Inflame

By: Dakota Krout

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

Invasions and sabotage. Two civilizations doing anything to exist. War crimes are the norm.

Joe takes his first step into exile, and is promptly unable to breathe. This new Zone has a higher concentration of power, magnitudes denser. His first task is to survive, but mere survival is the least of his concerns.

The Zone he has landed on has been in a state of constant war for thousands of years, a tug of war between the Elven and Dwarven societies. Not choosing a side is the same as declaring both to be your personal enemy. Though he is resistant, Joe reluctantly decides to go with the group he thinks will help him grow the most - and is instantly plunged into their bitter war. To gain the freedom he desires, Joe needs to turn to the less savory aspects of his class.

Engulfed by darkness, Joe can only hope he’ll be able to snuff out the light.

©2021 Dakota Krout (P)2021 Mountaindale Press

i question the 5 star reviews, and so should you..

This is the 2nd book by Luke, and the 3rd book by Dakota K. that is literally painful for me to listen to. It’s so painful that I spent most of the entire thing zoned out, attempting to rewind, and then zoned back out again. I’ve said it in other reviews, when Luke decides to do a “goofy” character voice, he either sounds like he’s gargling marbles, his voice goes up 100 octaves, or he comes off as a cartoon bear on Nickelodeon. I actually like many of Luke’s books, but not when he goes this route with his voices. I also felt he was the wrong Narrator for a super dark and brutal Aleron Kong book (God’s Eye) as well.

Now, for the story, it fails on almost every level. There’s is an almost complete lack of excitement for the listener throughout, and when something exciting does happen, it’s so quick that it’s over in a couple minutes. Joe is becoming extremely BORING to follow around. In fact after this pretty much solo Joe story, I’m starting to wonder if his character was only interesting in the past books because of the additional characters. This book was nothing but filler. Yes the annoying dwarves were written as morons with stupid names, but I’m starting to think it’s just the way D.K. writes and that they personally think the “broski” puns are comical. Honestly this book was awful and a chore to finish. I’m undecided if I will return it yet, but I’m close to being done with this series, and even closer to being done with D.K. I guess I’m not the same as many of these reviewers. I also hated Divine Dungeon, although I figured it’s just because Vikas Adam’s narration was terrible, but I loved the spin-off with Travis Baldree. Makes sense somebody else wrote it and just used D.K.’s name and series to connect into.

Everything that is strictly written by D.K., other than the previous books in this series is pretty bad, and now it seems like this series is headed down the toilet too. 14 hours of time wasted. I would seriously consider the bad reviews of this book. They’re all pretty honest and align with my own thoughts about this nothingness I just listened to.

It was okay

The story wasn’t the best and it wasn’t the worst. The injection of some mayhem was nice towards the end but still it felt like a general setup and a bit of fan service. The book also filled in some major plot holes, added some new characters, brought back a fan favorite, and introduced the reader/listener to the new zone and the way it works. Only this time it was faster than books 1 and 2 at that so he’s getting into the flow of writing this series more which is great to see. Still doesn’t change the fact that I hate filler books and this very much felt like one. Feel free to disagree and it was nice to see some quests finished and plot holes filled but in the end I was underwhelmed with the story on the whole. There were parts that were fun and I won’t deny that you should make up your mind in the end about the story.

Daniels’ performance on the other hand was superb as always. Getting used to him as the replacement narrator for this series was jarring at first and still is to some degree but he’s still incredible at his job. Also that bloopers reel at the end was well worth the cost of the book alone. There are some new voices and some clever inflection at the right times I hefted just enough humor to capture the silly nature of this series. I mean sure the races are in death games that end in subjugation but the story at its heart is about a socially inept guy making waves wherever he goes, and Daniels does a fine job of showing both the whimsical side and the serious side of the text.

I want to like it

I really want to enjoy this book, however it's quite boring. I love Dakota Krout but this book missed all of the marks of the previous books for me. Luke is great as always, no complaint there. I guess, I had alot of hopes for what this book might be and it was none of those things.

A disapointing turn in the series

I really enjoyed the series up until this point, even putting up with the switch in narrators to Luke Daniels, but this book is honestly a pretty big departure from previous installments and is frankly frustrating to listen to thanks in large part to that major shift and it leaning into the weakness of the narrator.

The setting is essentially completely changed, almost all of the progress from previous books is destroyed or thrown out, many abilities are either forgotten or ignored, and a lot of the established characters are just gone, and basically every character in the book is stupid and/or annoying along with some really poor accent choices from the narrator to accentuate this. The main character is constantly dealing with setbacks to the point where there is something new and dumb every chapter.

I do think the author has put out some pretty good books in the genre before, and I will still keep an eye on their work, but this is another series of theirs I am going to end up dropping sadly. If you are tired of the established system, characters, and story line of the series then just drop it, don't change everything.

A disappointment

I hate giving this a bad review I love DKs books but why oh why would he think this book would be interesting Joe always chooses the most boring/useless class upgrades why couldn’t he choose something more fun possibly combat oriented the world is awesome with so much potential but it’s just so boring which sucks cause I’ve been looking forward to this book since November.

Lame Filler? Confusing plot.

