Hero Hunter: A Superhero Gamelit Saga

The Heroes Rising Series, Book 1

By: Darren Hultberg Jr

Narrated by: J. Scott Bennett

Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

In a world of heroes, one man lives to watch them fall.

Terrax Prime is one of the safest places in the galaxy, a world-spanning metropolis built on the foundations of order, justice, and law. Terrax also happens to be a birthplace of heroes; humans born with powerful, world-altering super-powers. In service to the prime government, these heroes work to keep the streets of Terrax safe, acting as the world's super-hero police force...or so it seems.

Terrible secrets lie deep within the core of Terrax Prime’s hero program, and one man will do whatever he can to bring those secrets to the surface....

Enter Aiden Grant, the Hero Hunter. Plagued by the scars of his past and armed with a suit of power armor and the augmented reality companion Vella, Aiden will take the fight to the shadowy leaders of Terrax Prime, even if he has to kill every last hero in his way.

©2018 Darren Hultberg Jr (P)2018 Darren Hultberg Jr

I just wish it were longer!

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I'm a huge GameLit/LitRPG fan and felt this was a good, if a bit short, example. It is a slightly different twist on the genre, which I think is a good thing. I thought the narration was fantastic and the story is pretty good. All in all, I enjoyed this one a lot and REALLY wish it were longer! Bring on more Mr. Hultberg!

Excellent

Great addition to the superhero genre. Great characters and I loved the narration. The book is well worth the time 5 ⭐️

Very Well Done

I requested this audio because one of my favorite narrator's performed this. As always he work was excellent.
Not knowing what to expect, I was really pleased to find I enjoy the characters and the new world that was created. I will definitely look forward to hearing more of this series and of course from Mr. Bennett.
This audio was given to me free and I voluntarily gave this review.

Excellent Grimdark Superpowers with Light Gamelit

This is a great addition to the anti-hero subgenre of superpower scifi. The gamelit elements are pretty light and clearly explained, the characters are largely relatable and the narration superb. J. Scott Bennett has the perfect voice for male anti-heros and villians, and draws you in to the emotions of the Hero Hunter. While most of the plot twists are fairly predictable, there is enough originality to keep the story fresh. The story is obviously meant to be the start to a series, but at the time of this review there is only one book in this series. Fortunately, it also works as a stand-alone book with a "life goes on, and not everything is truly resolved" ending. Recommended for fans of The Boys TV show on Amazon or the movie The Specials.

Disclaimer: I was given a free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Fighting for justice as a fugitive

Darren Hultberg creates a very good story with the main character who was a hero, presumed dead by the other heroes he worked with and tried to kill him, turned fugitive by killing other heroes in the corrupt organization and becomes the hero once again. Now that's a plot. J Scott Bennett does an excellent job in narrating the story and keeping you engaged.


"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Awesome

Loved this book great main character can not wait till the next book in the series

Got potential

I really enjoyed the story, however it would have benefited from being about 3 hours longer. It simply felt too rushed, some of the scene changes was a little jarring and I never got the time to get to known and care for the characters the way the author obviously intended.

The narrator has a somewhat limited range, not that the characters sound the same excatly, but that is because of different dialects/accents, not because of different pitches...
Especially the women sounded rather butch

Simple, but fun!

I didn't really know what to expect with this book. Being advertised as 'gamelit' I was expecting this to be a story that takes place in a virtual environment, but that isn't the case. Though it does indeed have a lot of the other elements you see in books of the genre, with various forms of stats of other heroes/villains thanks to the main character's handy AI companion.

The main character is a 'villain' whose only goal is to hunt down other heroes and dismantle the government endorsed hero program. There is a good reason for that and it actually goes to uncover some more interesting mysteries surrounding the hero program and society in the world as well. Imagine the XMen universe if the government were to create a program where those with powers could 'officially' become heroes. That's a rough idea of what's happening here.

The story is enjoyable, albeit pretty simple with very little in terms of surprises, twists or turns. It was mostly predictable due to that, but I still found myself enjoying the action, which I think is the strongest aspect of the story. I was actually surprised at how visceral the action was given the nature of the book, but it felt appropriate to escalate the story a bit when it otherwise might have felt too cheesy. After all, being a superhero story, there's some one liners and monologue.

