Dungeon Born

Divine Dungeon Series, Book 1

By: Dakota Krout

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

A powerful dungeon. A sheep-herder turned Noble. Their path to ascendance through cultivation. 

Conquering dungeons and using them to grow has long been the most efficient way to become a powerful adventurer. The only thing keeping the process from being easy is the Beasts that inhabit these places. Questions plague those entering this particular place of power: Where do the "rewards" of weapons, armor, and heavy gold coins come from? Why is a fluffy bunny charging at me? For abyss-sake, why are there so many monsters? 

Cal has all of the answers to these age-old questions for a very simple reason. He is a Dungeon Core, a soul forced against his will into a magical stone. With the help of an energetic friend, Cal grows a dungeon around himself to bring in new sources of power. 

When a threat he doesn't fully comprehend bares its many teeth, Cal is determined to survive the attempt on his life. Unfortunately for adventurers, the only way for him to achieve his goal is to eat anyone that enters his depths. 

©2016 Dakota Krout (P)2017 Tantor

Good book but some dialog is cringe-worthy

I thought this was a good book however, dialog between Cal and another character are extremely cringe worthy. The other side of the tale and he's growth with the humans was much more interesting. Don't want to introduce spoilers but you'll notice the cringe worthy dialog within the first few chapters.

The narrator was great.

Just a heads up.

In this series the narrator changes without warning a few books in. The transition is jarring and awful. The new reader doesn't even attempt to stay along similar voices as the previous. I wish I was warned.

Good story, voices less so...

So I read this first, then listened later. It may just be me, but the "voice" of the dungeon (Cal) and wisp get incredibly irritating. I know the dungeon is "young" but it was hard for me to finish because of that. Your mileage may vary...

Couldn't finish

I am not sure if the story was any good because of narrator. Excessive pitch and volume changes accompanied by incorrect inflections made it too difficult to listen to.

A Gem in the RPG/Fantasy Genre

I stumbled upon this book while sifting through the Audible store. It sounded like a fun twist on the RPG World style fiction that I have recently been drawn to. What I did not expect is how quickly I would get drawn into the world that Dakota was spinning. This story takes you through the nostalgia filled settings of many a great RPG/Fantasy World from a perspective that I never even thought to envision; through the eyes of a young and only recently sentient Dungeon Core. You the dungeon through discovery after discovery as it comes into it's own developing itself into a great dungeon worthy of the best adventurers. Dakota weaves the mechanics of the symbiotic relationship between Dungeon, Adventurer, and Society as all grow and evolve around each other.

With the Audiobook, Vikas Adam excellently portrays the childish wonder behind the young and growing sentience that is the Dungeon Core. I feel Vikas portrayed the personalities of Dakota's characters so well that, even though I am dying to move on to book two, I feel I must wait for the next Audiobook to be released so that I can experience the book in all the excellence that is created via the pairing of Dakota and Vika's work.

I highly recommend checking this book out and I will be sharing it with all my friends.

Not Bad

Any additional comments?

The book has some interesting things in it like a world where an adventurers' guild is something difficult to get into but gives huge rewards like extended life. Or where a dungeon core is sentient and can analyze things at a molecular level and reproduce them from the ambient magic.

So yeah, cool ideas, but only an alright book. It was worth my time as kind of a background noise that I didn't have to think too much about. Wish fulfillment and escapism I suppose. There are better examples of everything in this book, but if it sounds good to you, I think it is worth picking up. I hope the second book follows the sentient dungeon core Cal more though.

Very interesting premise. Disappointing execution.

I like the ideas, world building, and arc of this story, but I feel like it's let down by poor overall writing and performance. I think the author might be fairly new, I'd like to see how his next books turn out.

A fun concept poorly executed

To anyone who enjoys fantasy RPG games, including old school paper Dungeons & Dragons, the premise of this book is an interesting one. Why are there so many dungeons around just sitting there waiting for a party of adventures to come and plunder them? How did they get there and where did the monsters come from? What do those monsters in each room do all day long when the dungeon is not being raided? How can a rat drop a helmet twice its size as loot after it is killed? Well this book attempts to explain all of that and while a tongue in cheek book about the illogic of fantasy RPG video games may sound like fun, let me tell you why you might want to avoid this one.

This review serves as a word of warning to anyone interested in this book that you should put some extra effort into your screening process before deciding to pick it up. The book itself is fun at times but the majority is mediocre at best and sometimes it is just downright poorly written. This makes me question the many 5 stars ratings of this book on Amazon and Audible. Even very popular, best selling works by talented authors don't garner such ratings. My advice to you is that you should go out of your way to look at some of the lower rated comments on Amazon as well as the good ones to allow yourself to form a balanced opinion. Don't forget that people who return the book on Audible don't get to post a review.

The over-emoted narration of the audiobook is often beyond annoying with the first few hours of dialogue between the dungeon and the wisp being quite painful. I certainly encourage you to listen to the sample here on Audible to decide for yourself if the narration is ok for you or not. Note that they carefully avoided the really bad over-emoting in the audio sample but you can still experience a few hints of it. Vikas Adam clearly has talent but any time there is dialogue between the dungeon and the wisp his reading makes me cringe.