I don't know where to begin, The choice of words used by Dwarfs and Elves are so annoying. I swear to god if I hear "hey bro" or any variation of bro I think I might vomit. Combine this with the Elves equal annoying Boston accent made this book so hard to get through. Luke makes it even worse as he must have been given guidance to really drive home the speech of these two races to be super annoying....and he succeeded 100%. We don't get to interact with any of our other characters save for one. I wont say who but they are just thrown in and it's never explained how they got to this point etc. Just made it feel very slap dash. The pacing is crazy too you will have weird lulls and then super fast pacing all the time. By the end I almost felt I would have to listen to this book again as I feel I must have missed things as how the MC gets from one point to another made me feel as if I fell asleep and missed a chapter. However that is not the case its just this weird mix of soft world building and hard world building happening all at once. Oh he wants to describe this new system like all at once real quick and then other times doesn't even bother to describe somethings and it is what it is. Compared to the other books this one makes my head hurt.

Basically this whole book to me could be skipped I think the little confusion you might receive reading the next future book not knowing some of the references in this one would be just fine. This book just felt rushed overall and DK could have slowed down the pace took some time to build better relationships with new characters etc. I just don't know why such polarizing aspects were made. Why did the two new races have to be so different ... and stupid. Humans and the Beast Kin were not this way at all.

Not Dakota Krouts best work

I've enjoyed the others in this series and but I want to drop this one very early on but I held out hoping it would get better, it never did.

Still pretty good but not as good as the others

Narrators performance is still top notch compared to the last couple of books and no complaints there.

The story is still pretty good but not quite the same as the others. There lots of funny/meme parts that gives a good laugh consistently throughout. However i felt like nothing really progressed much in this story and everything is just a set up for the next book. This book just felt like a huge training arc where he just constantly trying to learn his new skills and level up.
I also found the fights lacking compared to the previous books. Sure there lots of fights (cause its like a training arc) but i dont really feel the magnitude of them and theyre kinda lackluster. Even the final fight didn't really get my blood pumping with adrenaline.
It's still worth reading/listening if you follow the series

Another great addition to the series

"The Completionist Chronicles" keeps getting better and better with each episode. I love Joe's character progression, I love the world and the humor. Some of the systems are getting a little too complex (specifically crafting), and hopefully future installments will clean this up by completely dropping the old way of doing things (this almost entirely happened in Inflame).
I'd like to see Jaxon featured a bit (OK, a LOT) more in Joe's story, he is hilarious!
I am really looking forward to the next book in the series, don't care if it is a side quest or the main story; just keep 'em coming!

what even...

I cannot get past the voices of these dwarves whatsoever. I just barreled through reading copies of the previous books, and this is not the first book I've heard Luke Daniels narrate - but I absolutely can NOT stand these dang dumb muppet dwarves. between the way they're written to be insufferable bro-dudes and how Luke makes them sound like he's gargling jelly, I was completely taken out of the entire story... for the entire story so far.

man. I really wanted to be able to relax to this.

Amazing and funny

Is the book over already?!! . Anyways the book is super funny, lots of new stuff and I can't wait for the next one. Thanx Dakota

Can’t wait for the next one.

I have been addicted to these books since the very first one. And now I can’t wait for each and every new release.
Even if you think you’re not a fan of gamelit, give them a listen. You won’t be sorry.

Very entertaining

As before with the previous books this is fast becoming one of the best litrpg series

Not bad, but...

It's book 6, okay. Book 6. Why is the main character still making comments like "I need to remember I have characteristics"? I get that the main character is meant to be a scatterbrain, but it's getting a bit tedious now. There needs to be growth. The character needs to actually grow as a person, not just in stats and skills, but mentally. There have been plenty of "lessons" enforcing the need for growth, and the character keeps saying he needs to "remember", yet he never does... ever.

Book 6 guys and gals. Book 6. Haaaa.

It's okay as a sequel to book 5, but it's not great. If you've read the other 5 books, you will read this regardless of my words just to see the continuation of the story, but the frustration it will leave you with? Know I tried to warn you. XD

Good Book,

Again I wish this showed more development in the Charector and not the same old standard as this seems to be again

ahhh when's the next one???

as always, amazing performance and well narrated. I can not wait for the next one.

Not as good as previous books but still fun.

Joe's back but he gets nerfed a bit at the start. He then flits about from thing to thing in his usual haphazard way. I found his lack of thought slightly more annoying in this book than previously.

There isn't much of a narrative and there's a lot more skill advancement than plot advancement, however, Krout's humour really shines through and makes this mostly a pleasure to read. The narration was excellent despite one or two words being mispronounced.

another excellent entry into this world.

in terms of the books in this series its not as hectic or as manic as some of the others but it has a nice place summer reminiscing of the first book in the series, I am really looking forward to what comes next in the story

not as good as normsl

the jokes are less inventive, the story less creative, the tropes semi repeated and the abilities less well structured.

but it still holds the elements of the story that make the series good.

the performance seems to make voices a bit too annoying and artificial than representative of what they should portray.

Keeps getting better and better

A wonderful next chapter in the adventures of Joe. Loved the progression, humour and characters both new and old. Dakota is going from strength to strength in this series. Highly recommended.