Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds

Serious Probabilities, Book 1

By: Jonathan Brooks

Narrated by: Miles Meili

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

In a world dictated by probabilities, Clay was an anomaly....

Thousands of Heroes protect the land, defending against the periodic incursions by gigantic monsters known as World Threats. This was the way it had always been, and Clay Shuntwise was perfectly fine with that. Running deliveries for his family’s shop in the sleepy town of Renton, the young teenager barely even thought about Heroes and their role in keeping the world safe. 

That was, at least, until the world came crashing down on him. 

Reborn into the brand new and unfamiliar form of a Dungeon Core, Clay struggles through learning more about Heroes and the dungeons they delve through to get stronger. According to the guide that was trying to help him understand his new life, however, because he was a former Hero, Clay should already know most of what he needed to succeed; all of the finer parts regarding the relationship between Heroes and dungeons, including information about probabilities and drop rates, should be common knowledge. 

The problem? Despite wishing that he had been that lucky in his past life, Clay had never been a Hero…but now, he might be forced to become one, though not quite in the way he ever expected. 

This book contains Dungeon Core, LitRPG, and GameLit elements including dungeon construction and defense, monster summoning, character progression, and a game-like interface. In addition, many of the probabilities the world is based upon are similar to Gacha-type mechanics. Contains no profanity, harems, or explicit sexual content.

©2020 Jonathan Brooks (P)2020 Jonathan Brooks

Bland

This book is a clear deviation from Brooks’ norm. Brooks is one of the better Dungeon Core authors on audible. While I wouldn’t consider him the best he is still very good. This series is no where near his best work. Let’s break this down a bit.

First let’s go over the dungeon itself. The entire mechanic behind how he builds his dungeon is based off of Mobile Gotcha style games. He has a currency that he spends on a loot crate style menu and gets random drops from it. Everything from the monsters to the traps are dependent on this system. It’s not even unique to this dungeon. Everything about this system is like LISTENING to someone play a bad gotcha game every chapter it’s in. Even the Adventurers’ powers, classes, and items are dependent on this mobile game RNG mechanic. There’s nothing creative in this mechanic and there’s no interesting utilization of this feature.

Okay, so the mechanics of the dungeon and adventurers are bland. What about the characters? Nope, nothing to see here either. The dungeon’s only real character trait is that he doesn’t like cats. That’s it. His helper is equally bland. It only serves to spit out exposition and has the personality of a vegetable. The main adventuring party is copy pasted tropes with zero real defining character traits, headstrong warrior, stern collected mage, cocky rogue, shy healer, and prissy noblewoman bard.

This book is a bunch of troupes with an attempt at an original concept thrown against a wall hoping for something to stick. Zero real effort was put into this. Safe yourself some time and purchase one of his other books instead.

Outstanding Read

Unlike other dungeon core books, this one has an excellent explanation of why dungeons exist and emphasizes cooperation between dungeons and heroes. I really enjoyed it.

try his other books

I liked Jonathan Brooks other books but this one is just muh, with little character development or just characters you don't care about and a world that could have been interesting but isn't.

Odds are you’ll like this...

If you enjoy dungeon core novels, you will enjoy this book. The author explores another fun concept in running a dungeon. The characters exploring the dungeon are interesting and create fun group to read about. The voice actor does a very good job at narrating this novel world.

wonderful dungeon story!!!

Great story and narration!

The son of a merchant gets killed by a world threat and finds himself reincarnated as a dungeon core. Not having experienced the life of a hero he finds himself in the incredible unlikely position of having to help level up heroes without knowing how things work. With nothing but a penchant for numbers and a tiny dragon to guide the way he must prepare new heroes to fight future world threats.

The narration was outstanding and really brought the characters to life!

I love this story it was a lot of fun!!!

I can't wait to find out what happens next!

My Newest Favorite Dungeon Series

Jonathan Brooks has outdone himself with this book. I am already a fan of his other series, but this one reaches new heights. Only he could make a compelling narrative based on scammy lootbox games. I can hardly wait for the next installment!

Great beginning

Definitely a great beginning to a new series. A different take on aquiring monsters than the usual.

A great listen .

I really liked this latest Dungeon Core book. This book was different from the authors other Core books I had listened to. The mechanics took a little longer for me to catch onto but I liked the scenario and the main characters a lot. If you have read or listened to any of Mr Brooks other works you should continue with this latest iteration.

So many probabilities, so little time.

Well, I hope you like gacha systems, as this dungeon has them in spades. This is unquestionably the most game like system for one of his Dungeon Core series yet, focusing towards random loot boxes and gacha systems. Beyond that, it has a very interesting setting and the story is nearly as gripping as The Hapless Dungeon Fairy, making it one of his better ones yet. The Dungeon Helper is also the most interesting one yet, in my opinion, which is no small feat considering what many of the other Dungeon Helpers have been like. Finally, the protagonist himself is almost under-powered, sort of, for the situation and he has to struggle to catch up fast enough to make the difference needed to save people, which is no small challenge as he gets an uncertain time limit to do it in. Overall, one of his best books yet, and I'm looking forward to the next entry.

This great could not stop listening

I really enjoyed this book characters are really well-thought-out in the dungeon cornet self has a very great backstory. I can't wait for the next book in April 2 come out.

