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.

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.

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.

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.

Becoming a boring journey

I enjoyed the first two books, probably because they concentrated more on the RPG side of things. Leveling, stats, bonuses and tactics associated with such. This book delved into magic theory, random offshoot encounters not really related to the main story and general fluff to pad runtime.

The "love interest" storylines seem forced and contrived, young adult pining at it's worst. The secondary protagonist has a flat character arc. Best at everything when she was introduced and still the best at everything with all the answers. Never been challenged or had to work at anything.

Two of the protagonist's "inner circle" are barely mentioned anymore, one wasn't at all except in passing. I think the author replaced him entirely with a new "more interesting" character closer to the protagonist.

The main protagonist randomly gains skills, items, and abilities that are immediately used in the next few pages to save his life. He is now covered in so much plot armor that there is no doubt he could walk into hell naked and come back with the devil's head.

All in all I was looking for some closure and all I got was fifteen more open doors. In a competition with 100 lords vying for title of the land, the main protagonist has taken out the top three on the leaderboard. Not sure how the audience is supposed to remain engaged in a story that has changed gears so many times.

Will not be getting the next book. Shame really.

it is ok.

Ive listen to the past two books. The Mc does dumb stuff constantly. The end of the book he should have lost. if you can ignore the Mc the book isn't that bad.

Not as good as the first two books

Story:

While i am still liking the series and the story is progressing there was some unnecessary eye rolling developments. I understand this is civ building. I understand the system is using "champion recruits" cards, but pulling people from real earth history is kind of silly. Especially when the first one introduced is an overrated inventor with a cult following who the author fanboys over. I would have much preferred the actual characters leveling up and gaining skills, unlocking civ stats though their own knowledge and the university level up system. I would have preferred "heros" from the world they are in, perhaps past contestants with memory wipes or something. Still I like most of the Ellen stuff when she was figuring out stuff on her own. Much of the Edward stuff was OK though not sure the relationship was needed. Conner stuff was ok. Edward and Conner make the same mistakes over and over so that's getting old. Though the next book could close out the series nicely if it focused on the "gods".

Characters:

Still like all the fictional ones well enough. We really need more Sam, Gilbane, and fireman (whose name esacpes me at the moment). The fictionalized earth historical characters can never be mentioned again and i would be happy.

Narrator:
Still doing a great job. Not even anything for me to joke about this review.

Overall:
Story is losing steam for me but i have always been more a fan of straight fantasy and this civ building has progressed beyond that. Characters made some stupid mistakes and author added some unnecessary historical figures that are more annoying than interesting. I think i will finish off the series....assuming it ends in the next book. If you like the series until now i say this is worth the listen.

Wow

I have to say this is a great story.The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is the main character is a punk. But every other character is outstanding. Read it 's worth it.

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

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

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.