Solo Leveling, Vol. 1

By: Chugong, Hye Young Im, J. Torres

Narrated by: Ki Hong Lee

Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

The weakest hunter of all mankind!

E-rank hunter Jinwoo Sung has no money, no talent, and no prospects to speak of - and apparently, no luck, either! When he enters a hidden double dungeon one fateful day, he’s abandoned by his party and left to die at the hands of some of the most horrific monsters he’s ever encountered.

But just before the last, fatal blow...ping! [Congratulations on becoming a Player.]

©2017 Chugong (P)2021 Yen Audio

Drop the Sound Effects

The story is quite good and the narration is great as well, except for the childish sound effects.

I know they made the decision to include them and will probably maintain them throughout the series. But I urge them not to. The whole experience would be much better without them.

love the story, not the voice.

i love these books, that said please get a better narrator please.. however ill continue buying the audiobooks to support the author

great story distracting sound effects.

The man made sound effects throws off the mood at times.
Other then that it's a great read.

Very good, but you have to overcome the narration.

Welcome to the batch review. I have read seven books in this series, and i have 5 months of total listening time on the audible.

I will review this series as a whole. Some spoilers can be ahead.

I can recommend the books, but the series have two problem:
1) Sound effects.
2) Power Creep.

The SFX, them are horrible here. Because narrator do it exactly as author write it. as a text, it will perfectly OK, but in audio it very cringe. It can be solved like in other books with real sound effects(like in the last books of Everybody Loves Large Chests) or just skip sfx. Good news in second book it is somewhat bearable, and in the last it is OK.

The second problem is the MC. He is OP, and it is ok. Author did good job to get nice effect of difference between the OP hero and other people. Problem is, Spoiler: other people can't develop powers more than they get at the start, so they all become very weak very fast, and can't bring challenge to the hero. And author have no other choice then develop story to the FULL EPIC, and bring outside forces to the scene, where all earth look inadequate. And here it become less interesting.

Also i can't recall something memorable from this books. MC is ok(thanks to writing gods that MC is not stupid with hero complex but adequate enough), Side characters is ok. Some battles is ok. But nothing great. Enjoyable but nothing more.

Can recommend for the people who want to start to read korean novels or read about OP characters with game elements.

Total score: Good.

Great book!

The book is so much different from the manga. I’m glad I read the manga first and then read this. This is so much better.

great book minus the sound effects

wish the author would not write in sound effects. it's cringe and just poor way to describe it. that aside it's excellent.

I love the Manga and light novel

my biggest issue is that instead of saying 'the beast roared' the narrator tries to roar.

Cringe Narrator

This narrator was probably forced to make these sound effects. Makes one feel sorry for the guy. No one with any small sense of dignity would intentionally want to be this cringy. It will be terribly difficult to get through this story with all this second hand embarrassment. So much that I am considering skipping this first volume just to see if the narration changes. Losing some of the story is worth skipping this narrator, after all.

don't read the sound fx

do the sound fx dont read them. love the concept and the story. you can do better.

Quest Update: It’s a good listen.

It’s a creative new take on the LitRPG genre. There’s cool lore, good characters, and interesting locations. Yes the narrator can be a bit cheesy with the “sound effects”. Once you get passed that it’s a really fun story.