He Who Fights with Monsters: A LitRPG Adventure

He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 1

By: Shirtaloon, Travis Deverell

Narrated by: Heath Miller

Length: 28 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's Summary

Selected as one of Audible's best audiobooks of 2021  

Jason wakes up in a mysterious world of magic and monsters.

It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil.

He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.

After cementing itself as one of the best-rated serial novels on Royal Road with an astonishing 13 million views, He Who Fights with Monsters is now brought to you in professionally formatted audio.

©2021 Shirtaloon (P)2021 Podium Audio

Great!

Took a flyer on a new title. This is one that I'm going to keep.

I'm liking the the character development. We see (at least somewhat) believable characters who have moments of insensitivity, moments of apology, and who grow. We have a good-natured protagonist (23 years old, male, Australian) with lots of personality, perhaps fitting some Australian character tropes. I like the way that interactions between teammates are handled.

I'm liking the worldbuilding. Our character has entered a new world. While I do read books with intense worldbuilding, this one has a deft touch. Cities and locations are described in an accessible level of detail, enough to picture the locations without being swamped with details.

Although this is a LitRPG, we really and truly are not inundated with lists of stats. The character receives a new ability. It's named, and that's about it - up until we need to learn more about it. We see sections of his character sheet when they are relevant, we're not inundated with character sheet reviews. It's quite refreshing.

I think the narration's truly great. It's a good performance, easy to listen to, with characters coming to life.

This is well above average for the genre, a book full of personality. 4.5 to 5 stars.

LITRPG at its absolute best!

I don't know what exactly I can say that would do this book the credit its due. I will say that it's probably the very best LITRPG I've ever listened to, bar none. To put that into perspective, I have listened to at least 200 hours of varied LITRPG. I've enjoyed much of it.

The things I love about this book are numerous. Let's start with the main character. Jason is relatable and down to earth. He's got a clever mind and a sharp tongue. The later gets him into vast amounts of trouble while the former just barely helps him manage it, if only by the skin of his teeth. His abilities are unique and quite powerful, but not to the degree that he can just waltz through every circumstance. His power is earned and his skills are gained through a combination of dumb luck, good advice, and a tireless work ethic to become more. Additionally, Jason has friends that are both on his level and above it.

The characters, dialogue, humor, places, and plot arcs are all written incredibly well. In fact, the prose in the book is written so well, it's in a class of it's own in the LITRPG genre. I'm sure many of you are screaming at me "What about The Land? That's some good stuff, right?" Sure, "The Land" is good. This is better in most respects with the exception of 1 thing, which brings me to the only "not the best ever" thing I can say regarding this book: the LITRPG aspects are not very crunchy.

I, for one, am fine with that. There's still loot, inventory, combat logs, health bars, abilities, etc, etc. The book is still LITRPG, but specifics are glossed over. This was done in such a way that I'm sure it was an intentional choice by the author. You see, Shirtaloon avoids numbers. There are no values for health, manage, stamina, or damage. While I do enjoy crunchy LITRPG, doing it right is pretty difficult as the pitfalls of overly verbose repetition, consistency, development trees, etc, etc are numerous. "The Land" is a prime example of a series that suffers from overly repeating itself. (I'm not trying to knock The Land, specifically. I'm merely using it as the basis of comparison regarding LITRPG as it's probably the most well known.)

I haven't listened to any books narrated by Heath Miller prior to this book. I almost didn't use the credit because of that. After listening to the preview and the rest of the book, I can say that Miller nails the narration with all the credit this book is due.

If you like LITRPG, clever main characters, good dialogue, and a book that's just amazingly well written, spend the credit. You won't regret it.

