Reroll

Falling

By: Clinton Campbell

Narrated by: Mark Williams

Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

A horrific attack on a crowd ends with tens of thousands dead before Loren Parker wakes up in his bed, miraculously unharmed, two days before the explosion. Setalite City is on the brink of destruction, famous heroes and infamous villains are being systematically killed worldwide, and an unknown puppet master is pulling the strings. Lucky for him, Loren has all the time in the world to set things straight.

©2023 Clinton Campbell (P)2023 Clinton Campbell

Equal Parts Funny and Horrifying

There is something ephemerally captivating about this story. I’m a fan of time loop stories, but this one feels really well done. I found every chapter worth it.

There is almost a nihilistic glee to seeing the MC’s frustration at trying to save people when the universe itself seems hellbent of making them dead.

People complain about the narrator but I think he works. The people he’s rendering are hilariously flawed and the dialogue is often goofy or pithy, but when he discribes that creeping dread of facing your mortality for the upteenth time, I still believe it.

I literally laughed so hard at his rendition of Locker Man that I cried.

I love this story and implore readers to ignore what bafflingly low ratings this book had when I wrote this review.

A good first book that has me exited for book 2

I liked this story quite a bit, it has a few issues like the MC taking a bit too long in accepting what needs to be done to actually achieve his end goals, but overall I ejoyed it. I am not someone who really likes superhero stories but this book did a pretty good job avoiding stupid cliches and most of the characters act like human beings, even if it does take a bit too long to learn their motivations. I think now at the end of this first book, now that the story is in full swing, I am exited for book 2 to release on audible.

I recommend this book to just about anyone who likes Time loops, it has a few weaknesses but is overall really enjoyable.

50/50 meh...

here are a few points
- original premise pretty good. MC and characters in general feel like they're lacking depth and strong feelings (other than the feeling of constant annoyance)
- narrator makes MC sound 20yrs older than he actually is. (Female voices not any better)
- MC very slow at building his time loop mindset (does not make well thought out decisions)
- electric girl is actually annoying. Her backstory is mildly interesting. MC interest in her is purely superficial. Robot girl (later in story) would have been more interesting to start with.

Good start

I’m giving this 3 stars even though I genuinely enjoyed the story and I intend to read book 2. There are just a few things that I think will make this a no go for some people.

I’ll start with the biggest downside for me and that’s the narrator. Idk if it was just me, but the audio quality was strange. It was especially bad at the beginning and while it got better later on it was still noticeable. The narrator also had a strange cadence that I didn’t care for. The voices he did all sounded pretty much the same and the women in particular were hard to listen to. He also didn’t take pauses between scene breaks which was confusing at first. He got better later on, but it was rough in the first few chapters.

Now for the actual story. It was interesting and unique. I didn’t expect things to take the turns they did and I was always interested to see what happed next. The story takes a while to get started though because the MC is in denial about what is happening in the beginning and even after he gets it he’s hesitant to really get involved. It was a little frustrating at first, but I’ll admit that he generally responded to things the same way most people would. He doesn’t seem very smart though. He isn’t “pull your hair out” dumb, but there were moments where some of his decision making didn’t make very much sense and only served the plot.

The biggest downside in terms of story though is the ending. It felt abrupt. The MC didn’t really seem to complete any arcs or resolve any major plot lines. The only difference from the beginning and end of the story is that he understands more about his powers and he potentially has a new ally.

This is one of the few stories that would be better served by being longer.