Fragments

Somnia Online, Book 3

By: K.T. Hanna

Narrated by: Andrea Parsneau

Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

Somnia is evolving, and Murmur is confronted with enemies both old and new. She must lead her guild, Fable, through a dungeon filled with riddles and puzzles to claim the first of 12 keys required to achieve victory. But things are not as they seem: Glitches abound, enemies rally against Fable, and unexpected threats move in the shadows.

As the system becomes increasingly complex, Laria and Shayla battle through mismatched coding, and Storm Corp discovers they’ve left some anomalies in the game out of their reports. Anomalies like Wren. 

With the report deadline looming and errors riddling the system, Laria’s house of cards is about to come crashing down.

©2018 Katie Hanna (P)2018 Katie Hanna

Great listen; rough cliffhanger

Great addition to the series, but the ending was quite abrupt. Felt like everything is up in the air as the book ended

Snooze Fest

Ugh. About halfway through. Not sure if I can continue. Book 3 and MC is STILL raging at her friends for not telling her she was uploaded to the game. Same boring intrigue about AI who are out to get her, her mother STILL whiny and guilty about daughters condition. This is book 3 people. Let's move on and get over it. Boooooorrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!

let's just say dammit

fucking cliffhanger God I want more of this series at first I didn't want to even listen to it damn this series is good it reminds me of . hack sign

Loved it!

I enjoyed the third book in the Somnia Online series, and I'm looking forward to discovering where this story will go next. Andrea Parsnaeu did a fantastic job, as always.

Murmur is back and ready for battle

Whelp, we make it back to the land of Somnia, and things have really improved. If you saw my review of the last book you’d know that one of my biggest issues was the war that Murmur just snapped over her predicament and how it sort of drove the entire story. Well, good news, while we see a few brief glimpses of her anger over how she was treated for the most part, this book just gets back into the business of her leveling and learning bits and secrets of the world she is trapped in. Honestly, this is the way the last book should have gone. Murmur’s acceptance could have come a lot sooner and the way she dealt with her coming to terms with things.
As things go, the book picks up where the last one left off, but also picks up its tone. To me the last book was really about some self pity and misplaced anger. This book returns to the hopeful Murmur that I really enjoyed before. The other characters also transition from background people to actually having some sort of personalities and depth other than protect Mumur. Not that they weren’t developed before, but here they all get chances to shine.
Mur and her team tackle two dungeons, in search of some keys to the world that will provide them with greater power to deal with upcoming events. I want to stress that is a pleasant surprise to not just get hampered down with the usual smash and slash mentality that usually infuses LIT novels. The characters actually think and use their heads in order to succeed. It’s nice to get that, even though I can respect the other just as much. I like a good beheading just as much as seeing someone use their head in a game.
Its also nice to see Hanna changing the game up with the AI stuff as well. There is far more afoot than even the top game controllers seem to know, which means either things are really going pear shaped in the game, or one of the AI’s is flat out lying about what they know. If it’s the latter I know everyone is going to be putting their money on a certain crazy AI who just wants to eat braiiiiiiins, but I don’t think he is that sneaky.
Either way, this story has some real depth, and the danger that Mur is in continues to grow, both inside and outside of the game world. She is only partially aware of what is really going on around her and of all the plots that stand to kill her permanently one way or another. I think Hanna really got her footing back with this story, and that’s not to say that she didn’t do well on book two, but you can plainly see that she gained her traction back with this book. The characters all pop, the plot is no longer derailed by Murmur’s anger, and seems amped up with the growth that she is finally beginning to display. While Mur seems to grow more in levels than she does emotionally this book finally gives us both, and it was pretty cool. I enjoyed this.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat myself here. Andrea Parsenau just continues to grow as a narrator. The woman can infuse so much emotion into the most minute dialogue that it forces me to say that not all of the best actors are on screen or win academy awards. She vocally animates this book, and brings it to life in a way that is rarely captured on screen. For an audiobook it is absolutely magical. She makes me see facial expressions that are fully realized when a character speaks, and she can drive a scene like Mario Andretti in the Mach 5. I apologize to anyone under the age of thirty that did not get that reference. All I can say is look it up. Point is this lady is true master vocalist and she can tell a story.

Final score is an 8.3 stars. This serialized novel finally feels like it has a purpose and a direction that the first one had, and I am glad to see it get some serious legs.

3 down

I don't know but I feel I should apologize. I have been growing bored with Murmur, I find more of my interest going towards Rash. Here's hoping things change with Murmur, but Rash is my favorite character. of course a large part of that is our completely different play style, where Wren finds my style annoying as well.

no character growth

main character seems to have absolutely no personal growth just non stop anger, complaining, and blaming everyone for everything and never trying to make her situation better at all

Good character development

I like seeing how Murmur continues to come to terms with what is happening. I love seeing where her character is headed and how each realization changes her course.

Intense!

Back into the world of Somnia. Things are getting intense. People are stretched thin, emotions running rampant and the game is getting tougher as they level up. Wren's mind is feeling the strain of it all. I hope Telvar and the others can get it figured out!

Awesome

As the difference in reality becomes less and less for her I find her thoughts going more dark. And after this last great fight to have the system crash leave it in a very dangerous place. Absolutely can't wait to start the next one.

Not great

Honestly this last instalment was painful to listen to the plot progression is slow with a constant repeats, also anger is not character building it’s lazy this is where I leave this series I don’t want to waste my time anymore

Well, this is getting old.

More of the bad parts from the first two books with the poor narrator doing her best to build tension with the poor material.

It's a mess. A spiralling mess of whining and hypocritical thinking with looped explanations. The underline story is also becoming hard to care about, but meh, the story has all the depth of a child's paddling pool at this point anyway so I guess that's not a real problem.

It's pretty much an entire book of repetitive whining character arguments. As in, the same arguments again and again. As in, the same arguments again and again. As in, the same arguments again and again... These have plagued the story since the start of book two, which continue to the very end of this book which, I'll bet you anything here, will probably continue throughout the next one too. Not hard to see where the story is going through, and it isn't going anywhere good or not gone before.

The author also has some pretty low-rent knowledge of AI, but it's their world so that's a feature I guess and not a bug.

I think I've got one more in me before I call it quits to this series. It's background noise.