I really like the start of the book But goes downhill

There’s some parts in the book where Jason the main Character Goes on these rants about Political and religious beliefs It seems like it happens over and over again he just keeps bringing it up Which is just annoying another problem with the Story is it seems like every character comes in Contact with Jason becomes new version of Jason. starts off great
I really like the Magic system in place. But Want to say again those rants about political religious views it’s OK to have one or two of those in a Fantasy book I’m not reading or Listening to fantasy books for super deep Thought on power structures of the wealthy and the poor Also It’s a totally different scenario in this universe we don’t have super powers

Can’t take any more

This is the weakest and most inept MC I have ever seen. I get and appreciate the authors attempt to make his transition, into a new world and the pain of losing everything, more realistic. But, he went to far the other way. In addition the MCs personality is so annoying I couldn’t even listen to the book for more than an hour at a time before yelling at my Alexa to stop. The MC handles every conversation with snark, which is funny in small doses, but after hours of the same dang thing over and over and over. I literally yelled out loud “shut up”.
In addition the MC is made to be a side kick, is always a side kick and seems to be lacking anything that makes me want to connect with him. I like almost every other character in the book more than him.
In conclusion this story, world etc has potential but it’s all ruined by the MC

Needed Revision

The book starts off pretty strong, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that the book really needed an editor. There are a number of things that are described nearly verbatim multiple times, and the middle of the story seems to have no real direction. On top of that Jason, the main character, is described as a very ordinary guy and for the first part of the book is written that way, but later in the book he becomes a master of social manipulation as well as a moral philosophy professor. Not only does this feel out of place, his preachiness is kind of frustrating. I would warn religious people that the main character is militantly atheist and, although he overcomes that a bit in terms of the in universe gods, he is incredibly rude about really world religion. Overall, I found myself disappointed because the book had a lot of potential, but ends up being an aimless series of stories about a character who seems wildly inconsistent until the end. 2.5/5

Insufferable protagonist

I am dumfounded by the ratings this book has received, so I am adding this paragraph to explain my rating. To me, a 5 star is a book like Game of Thrones or The Way of Kings. I have no idea how these people are giving this book a 5 star review. I'd be curious to see if they'd give Game of Thrones or The Way of Kings 10 stars out of 5. If you haven't read the Stormlight Archive, get that instead, you will not regret it.

The MC is a smug, self righteous and irritating.
From the very first chapter every falls onto the MC's lap. He doesn't have to work for anything, has no challenges to overcome, and never fails.
He doesn't achieve anything, good things just happen to him. From getting some power up items after killing two big baddies with almost no effort, to being captured just to wind up in prison for the sole purpose of meeting powerful allies, whom he saves.
At one point after only being in this new world for only a few months, he beats 5 seasoned fighters who've trained their entire lives in a training duel. Everyone likes him for no reason, and we're told every likes him, but we're not shown this amazing charm that immediately wins people over. Even his companions point out that it's strange how everyone likes him. Even people that should dislike him inexplicably like him. There's a conversation where another character tells the MC that she doesn't like what he's doing, he responds by saying, "yes you do" and shockingly she smiles and says, "yes I do". The daughter of an noble who hated him in the beginning for humiliating her bother somehow ends up with him. I thought I skipped a chapter, but no. He goes home and she's there.
That's the other thing the real villain of this story is wealth and social status. The MC has no problem telling the inhabitants of this new world how their world is unjust and unfair at every single opportunity he gets. This is a direct quote from the protagonist....
"I'm not sure I can be around that much wealth inequality without going into a socialist rant."
The entire books is peppered with similar gems. Inexplicably all his new allies are rich and powerful, the very things he hates. He himself is rich, granted he didn't earn his money, he took it from an enemy he killed at the very beginning of the story. He's such an enlightened socialist that he doesn't think twice about giving his wealth (that he didn't earn) to a medical clinic because he doesn't need it.
He's also an arrogant atheist despite the fact that there are living gods walking around the world. At one point a god appears in a market and everyone kneels except for him. He just gives a "what's up" head nod, and the god smiles!!
Everything goes his way with little or no effort on his part. EVERYTHING.
As far as the story, I can't even tell you what or who the main villain is. Half this book could have been cut out. There was a side story of a female fighter that I was more interested in than the main story.
This is a hard pass.

Mundain and Preachy

This book could have been so great if the author didn't feel the need to force in their personal views on Atheism, "Privilege", social standing, etc. Really didn't add much value, and I found myself multitasking through these parts to get to the action/development parts of the book which the author did do well.

A great litrpg

This book is a great start to what maybe a topshelf litrpg book. I loved the pacing and character development. I also love that it's long and tells a great story without needing 3 books to do that. One of the things I think is a problem with most litrpgs is that they are like dime novels and are short needing multiple books to finish a story ark. That is not the case for this book if you are a fan of "The Land", "Edens Gate", of "Bushido online", than this book is a great read.

