Reborn: Apocalypse, Book 1

A LitRPG/Wuxia Story

By: L. M. Kerr

Narrated by: Adam Stubbs

Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

If you could turn back the clock and fix all the mistakes you ever made, would you? 

From the author of the award-winning Web-novel Reborn: Evolving from Nothing comes the tale of Micheal Care, a swordsman that could only be considered a middling warrior in Humanity's Last Army. 

Micheal's answer to that question would be quite simple. 

Yes. A million times yes. 

Humanity has fallen, killed by stronger races of beings after being warped away to a new reality, the mystical Seven Layers. 

Humanity's goal had been simple. Make it through all Seven Layers and reach Heaven. 

Humanity failed. 

Humanity died. 

Micheal Care's memories have been transported back into his past self thanks to a magical Artifact he found by chance. 

He is no chosen savior. He is no divinely picked hero. 

Can he change the future? Can he catch up to the mightiest warriors of humanity and surpass them? 

Listen and find out.

©2018-2019 Logan Kerr (P)2019 Logan Kerr

I am reborn from reading this book

I’m gonna tell ya, this book almost threw me into a right anxious fit. Basically the first chapter is practically identical Cameron Milan’s Tower of Heaven novel. So close it is scary; as in I was ready to make accusations of plagiarism, but I kept listening. The book quickly differentiated itself from Tower of Heaven and stood on its own. So much that I am pressed to say that it might be a little bit better flow wise. The MC was interesting and he was playing the “I know the future card” very close to the vest.

As I said, it starts off in the vein Towers of heaven but then neatly shifts into a book of its own. The book is well paced, smartly written, has some cool progression powers and is draped in an appropriately apocalyptic setting. I didn’t even feel like the MC was over powered, and was happy when he retained skills that he’d trained for when the clock was reset. What could have come across as imbalanced simply played well with the character and the story. He was hardcore and a font of knowledge that simply gave him an edge.

Stubbs really narrates well, and manages to convey everything that Kerr put into the story, plus a little more, I think. It is that extra bit that makes a good narrator stand out. Personally, I think Stubbs shines.

Final score 8.3 stars. I honestly had no expectations going in, was angry when I thought it was a Tower of Heaven Rip-off, and eventually came to embrace the MC, the setting, and the story. I cannot wait for more.

4 magic combat Junkies

probably not as good as cradle, but definitely at the same table. detailed imaginative fast paced. more RPG than cultivation.

needs some editing

the story would flow much better if it was streamlined and the repetitive parts edited out.
you can tell this author has been reading online wuxia translations. the problem is, those authors repeat the same thing six different ways because they get paid by the word, and it's not really something that should be repeated in an actual published novel; it's annoying for the reader and tedious to listen to.
on the plus side, the world-building is detailed, the story is interesting, and the narrator is decent.

Lazy writing, boring story

"I need to increase my strength so I can defeat the strong Morenki"

And more of this, over, and over, and over. Repetitive and lazy writing with little to no character development. It's too bad because the story had a promising start but about midway through the book I just gave up. I simply stopped caring whether Michael would defeat the next monster, outwit the latest bad guy or accumulate the most points ever. This was my first attempt at litRPG and it may be my last if this is the best of the genre as reviews would have me believe.

Fantastic

Really enjoyed this book. If you like “The Ten Realms” series this has the same concept. Excited for the rest of the series to be released.

Great Story

The story is amazing, the character is a little OP (but not too the point that the story suffers), the world building is original and very satisfying, an overall I really enjoyed the character development.

I only have one complaint. Please, for the love of god, cut down on all the narrative expositions. I'm still giving this book 5 stars because the background info was enjoyable to listen too but I dont think there is more then a 10 min break between expositions. I understand that some of the expos are necessary but I dont need to know every small detail.

Good story, needs editing.

The ideas behind this book are amazing and the story is pretty good. The writing is passable and the editing is awful. The narrator switches between being pretty good and being pretty bad depending on how good or bad the writing is at any given point. Unfortunately, when the writing is bad the narrator makes it worse.

I know I’m being pretty vague with this review, but honestly I worry that if I start parsing the good and the bad in detail, I’ll end up writing all night. A few things I will say:

This is neither LitRPG nor Wuxia. This absolutely is GameLit... with some minor references to the two sub-genres, but anyone looking for the real LitRPG or Wuxia experiences will only get a random allusion every so often to either genre.

This book could have been great regardless of which genre it’s in. The only thing really holding it back is an editor with a pulse. That said it’s still worth the credit; I was entertained.