My main complaint is the lack of characterization for the side characters. There were some really cool and interesting heroes/villains that we just don't really learn much about and I would've liked to see more of them. We learn a lot about the protagonist, but everyone else, even the few that we actually spent quite a bit of time with, still seem really vague to me. The story gives us their 'stats' and lists their powers, but we know next to nothing about who they actually are.

The narrator was great. All the characters sounded different and unique. Quality was fantastic. No complaints there.

Overall, I didn't feel there was anything groundbreaking about the book. Very cool action, straightforward story. It was interesting enough that I would be interested in a sequel to learn more about the world.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Interesting story premise

This is a bit of an unusual superhero book. Set in a somewhat comic book type world where some humans develop special abilities and are then classified according to the number of powers they have developed. It also has hints of LITRPG, in that the Hero Hunter gets a readout of the attributes, strengths and weaknesses of each character he encounters from his A.I., Vella, and is able to level up when pushed to the max. The premise of the story is interesting; the Government trains some of the people with abilities to become “Heroes,” who maintain law and order in the world of the rich and entitled. Anyone with powers that are not in the program are considered villains. Most of the villains and the poor are confined to live in underground ghettos that the government pretends doesn’t exist. In a world of the have and have-nots, the Hero Hunter spends his time living in the ghetto and killing the government trained Heroes. At first you can’t figure out why he does that, but as the story developed you come to understand that all is not how it seems to be, and the lines between good and bad are very blurry. I did enjoy the story, even though the characters tended to lack depth and were a bit difficult to become attached to. The narrator did a good job of keeping my attention, creating tension and you could easily distinguish which character was speaking. It is an action filled story of revenge, vigilantes, betrayal and deceit but I would like to have seen a bit more complexity and dimension to the characters and dialog.

3.5*- More Superhero fiction than GameLit

I've read both superhero fiction and LitRPG in the past few years - although not too deeply into either genre, so take my review with a grain of salt. My two cents are that this audiobook is predominantly superhero fiction and is light on elements of GameLit. If you take away the occasional descriptions of power/speed/agility/etc stats, this story walks and talks just like the pure superhero fiction stories I've read during the past few years. Yes, our (anti-)hero has an AI-assisted inventory of weapons at his disposal, but this seems to be unique to him and not the other superheroes in the story; it's part of his superhero powers/identity. Yes, he's on a quest, but it's not a game-related quest - it's a revenge mission to redress an incident that happened in his past.

Personally, I'm completely comfortable with that, since my preference skews towards superhero fiction rather than LitRPG. But if your preference skews the other way, I'm not certain that your thirst for GameLit will be quenched in this first book of the series.

It's hard to penalize the author for things like lack of character development, since this may come gradually in future installments. We know what motivates his main actions but we don't really get a sense of the main character's (Aidan's) personality. Based on many of his behaviours, he seems to be generally immature and selfish - he doesn't have much depth to his character. I also got restless at times, with secondary characters popping in and out of the story without a smooth transition (e.g., Candace seems to be an integral part of the story for the first part of the book, but then she completely disappears and doesn't even seem to pop into Aidan's mind at all for the rest of the story). Finally, Aidan's revenge quest has been underway for a few years and he has a dauntingly powerful main target in sight, but I definitely had the impression that he hadn't done any pre-planning about how to put down an essentially invincible foe. For a guy who has been stewing in the tarpit of vengeful thoughts for years, it doesn't seem that he did any actual plotting.

It sounds like a lot of negativity here, but the author gives us a sharp little twist at the end of the story - a mini-cliffhanger, I suppose - with an enticing hook that will likely compel readers to check out the next story in the series. I can certainly see why this story receives positive reviews. It's darkly entertaining and I think the author has set the stage for interesting times ahead with future installments.

I've listened to other audiobooks with this narrator. He's a good narrator and I like the way he uses his voice. I increased the playback speed somewhat, to find a narration pace that suited my personal preferences. The only reason why I deducted a star for narration is because I think he's a great narrator but I don't think this was the right project for his particular voice. He doesn't have a young, brash (anti)super-hero voice; the tone and timbre of his voice doesn't align with my mental image of Aidan. I've listened to audiobooks with this narrator in other genres (e.g., dystopian fiction with a wild-west flavour) and the fit seemed to be more authentic and seamless in those other stories.

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