• Ritualist

  • Completionist Chronicles, Book 1
  • By: Dakota Krout
  • Narrated by: Vikas Adam
  • Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (12,937 ratings)

Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
Ritualist  By  cover art

Ritualist

By: Dakota Krout
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.49

Buy for $21.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The decision to start a new life is never an easy one, but for Joe the transition was far from figurative. Becoming a permanent addition to a game world, it doesn't take long to learn that people with his abilities are actively hunted. In fact, if the wrong people gained knowledge of what he was capable of, assassins would appear in droves.

In his pursuit of power, Joe fights alongside his team, completes quests, and delves into the mysteries of his class, which he quickly discovers can be practiced only in secret. Ultimately, his goal is to complete every mission, master every ability, and learn all of the world's secrets. All he has to do is survive long enough to make that happen.

©2018 Dakota Krout (P)2018 Tantor

Featured Article: Level up with 25+ awesome litRPGs


LitRPG means Literary Role Playing Game. Simply put, it’s the book version of watching someone play a video game, usually one that’s set up like an MMO (massively multiplayer online) RPG. It’s a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, depending on how it comes to be that our main character ends up living inside a virtual reality. the point of LitRPG is not how we get there, but that we get to be in this virtual reality period, living life as a badass video-game character. Beat the grind and submerse yourself in these addictive LitRPGs.

What listeners say about Ritualist

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10,555
  • 4 Stars
    1,816
  • 3 Stars
    371
  • 2 Stars
    103
  • 1 Stars
    92
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9,803
  • 4 Stars
    1,503
  • 3 Stars
    391
  • 2 Stars
    91
  • 1 Stars
    82
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9,565
  • 4 Stars
    1,727
  • 3 Stars
    370
  • 2 Stars
    103
  • 1 Stars
    84

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ritual is necessary for us to know anything

I really did not want to like this book. I wanted Dakota Krout to keep putting out his Divine Dungeon series until it was finished. Now, I'm torn. I still want the Divine Dungeon series, but now I also want MORE Ritualist. Krout is an incredible writer, and you get sucked into the story immediately. I appreciate how he gets the character of Joe into the game quickly and doesn't really screw around with all the usual angst or cognitive dissonance most MC's display when they are about to go into a virtual world permanently. Nope, we go straight into the game, and we are better for it.

I really appreciate that Joe gets a secret class, with special skills, and that he works for a hidden god. It's fun watching him try to keep things straight, because once the cat is out of the bag then he loses all kinds of benefits. And he has some sweet skills. The only thing that really throws me off is that the MC, Joe, enters the VR permanently because he is a quadrapalegic, and still opts to get a body that will be winded from walking to fast and can be beheaded from a paper cut. You would expect him to take a healthy vibrant body, but I will say his choice does make sense if you consider that he is in it for the long haul. He has a long distance perspective that few others have. Additionally, Krout is about the only dude I know that can make a healer not only exciting but totally a bad grass mamajamma. Most people go swordsman, rogue, or wizard. Dakota manages to make the cleric interesting. Plus the ritual stuff and the occultist proffesion suck you in.

Vikas Adams had me waaaaay back with the Divine Dungeon number one, Dungeon Born. I loved his characterizations and the humor he injects with his voice. There are few narrators who are as skilled as he is, and he really moves the story along at his pace. The man is a pleasure to listen to, and his female voices are just as good as his male ones.

I gove Krout points for including a nod to my beloved Dungeon, Cal, in this book and can see the similarities in attitudes. Both are fair, easily annoyed, and ready to dole out proper punishments and rewards. Can we see a nod to everyone's favorite wisp in the next book, Dakota?

I loved the cover, the wolfman looks awesome, and we get to see Joe right in the middle of a ritual. It looks slick, and you know that this book is going to feature some hardcore monsters and some deadly magic. Lava Worms, anyone? Joe is a fun character, and I really look forward to seeing more of him in the future. Now, we just need to get the Divine Dungeon series caught up and I'll be satisfied. YOU will be satisfied if you get this book. This is, without question, one of the best LitRPG/GameLit books I've ever read! Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. In fact, getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.

If this review helped, please press the YES below. Thank you immensely!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

346 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Why Elon Musk?

The story is really great but, the vague references to Elon Musk soon turn into him being an actual backing character. Everytime he's mentioned it just pulls be out of the story and back to reality making the book less enjoyable than it would be.
It was kind of funny the first time but quickly got annoying.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

130 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Masterpiece

Dakota Krout, as always, delivers a phenomenal story. I thought it would be hard for him to top his Dungeon Born series, yet he managed to pull of an amazing new story. I'm fully hooked, eagerly awaiting the next in the series!

The Ritualist is one of the most interesting takes on LitRPG I've had the pleasure of hearing. He doesn't turn his main character into a "Mary Sue", making him fight for every bit of progress.

Do NOT skip this, it's definitely worth the listen. Vikas Adam delivers a strong performance, combining with Krouts great story for a delightful listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

60 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Pretty weak offering.

Not really sure why this book has so many positive reviews. I found it to be a disjointed and poorly crafted mess with an absentee main storyline. It does have plenty of upsides, but the negatives really overshadowed the experience and the audible version specifically was a chore to get through.