It’s just frustrating that someone would spend the obvious hard work that went into writing this book and then not bother to edit it themselves... let alone having someone else read it through... at least once... so that someone realizes that the author uses the phrase “his eyes flashed” at least twice in every 5 paragraphs.... and that people are constantly nodding their heads to punctuate their thoughts and statements regardless of whether it makes sense to do so... before the book is published.

Awesome.

OK. didn't know if i was going to waste my token here but im happy to report I didn't. The story was great and at first I didn't think i was going to like the narrator I ended up falling in love. Waiting for more.

way better than expected

this book was great it took many ideas and mixed the best parts together

Does the narrator learn how to pronounce 'Qi'

I enjoyed the story, but does the narrator learn how to pronounce the word 'Qi' before narrating the 2nd book in the series? It's jarring to hear a word that is used so often in the book pronounced wrong every time.

Repetitive oversplaining...

I liked seeing this concept in book form instead of as an anime.
But the over explaining of every little detail, even things that had already been explained, got annoying during the first few hours.

Truly amazing book

Great story very good details really complex and another amazing series to follow gets 5 stars from me.

It's not really "reborn"

The concept of timetravel is introduced into this book, and so far, I have also read, not just heard these books, the concept isn't dealt with in the most believable way. But if you can suspend the glossing over, of the time-line paradox issues, then the books are a great read. Character progression is fun. Even as he is "re-inventing" himself, with forward knowledge. The side characters are also fun, but are side-lined in each "realm". At least so far. I am hoping that the next book in the series, will bring the story together a bit, and bring back more cohesion to side characters that have been ignored in the latest books. The voice is "clean" easy to listen to, and at no point was I annoyed by the speaker. The story itself is quite interesting, and a good read. The only reason it isn't a 5 is because this deserves to be compared to some of the best books in the genre. It really does, and there it is very close, but as the book tries to be original and succeeds, there is a reason other authors haven't tried the same, it can be complicated to write a story. And sometimes, there are minor misses. Not in terms of contradictions directly. But awfully close. And for me, that takes off a point. But the whole series, is so far, a solid read. Love it.

awesome

loved it great mix between litrpg and cultivation carnt wait for the next book to hit audible

Had potential. Did not reach.

First the narration was very good!
Nice pace, good injection of feeling during the important moments. All in all, nicely done.

The book has some pretty good ideas that give you an early idea of how further books might progress, but it's the cringe that will stop me from wanting to pick up book 2.

I never really got why each scene seems to be in a skyscraper. Perhaps there was an explanation at some stage, but I'd switched off by that point.

Our main character is an expert in all things and not through any legitimate means, but simply because he thought he might need to be at some point. I mean, what?
He can sword chop bullets in mid flight. And not through some in game ability, but because he had 'planned out' the battle perfectly before hand. Again, what?

Unfortunately the book is full of this unrealistic, unexplained and very lazy cringe.

Love the concept, good performance, unfortunate wr

I truly enjoyed the story and the performance is admirable. Unfortunately the author should have worked more on the cleaning, he loves repeating phrases and including constant redundant explanations, enough that it occasionally happens every few sentences. This, sadly, regularly ruins the flow.

lots of potential, ruined by poor writing.

Show, don't tell.

so much of the story is structured so poorly i was genuinely angry by the time i abandoned this story which is a shame because there is a story here to be enjoyed.
Most of my irritation is reserved for the fight scenes mainly because the author likes to use these moments to slam the brakes so he can dump information on the reader, going off on 20 minute tangents to explain abilities or enemy backgrounds that easily could have been seeded in the previous chapters in a natural fashion that didn't have to destroy the narrative flow.
It only gets worse as the books go on, truly unfortunate.

Total garbage Dropped at book 2

Nice premise but no story progress. Characters are not normal and the monologue and dialog are stupid and repetitive. As for repetitive, everything is repeated all the time! Character are also childlike even the carton evil boss.

World building is horrible! First level is a skyscraper world with one kind of mobs. They have been there for book 1 and 2 ( I just can’t stand all the flaws anymore).

Litrpg/magic is one of the worst book so far. No progression, everything is bought in a shop. Spell of all kind and items. Ofc the mc plot armor the hell of it by buying cheap crap that is perfect to win any battle.

Enough I could write so much more flaws but I have given this book and author too much of my time.

very enjoyable

it took me a little bit to get used to the narrator voice, i think in the first hour the word Died comes up so many times and it is really emphasised which i found a little annoying, but once used to it i thought the narrator did a good job, the story was fun and fast paced and kept you wanting more, i have already ordered the next two books so that in itself says a-lot, if you are looking for a good well written litRPG with element's of time travel then you cant go wrong with this.

7 chapters of explanation in a dramatic voice.

There's no story here. Just a guy reciting his personal game mechanics. Can't say how this one was published TBH.