Good story

I like the change and new perspective for Dungeon Core. I definitely look forward to the next one

Interesting ideas to start this new series

While there are obviously a number of elements you need to have in a dungeon core novel/series, the author does a good job with this first book in his new series in finding some new twists and angles to take to ensure the basic premise feels fresh.

Using an idea such as adventurers respawning and thus both them and the dungeon growing in parallel rather than a dungeon being actively altruistic or antagonistic makes a nice change in this sub-genre. There also being more fundamental links between the presence of dungeons and adventurers is an interesting premise to setup as one of the foundations of the world-building too and some of the grindier/gacha aspects of the levelling process also works fairly well as a main mechanic in the world too, the balance of explaining the mechanics sufficiently and avoiding repetition was maintained well in the book too. Oddly enough, despite the name of the book and series, one aspect that didn't really work for me was the focus on the odds and probabilities, it makes sense to know this stuff in the actual games that use such mechanics, but it just felt like pointless padding in this book, although there is still time for it to actually matter in subsequent books.

The performance of the narrator was good overall with suitably distinctive tones for the main cast and avoiding the trap of caricature when voicing characters of the opposite gender.

Overall, a good blend of world-building for the series as a whole and telling enough of a story to make this instalment work in it's own right too.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

great story well narrated

good balance told between two viewpoints with enough but not too many stats. Very well narrated conveying additional depth to the characters.


Will be looking out for book 2

Interesting Concept of a Gacha Dungeon Core

First and foremost I love the few twists that Jonathan does balancing the story of the D.C. and the Heroes, it is such a good way to create the environment for the whole story and that is what keeps me wanting more of his books.
The narration by Miles is really good pace and understanding.
Give this book a chance even if you don't like Gacha games. The story is really good.

Super enjoyable listen!

Really enjoyed this one. Great storyline and development of both the dungeon and characters. The cats thing was a cool theme once explained! Strongly suggest giving this one a go!

A bit of a gamble

You could call it a LitClickerRPG book, the story overall was enjoyable enough, but the focus was on grinding. No value for life enter the dungeon kill as many monsters as possible, hope for lucky drops, rinse repeat.
The dungeon building was basic. Both sides of the story were about getting lucky with loot boxes.
Lots of probabilities covered that had little impact on the story.
It was well read and the characters were nice enough.
Not the best book ever but by no means bad.

Very good dungeon Core

Reborn as a dungeon core, Clay has to learn a whole new way of living guided by Dwight the dungeon guide. great characters as usual with this author and a good solid game mechanic with a twist from the normal. There are lots of stats tables but they are presented as separate chapters so if you don't like stat updates they can be skipped. Personally I like them, it is Litrpg after all. Miles Mili puts on a great performance.

The gacha dungeon

Overall very likable characters and story. This dungeon core story is delivered in a well thought out world of heroes and monsters. The rules that govern the dungeon and hero growth are both consistent and detailed, ehile not being overly convoluted.

If you hate cats you might just have found a kindred spirit in this young dungeon core

One of the better Dungeon Core Books

I got this book as part of a code give away from the author but that hasn't effected my opinion of this book at all. This is a fresh take of some of the usual Dungeon Core books with monsters and traps bought by the DC in a gotch'a style mechanic with random drops instead of the DC deciding they want say a goblin or something they could get a rat or it could be as good as a golem. It's a nice detail and changes things up a bit. The world building is also handled quite well by being done conversationally rather than through exposition dumps. Now the not so great bits. The characters while not bad really need more fleshing out as we learn very little about them. The author also needs to work on the mini chapters of stat dumps. I like crunchy litrpgs but these are a bit too often and too long. All that being said, the story was enjoyable and the narrator was great and I can't wait for book 2 and will be looking at some of the authors other books

Brilliant! Bring me the next book!

Let me get this out of the way: I don’t like Dungeon Core books. I’ve tried several and have never wanted to continue the series. Usually the “fairy” that is supposed to assist the new dungeon core is just too annoying or cutesy or stupid. It must be traditional or something because every book I’ve read has been like that. This book had a little of that but it wasn’t bad and it made sense, but I won’t spoil it by explaining more.

The one thing I love about LitRPG is the stats and there is just the right amount here! I loved every moment of it, although the monster lists did get to be a bit long, but still good.

The main character who became the dungeon core was likeable and his evolution as a dungeon core made sense. I can totally agree with his dislike of cats! He still did a couple of stupid things without asking first but almost all of them made sense. The one exception was where he exchanged life for things he could’ve bought eventually from the store. Oh, yes. The idea of the dungeon core having to “buy” eggs from a store (much like in-game purchases) to randomly get monsters or traps is novel and worked very well.

The reason for dungeon cores (to train heroes) and the reason for heroes (to fight world-threatening monsters) makes sense. The way they are selected and what happens if they decide to quit are also well handled. The main group of 5 heroes was interesting, although I’m conflicted about the support character (you know, the woman with the enormous...). Having no real attack or defense and having to dance and sing to use their power??

The world-threatening event was well handled as well.

Despite one or two niggles there is much more to recommend this book. Well worth a listen and I will definitely get the next one in the series.

I received a free copy of this book and chose to write a review.