Pit Fighter: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy

Victor of Tucson, Book 1

By: Plum Parrot

Narrated by: Robb Moreira

Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

From the author of Falling with Folded Wings comes a furious new fantasy series, in which a teenage, hard-case Earthling tries to earn some class . . .

Victor can’t wait to get the hell out of high school, go to the local community college on a sports scholarship, and start his own life. But that’s all put on hold when he enters his abuela’s house and somehow ends up stepping into a world unlike anything he’s ever known, filled with fantastical meta-humans; walking, talking devils; and other creatures one usually needs some serious pharmaceuticals to see.

Fanwath is no dream, though. In fact, it’s a nightmare. Sold into slavery as a pit fighter, Victor quickly learns his new home is controlled by the “System” and the only way to get ahead is to fight, kill, and collect the precious “Energy” that means the difference between a long life and an early grave. And according to his stats, Victor’s starting out at a solid zero.

Lucky for him, no one in this world has ever met his kind before—which means they have no idea what he’s really capable of. But they’re about to find out . . .

The first volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with more than 750,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 Plum Parrot (P)2023 Podium Audio

Worth the credit!

Good job all around on this one. Different approach to litrpg where it is not stats and harems. Some minor plot holes but the fun ride made up for it. Biggest plus is the MC is not a emo whiner. Really enjoyed it.

Gem in the rough

We’ll written and consistent characterization, good action and a nice system. I’m very picky and will drop a book as soon as an author stars flip flopping on personalities to further plot points, there was none of that and I have complaints.

good

the beginning was a little rough but after it was enjoyable and entertaining to listen to.

great story cannot wait for the next book!

I cannot wait to read the next book in the series. this one leaves you wanting more!

Brilliant

Damn Pit Fighter! No joke. even though you know exactly what will happen next, you are completely invested. Brilliant

Cool new to me series

Cool unique character with lots of growth possibilities. Funny with lots of combat and different locations and unique magic system. Very much enjoyed.

Good story, wish he swore less

Good story, definitely unique situations, but the swearing gets old. If he was not swearing every couple of minutes, it would be 5 stars.

One of the rare exceptions

The Lit RPG Genre is full of soo many poorly written or developed characters, it is always a pleasant surprise when you come across a story where the MC is not a complete idiot. its even rarer when you get one where the writing style, stats, level progression and story all combine to form a very entertaining story.

This is one of those rare exceptions and I am starting to find that this author tends to produce more quality over quantity (Ahem, Pay attention... Dakota K...cough cough) .

The only downside I tend to find in these stories is how one dimensional protagonists or bad guy characters tend to be. I get it, there needs to be a bad guy, but it does help flesh things enough to suspend disbelief if the bad guys aren't so...meh. Still, this one left plenty of room to remedy that in the next one. What motivated the summoning? What motivated the subsequent betrayals? tell me its not just greed cause...that would be to...meh?

Still I recommend this as it is far better than many books out there that read like they were written for children, or worse, by children, with no real life experience except the wannabe Gamer-bro ideal.

This is solidly a credit well spent. Highly recommended.

Mostly Good

Fair warning, some examples may be used, so spoiler warning.

This story is mostly good. If you can get past the fact that MC is a late high schooler, that much is in the blurb, who is about to go to community college on a scholarship, then you can enjoy an engaging progression storyline. The progression is both in status and power, and the status part stays stagnant for a while, goes up, and has a setback.

I feel some of the negative reviews are misleading, but they're right about the profanity. I took it as a teenager growing to maturity because by the end of the story, Victor isn't dropping as many f-bombs and curse words as he was at the beginning. However, this is where I'd offer some criticism. As someone who grew up in bad neighborhoods, joined the military as a teen, etc. I understand that young people who weren't privileged can be both immature (obviously) and mature at the same time. My point in bringing this up, however, is that I believe someone meeting constant adversity in life isn't going to stay as immature minded as long as they're constantly in a state of survival. I felt there were points in the story that Victor, after a few events had happened, should have read the room better. The author tried to play it up as Victor admitting he has a problem blurting out stupid stuff, which is fine, but I just felt there were a few moments that he should've been more observant and read the room better. There were times he did and times he didn't and I felt that someone in that situation would've likely fell into more of a consistent observation first, talk second, act third sort of way of thinking.

Instead, like so many authors do, Victor is written more like a modern day young person in a First World country without any worries despite having worries and adversities that people in those cushy situations don't have to deal with. To be fair, this is where I feel some of the negative reviews are a bit misleading. One claimed that Victor and crew celebrated after he killed his first person in the pit. While it's true, that reviewer left out some of the melancholy and worry Victor had about it before and after the fight and during the celebration and he went on to question what he was becoming afterward each time he was forced to fight to the death. The reviewer also left out that other characters had abilities that would sway emotion and feelings in the moment and that's also part of what happened. Also, Victor's own innate abilities inevitably swayed his emotions and those around him.

Still, I can agree that I felt Victor should have had a bit more defiance, at least initially, when it came to being enslaved. The author tries to play it off by having Victor reason about possibilities to escape (which is another misleading thing of another negative reviewer, he does try to plan, but realize he's not in a position to follow through), but I just felt coming from the U.S., Victor should've likely had a bit more defiance initially until he was shown that he had to get stronger to actually break out. And yes, you can tell when it happens and he goes from one status to the next status, that the author was ready to move on from the slavery portion of the story.

One last bit of criticism. Given this was original a net story on Royal Road, I noticed there were some inconsistencies such as characters would forget they mentioned a thing before, etc. A lot of repetition around explanation of abilities and some system functions, etc. occurred. This wasn't bad, but if you're the type to pay attention to those sorts of things, it may rub you the wrong way.

The good. I feel this is one of the better done isekai LitRPG stories. MC isn't struck with loner personality syndrome. MC develops some care for those around him. I'm not hung up on his decisions about what to do with his stats. While he mentions he'd played video games or had some knowledge of them, it's apparent from his background that Victor was more into sports before coming to this world and the understanding of the system is vague to him. He asked enough questions I felt shouldn't have been asked in the first place because some things were obvious in context of what was said in conversation, but the author had Victor impulsively ask some questions, nevertheless, likely for the benefit of the reader, but it made Victor seem dense. Anyway, this is supposed to be the positive point. I think he made good decisions given the information he had on hand until he got the walking encyclopedia who could help him understand most things.

Either way, I think this was an entertaining read despite my criticisms. Gave it 4 stars and went on to get book two. Your mileage may vary.

I got that GOOD LIT RPG FEELING FROM THIS BOOK

I read the authors other books and thought pure nonsense! BLECH! I saw this and thought
Here we go again! More junk! I was wrong
This book is an excellent lit rpg with not to much level BS and more action. This is IMO a perfect lit rpg! The perfect balance of leveling (not too much special skill this and attribute that) and story! Story is really good with double cross storyline! Love love love!