Dungeon Core Academy: Book 1

By: Alex Oakchest

Narrated by: B.C. Archer

Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

You only live once...unless you’re resurrected to become the master of a dungeon.

When Beno died and was offered a second chance as a dungeon core, he dived right in. He joined the dungeon core academy, and he found himself in a new life, where killing heroes wasn’t just accepted, but encouraged. Under the tutelage of the academy overseers, he learned how to make dungeons filled with monsters and traps.

Now, he has finally been given his own dungeon, and he must pass his final test: Either build a dungeon powerful enough to slay heroes, or fail and get smashed up into core dust. 

He will apply all his diabolical dungeon strategy to succeed, but what happens when an unexpected visitor walks into his lair? 

He used to live a normal life. Now, he builds dungeons, creates monsters, and uses them to fight loot-hungry heroes.

©2019 Alex Oakchest (P)2020 Alex Oakchest

Fun Dungeon Core Book

I received a free review copy.

I enjoyed this book. It is about Beno, a guy who dies and becomes a dungeon core. Now he is in Dungeon Academy and is starting out with his first dungeon. Although he lost his memories and some of his humanity, he retains some human qualities. He tries to build the best dungeon he can while being nice to his monsters and working with a little girl, who is more than she seems, and staying possibly, technically within the dungeon academy rules when he can.

I think it is a relatively short, cute dungeon core book. It made me laugh with the human way the dungeon core acts. He develops friendships with his minions and both he and one of his minions act a little cowardly at times, which is funny. It is written a little simply and seems YA at times with how the dungeon core addresses the reader, like someone would speak to a young person. It would be a good first dungeon core book but it is also fun if you like the synopsis above. The narrator fit the book well.

gets bogged down but ok

Cons
the mc rambles about stuff regularly. i think the author thought it would be funny but most of the time you just want the story to move on. theres a part around 1 hr 20 min where he rambles for 10 minutes about how hes imaging hes doing something. ok you dont have to tell us every time he imagines doing something we get that hes a gem and cant actualy shake his head.

pros
i like most of the characters.
the story itself is pretty good.
the world is interesting.
theres hints of deeper truths behind the scenes.

final notes.
the rambling drove me nuts.
i think some more proof reading and editing could have cleaned this up a bit and made it a better book

I liked it - will definitely continue the series

This is a fun and very entertaining Audiobook. It’s light hearted for the most part and you really get to know and love Beno and his clan-mates ( these are the creatures he creates in his dungeon) It starts off with a brand new dungeon core (Beno is his name) and he starts with nothing except for an empty room and very low stats. He has to build an entire dungeon so that heroes will come but he has a lot of leveling and work to do first. It’s a really fun story and I liked it a lot. It is not a hardcore blood and guts story and I was glad. It’s more fun and there is some blood but not too excessive. I’m am so anxious for the next book in the series.

Pretty Good

I'm new to the LitRPG genre - but am a long time MMO gamer. I just couldn't stop listening to this story. It was so good and the characters were so likable. I thought the Narrator was fabulous and was so pleasant to listen to. Looking forward to book 2 :)

Interesting

Overall, I found the story interesting and a break from fantasy norms. A needed breath of fresh are from the average tropes.

an interesting entry into a new series

this is an interesting entry into a new series about dungeon chords the one big hang-up is the ending it was too short and the way he describes it if your into Duncan course then this may be a little simplistic but this is a good starter for someone who's just getting into the genre

Not too bad at all...

Liked the story - has a young adult sort of entry level feel to it but it was good. I wlll definitely listen to the next in series.

Superior performance and an excellent book

I could not stop listening. Outstanding story and performance. If you ever played D&D or any version of it, like world of Warcraft and alike, you would absolutely love this book. Can not wait for book #2!

blues clues

the book is written like the kids show blues clues. there is no 4th wall here, it was destroyed and obliterated early in chapter one ...

Interesting twist, but not able to withstand it.

Narrator was decent, but the story was just bad. Good premise but desperately needs refinement.

Not Bad but certainly not good either

Okay, I’ve heard a lot of Dungeon Core books by now, this one seems to be written for a young audience and narrated for them too.
There are a number of inconsistencies in the story, a character levels up to lvl 4, but is constantly referred to as a level 3 character there after. Another character, a level 14 miner, needs a level 3 (4 actually) miner to dig things because they can’t.
There are virtually no stats given, which I was kind of happy with.
I haven’t heard anything written nor narrated by either of these two people before, I won’t go out of my way to find anything by them.