even when he messes up he still wins.

I keep waiting for the main character to get smarter. But he always falls for the same mistake and somehow gets out of it.

Another good one

I'm very excited to see where this series goes from here. I've really enjoy the whole series so far

Showed promise, became a story of ineptitude.

Bored.

The writer appears to have lost their way. The main character was always a borderline fool, but 4 times now the same mistake has been made to create a plotline and I just cannot accept that someone is completely unable to learn from it. Not even mentioning that the main character appears to be guarded by people as inept as he is. There are plenty of incidents to choose from but specifically after the embassy incident in the previous book, I refuse to believe his guards would allow anyone within 20 feet of the main character. I refuse to believe that his so-called champion would allow anyone in front of the man either.

There's just no growth. None at all. And I don't mean in loot and stats, I mean in character development. It just falls flat and they repeat the same mistakes over and over. Combine terrible plots with poor writing and you have this bland story. A world full of potential, completely wasted by a writers inability to make use of it.

The performance of the narrator is also probably the worst I've experienced on audible to date as well. Dramatic or scenes of battle just feel... cringe and awkward? That's the best way I can describe it.

Bottom line, I couldn't finish this one and don't recommend the series.

Interesting

Good book but honestly the MC and his general could be a bit dumb sometimes. Missing things that clearly look like traps, other than that they great.
Happy to see the other characters progression and look forward to more.