SpeedRunner

Tower of Babel, Book 1

By: Adam Elliott

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Launch day.

That was what they called it. The day when over four million people vanished in an instant from the island of Manhattan. The day earthquakes ravaged the east coast. The day a 101-kilometer tall tower rose from the wreckage of the now empty city. The day every screen, newspaper, and smart phone displayed a single message from an unknown source: The Great Emperor has issued his challenge. From the ruins of the Old World rise the Tower. Its doors will soon open, and the great game will begin. A hundred floors and a hundred challenges await the worthy. And to the victor? A Wish of Unlimited Power.

Cayden Caros yearned to play that game. His only problem? The Terms and Conditions. A strict set of rules that, among other things, prevented anyone under the age of 16 from entering the tower.

Forced to wait for over two years, Cayden did the only thing he could do to pass the time. He researched, he practiced, and he prepared. It would take a lot to catch up to players with such an enormous head start. Lucky for him, he was a special type of gamer.

©2017 Adam Elliott (P)2017 Podium Publishing

is this Terry Pratchett illegitimate child

the author has infused modern day influence into an amazing video game story with touches of judeo mysticism to make an amazing start to what will probably be an amazing series the only problem with this is with the narrator this is a story that should have most definitely two or three people working together so that an aerator can concentrate on just the main character While others do the other Side characters I've listened to this narrator with some of his other books and found that he can do justice to them but with this book He's a negative in that could tell if he could just do the main character he could raise this book to such Great Heights that he is constrained by having to do all the book by himself

More PLEASE!

Great concept, well developed game system. Combined with the fact that I would listen to Vikas Adam read a Runic phone book. Only down side is I hate waiting, and only the first book is out so far. I look forward to a (hopefully) long series, quick as you can please!!!!!

New LitRPG

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book. It's a solid LitRPG with likable characters, interesting plot and just enough of a twist to keep you invested.

I've heard Vikas Adam narrate stories as part of a team but never had a chance to listen to him tell a whole story until now. He did a great job! He is one of the few male narrators that can really pull off female voices. Pretty darn awesome! He definitely made the story more interesting and truly did a great job at bringing each character to life.

I've only read a few LitRPG books that I really like. Most of them tend to be cool ideas that dissolve into disinterest due to sloppy writing. This one has a nice balance between the gaming specs and story development.

I like the basic premise and the hints of things to come. If you like LitRPG's, I'm sure you'll enjoy reading this one. I already snagged the next book on Kindle to see where the story goes.

Slow Start

This started a bit slow for me, but by the end, I was interested in the story and am interested in reading more books in the series.

update: I was going to get book 2 from Audible, but only book 1 and 2 are available on Audible at this time. Book 3 is on pre-order with Amazon as a eBook on 9/26/2021, so I'd guess the audible version will be several months behind. I'll wait for book 3 before getting book 2.

Honest Review; No Hype No Hate

I really liked this book and it was hard to put it down once I started. It's geared more towards the younger generation and has it's bumps along the way. However the main character is believable and develops slowly along the way. I will break it down for fellow readers.

1. Story Consistency
The Story starts out as a Speed run, but it slowly diverges away from that. In my opinion this is a strength since it adds real story instead of kill this, go here, and repeat. However it still keeps some of the tropes of the "Streamer" generation to be relateable. The main character is going to encounter roadblocks. The same roadblocks you encounter in life that regular video games are devoid of. I feel this makes the tower of babel seem more realistic than anything.

2. Plot Holes
This is probably the weakest part of the book. There are quite a few deus ex machinas in here. But unless you only read the best of the best it's hard to get around. Part of the tower though is it's mysteriousness and the hidden aspects that power gamers will probably miss and casuals won't understand.

3. Character Development
This is a strength of the book. The main character starts out the same way many of us as the same dumb kid next to us. But no were all super unique am I right? He starts growing up in the tower, facing real life consequences and deciding why he is the person he is. It isn't a great work of literature but it does a decent job and gave me a few laughs along the way.

5. Character likeability
The main character is generic in a lot of ways but echoes a lot of what the gamer generations feels. Perhaps (Spoiler Alert, fyi this isn't word for word) my favorite line is this "Exploration, seeing new worlds, quests, etc. It's all I ever wanted and I feel like I was robbed of something that doesn't exist."

6. Overall
I rated this a 4/5 because it is way better than most litrpgs out there but not a show stopper. If you like the genre you'll love the book. If not it's still a good book to pick up and enjoy.

more mext more

Just an awesome book loved it can't wait for the next one hurry hurry hurry

This was AMAZING!

I can't wait for the next book to come out I couldn't stop listening to it when I started it was executed perfectly and this style and genre of book has now been placed in my top three most favorite. If you're reading this to find out if you want this book, get it now because it's going to blow your mind especially if you like RPGs the stat reading always put a smile on my face know what level and skill set everyone had...its like LARPing but real

Great book

I enjoyed the book, looking forward to the second one. It is the first book I've read in this genre and I will be sure to try a few more.

Meh

I really liked the Speedrunning concept within that book. Since it is called Speedrunner, you would think that it would be a main plot point but nope. Random encounters and lucky occurrences were what guided this story. The author would go out of his way to acknowledge the cliches within his book and then embrace them. For example, the monologuing villain who had to monologue or else the main plot point of the book would be diminished because no one would know what is going on. The plot should have been more of a tower climber, speed running adventure. The story was more a random rich kid trying become richer encounters the MC and derails the story. The narrator did a good job though.

another win for litrpg read by vikas adam

I never had heard of litrpg before I gave dungeon born a try and have been loving them since, having caught up on the Divine dungeon series I gave this one a try because it was also performed by vikas Adam and now I'll be waiting for Adam's Elliott's next release as well.