Boring

6 hours in and nothing is going on. They spent like 2 hours on nothing but debate on essence which could’ve been done in maybe half an hour

MC is a moron

Can someone please explain this horrible trend in making protagonists stupid? the story is fine, and I could get past the immature dialogue and juvenile vibe.... but what I can't get past is how unbelievably stupid the MC is. Stories like this should have thier own genre... stupid beta male protagonists are the worst trope hands down.

Wow.

Alright, not much of a reviewer but come on this was just amazing.

If your reading this to see if the book is worth listening to, I'll make it simple, the stories is as fun as its complex, the narration is diverse as well as top notch, and the characters are 4 dimensional. Also if your looking for something that not only latches onto your attention like a leach but also lasts for a ridiculous long time...

Haveing said this, I can still think of one problem-

THE FACT THAT AM GONNA HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT BOOK

Excellent audiobook version of the first arc

To give a little background: He Who Fights With Monsters is an ongoing webnovel (or series... I'm not sure of the correct term), and this is the first 113 chapters of that novel.

Heath Miller does an excellent job of narration, including the readings of the various abilities and other pop-ups the main character, Jason Asano, gets during his adventures in a new world. If I had one, minor complaint, it's that sometimes these pop-ups create run-on segments that are hard to listen to; they work better in a visual format.

For the story itself - your mileage may vary, but for me it's an engaging exploration of a new world with magic and monsters. Itsmain flaw comes from its roots as a webnovel - several times, a concept or event covered in one chapter will be re-explained in a later chapter, sometimes even in the next chapter. As long as you can put up with that happening from time to time, it's a fun listen :D

: )

Long ; which I always like ; and entertaining . A great take on the genre .

Best LitRPG on audible so far.

Pros:
+Inteligent and charismatic protagonist. But not overpowered
+good story
+interesting word
+great character building
+ 29hours of audiobook at once
+ i nearly forgot about the most important thing: By the course of the book, protagonist becomes aware of moral dilemats and he needs to think about consequences of his actions.

cons:
-Hard to find something. Maybe that at the start, the book was rather medicore (but not bad), before it turn out great.

I want to be friends with the main character.

While not strictly the best book or plot in the world, it had me laughing out loud and smiling constantly. The main character is someone I would genuinely like to meet at buy a drink. Most litrpg tends to be shameless power fantasies often surrounding objectively terrible people, however Jason is not so much a white screen to project the readers wish fulfilment on to but instead comes across as a genuine person in his own right who I personally would like to have a beer with.

Refreshing and amusing!

I rarely leave reviews, this book earns one.

After reading or listening to likely a few thousand books throughout my life, I almost always become irritated with the main character's stupidity and/or naivety. This book is different, the main character has a couple of brain cells to rub together, and he's brilliantly quirky.

There are a few minor issues with the book, one phrase about gold rank portals is repeated, and I would have preferred to have less character name insertions in dialogue. However this is greatly over-shadowed by excellent narration and a totally addictive story.

I want more! :)

Sooooo Good!

This is one of the best Litrpg's I have read and I have read a lot. An interesting world with interesting characters. The author could probs have got away with splitting the book into 3 parts but I am really glad they did not as being so long really helped immerse me.

I really enjoy having a smart MC that not only adapts to the world fairly quickly but is also socially and politically adept. MC getting on his high horse felt like the book was being a bit heavy handed with its moral point of view at first but over time it felt more like it was a character flaw than an issue with the writing.

My only real complaint and it is a petty one is the silly incantations the MC uses, they really pull me out of the book for some reason and while over people might have used them in the book I dont remember anyone else doing so which makes it more jarring.

Can't wait for the next one!

Gary said, Rufus said, Jason said, Rufus said

I don't know if the source material had the "said" part after each line of dialog, but it's grating on my nerves, and I couldn't get past the second hour of the book.

Also the book is a lot more gory than others in the genre and so far the mechanics of the powers is a bit confusing.

The narrator was doing a fine job, impersonating different people so the "said","asked",etc. parts could have been greatly reduced.

Great fun!

Amy laugh out loud moments, good fun story and I was totally left wanting more.

Roll on May!

cool

Nice story very engaging with a lot of potential to be a big series =)