First and foremost I knocked off two stars for blatent plagiarism. The author copy pasted a very well known meme into his book to explain stats with a tomatoes metaphor, and while that may not be the property of any one particular individual, it's still truly pathetic plagiarism. It's not a pop culture reference either, as the author seems to claim the character just thinks of this on his own. Even a tiny reference to the meme or it's origins in the web would have made this acceptable, but as is it's just copy/paste. Also, the opening Elon musk sequence felt incredibly similar to the opener from Greg Bears War Dogs trilogy. That one I can't be positive was ripped off intentionally, but the similarities are too much to be ignored. It was basically a dumbed down version of the war dogs intro. (no offense to the author on that aspect, ain't none of us at Greg Bears level.)
The main class was incredibly refreshing and unique, which made the above mentions of plagiarism all the more hurtful to me as a reader. It shows the author is capable of originality, as well as quality material, so WHY copy paste stuff??
The other major point of complaint is the narration. The narrator adds a moviephone dramatis to EVERY single line he delivers, no matter if the main character is fighting an epic battle, or just reading a book in the library. Plenty of this book is casual and calm, with the story not having any need for overly dramatic inflection, so I found this aspect of the performance incredibly distracting and non sequitur. Super immersion breaking and annoying. The narrator also does voices, none of which I found pleasurable. Any accent is massively overdone, wether it be the somehow Russian librarian, or the valley girl guild member. No accent is done with any degree of subtlety, and everything is cartoonishly over the top. Again, pretty immersion breaking. I think I would have enjoyed this book a great deal more had I read it, instead of listening to it. The narrator did the author zero favors with his performance.

As to the main story. Everything felt out of sequence, disjointed, and even nonsensical at times. The main story arc didn't seem to appear until a good two thirds of the book was over, and I kept on wondering what the main threat was. There's plenty of build up and character development, but no overarching conflict aside from the class development, which was far too small and non threatening to be exciting or cause me to be invested in the rest of the world. Oh, right, there was a little guild conflict, but it gets quickly dealt with and forgotten immediately. A big part of the storyline is how rare healers are, but there didn't seem to be any reason for that rarity. The healer class seemed actually easy to play to me, I just didn't see a lot of reasons backing up the authors assertions of his world. It ended up feeling like a 'gimmie', where the concept is only the way it is because the author says so. That's fine...I guess. It'd be a lot more satisfying to have substantive world building to support that kind of thing though. Overall it really felt like the author had more of an idea for a world and a unique class than any kind of story, and that hurt the quality of this book for me a great deal.

Finally, an observation. The author seems to be fairly right wing, and does his utmost to work in metaphors that represent his line of thoughts on select modern issues. This was a great part of the book for me, as it was refreshing to see the right wing ideology touted as preferable, while keeping it out of the forefront of the story. His message on individualism and merit was quite on point, and almost resonated of The Incredibles first film. His dig at antifa I felt was quite appropriate and on point as well, and could easily be also applied to the kkk. That's some solid metaphor crafting right there. His metaphor against establishments of higher learning was directly in accordance with right wing thoughts on the matter; that dissenting voices are silenced, and any individualism is quashed for the collective good. These points are, of course, obviously incorrect and easy to fact check, but his ability to espouse them in his creative form was impressive nontheless. When people who embrace and spread hate or blatent falsehoods are blocked from college campuses, that is not an attempt to silence a dissenting opinion, it is a communal rejection of that opinion. There is an important distinction to be made there, and it seems to have unfortunately gone over this authors head. I did not remove any stars for this aspect of the book, and as I have stated, view it as overall positive. This is merely an observation because of the rarity of right wing fantasy authors in circulation today.

I bought this book because it's in the top list 'must read' for the litrpg genre. But, similar to The Land, I simply do not see quality writing or production at work here, and am left wondering at the mass appeal. I do think that if the author put more effort and editing into his work, he could have an original and interesting series to experience here. Sadly, this is overshadowed by the works flaws and at least one instance of overt plagiarism.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This is Isekai gold. Ignore the misleading sample

NO SPOILERS
I wish Audible chose a better section for the sample because it's like someone only letting you taste the plate part of a steak dinner.
If you love isekai, which refers to a genre of anime where the character is "from another world", just stop now and buy this book it has everything you love from the interesting character/class and setting, to the lovable supporting cast.
I love the game world Dakota sets up, filled with lore and characters who really seem to be alive in every sense of the word. And though I I think Vikas gives all the characters a distinct voice and personality, I especially LOVE the way he reads the text pop-ups and all of the accompanying flavor text.
To reiterate I loved this book, so much so that I bought the sequel when there were still four chapters left.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

42 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Really enjoyable read

One Part Dungeonborn
One Part Sword Art Online
One Part Elon Musk fan fiction.

sold!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

37 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

seriously?

conversation and descriptions lack any effort or flair seriously! if you've ever read a real book in your life this will not hold up. it's like a junior high kid got a C in english class and decided to publish it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A millennial vocabulary with a young narrator.

Personally I think this book is getting high reviews because LITrpgs are hot and this one is better than most, but this is not a great book.

Story and narrator speak in a way that best caters to teens. You can see the ending miles away and Ritualist drags you describing every little thing along the way there instead when it could guide instead.

Verdict? If you are an audible user, try it! You may like it and if you don't, you can return it, but don't put yourself into a situation where you must commit to this book. It's not worth it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Hold your breath

I almost gave up on this book in the first 10 minutes due to some truly horrific attempts at cleverness. If those attempts had paid off later in the book, I might even forgive them, but it really was just the author's own little inside joke. It would be like having a well-endowed blond hairdresser character who everyone calls Dolly and who is at one point encouraged to "part on". That's about the level of cleverness we're talking about here. But it only lasts a while, so if you can get past the first couple chapters (which also include some truly distasteful representations of soldiers and veterans), you may actually enjoy the rest. It's the classic "RPG in real life" genre that seems to have emerged recently, and it's a solid addition to that area.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Didn't even make it 1 hour

Might be the worst and laziest author ever. Forget about money I want that hour back.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

19 people found this helpful