I quickly decided during the very annoying first few hours of the book to return it to Audible to get my money back, which made me wonder why the other reviews did not warn me off. So I decided to finish listening, just in case there was indeed a 5 star listen hiding behind a slow start, but sadly, there is not. At least by not returning it I can post this review to offer a different opinion, but I suspect it will get buried by unhelpful votes from those behind the skewed ratings.

The Dungeon is Alive!!

I had heard this story compared to Ready Player One, but where that was a futurist game going back to earlier well known games, this one was more like going back to beginning game programming. Back when you programmed in DOS. I remember writing little programs where first you learned to put a pixel character on screen, then learned how to move the character around, then learned to make the character interact with other things you programmed. This book reminded me of that. First Cal learned to create things, then learned to move them around, then each time he would see how his little monsters interacted, he would go back and re-do them to make them better.

I think this would be teen - young adult range, but as a (sometimes) adult I still enjoyed the story and would go onto the second in this series, just to find out all the changes the dungeon would come up.

Since I listened to this as an audiobook, the narrator, Vikas Adam, did a good job on all the characters. The Dungeon Heart (Cal) and his little willow-o-wisp (Danny) were portrayed in young pre-teen voices and like most pre-teens they seemed to get into little arguments over nothings. Vikas did a good job portraying their teen angst.

Lackluster storytelling.

Reads like a video game tutorial written to sell future games in the series. Interesting concept, but no closure to the story, it just stops.

The performance of the book is excellent, though.

loved it

great book. alittle daft but lots of fun. well worth a read. give it a go.

Fantastic Book

Any additional comments?

Whilst, for my personal taste some of the voices felt off, I loved every moment of this book, and am eagerly awaiting book 2. Throughout the experience of listening to the novel, not once did I feel bored or had to force myself to continue; each and every chapter added to the book in an interesting way.I really did love listening to this. (Apart from some minor voice issues)

dungeon born?

Well let's just say the book isn't the only dungeon born. after listening to this I feel as if I'm a dungeon born too! this book is a must read it is fun light hearted and has amazing characters. I love the authors way with words, it really captures you inside of the story

Amazing

I could not put this book down! It was so full of descriptions that brought the images clearly to mind, a growth and magic system that made sense, a new concept and view on gaming dungeons from the view of the dungeon. I fell in love with this series and just can't wait to see how it grows. Danni and Cal are wonderful and the battles as well as the mechanisms just make so much sense to me. I introduced my other half to the series shortly after and am currently rereading them with him.

unique and great fun

In the fantasy genre this is, unique. I can't say I have ever read anything so totally original. Apart from being in the fantasy genre, it stands alone. I don't want to spoil it at all and suggest you read it to find out why it really is so good and original. Great fun and compelling read, loved it. Highly recommended.

Brilliant idea let down by sloppy writing

I really wanted to enjoy this book. The idea is original and exciting with so much scope for bringing a wonderful genre to life in a fresh way, however the writing just isn't strong enough to carry the premise to its full potential. There are some truly awful moments with plagiarised jokes "don't call me Shirley" (Airplane) and really lazy moments, "it was dark, until it wasn't" (not exact quote) but there are several of these moments.
Vikas Adam is clearly a talented voice artist however here it is very much a case of trying to hard. Some voices are overdone to the point of being unbareably annoying and as a result any possibility for character nuances are entirely lost.
I would only recommend Dungeon Born to die hard fans of the fantasy genre or D&D games; give it a go and see if you are happy to overlook it's many shortcomings and make it to the second book, sadly not for me.

Great! ...but Dani's voice though

I have read all the books and I wanted to listen to it while doing other things but the vikas Adam's voice doesn't fit well with Dani and some others which can grate on my nerves so... Best book ever but not the narrator

Funny, original and fast paced

Excellent book with very funny original story lines. Fun and tast paced, worth a read

Great Concept, Novice Writer

The best part of this book is the concept of an entire Dungeon being a kind of Mimic and forming a symbiosis with Dungeoneers for food while giving them loot.

The worst is that the author isnt that great at writing stories. Its not bad and has its moments which were quite amusing but he needs to learn more, refine his ability. Same goes for the voice actor used too.

Im giving no2 a shot as I did enjoy the ride.

Solid magic and dungeon fantasy romp series

Entertaining high power fantasy series, decent enough characters, fresh 'magic/lvling' system.

Story is more or less split between two MC's, a dungeon core and a young adventurer. Allows for a story to develop from two perspectives, discovering the world through both their views.

Later on more political, ethical, class and fantasy racial issues come into play, but the focus remains on personal character development.

Remains fairly 'grown-up', faux-flirty maybe, but no oversexed, contrived relationships.

Does not pull its punches when describing bodily harm however! This world is pretty brutal and gorey! Goes beyond broken bones and bruises often!

Cons:
- Magic/progression system in the world is not intuitive! Reader needs to keep in mind what 'Essences', 'Chi' and 'Meridians' mean and interact in order to understand what is going on.
- Some balancing issues, plot-holes creep in over time. High level characters are so much more powerful (basically Supermen) than normal people that a normal society seems increasingly unlikely. Low level people are sometimes cherished, protected and useful, yet also very expendable, die all the time.
- Female characters bit one dimensional, also rarely get hurt in a world with acid baths and where arms get ripped off.
Sometimes a bit too 'punny' (the dungeon core especially)
- Characters seem to have random mood swings, sometimes character emotions just 'happen' with no preamble, explanation or insight into their thoughts/state of mind.

Nevertheless: Entertaining fantastical tale.