Summoned Book 1

Parts 1-8 (Compilation)

By: W.G. Spillman

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Angela wakes up in an unfamiliar world, surrounded by thousands of others. Several thousand gamers were summoned from Earth to another world in the hopes they would be able to prevent the annihilation of the last stronghold of humanity. For many, it's kidnapping. For others, it's a rebirth. For Angela, it's just...confusing, because until she was summoned, Angela was a man! Years ago, emissaries from another world, called Geamhlúrt, arrived on Earth looking for help to save their world. In the end, they created an online game which mimicked the abilities and conditions which the Geamhlúrtan powered heroes had to face, using it for research--and to find candidates to be summoned to Geamhlúrt as replacement heroes. Now, desperate for help, the Geamhlúrtans have summoned thousands of unsuspecting gamers to their world in new, super-powered bodies. Yet despite their careful selection process, one of those they summoned has arrived in the body of a woman, despite being a man before. Now going by the name "Angela Fury," this former gamer must figure out how to live in a strange world, surrounded by strange people, while stuck in a strange body. What's worse, the mysterious people who summoned Angela and the others seem to be more afraid of those they summoned than they are of the monsters threatening to wipe out humanity. On the other hand, at least now she has super powers... Follow Angela in her day-to-day struggles with survival, loneliness, and identity in an alien world--and that's before the monsters arrive! This is a compilation of Parts 1-8 of the Summoned series, previously only published as individual chapters or smaller compilations.

First AI book

I really enjoyed the story, but the lack of correctly pronounced words is repetitious, very irritating to me. Overall, it's a good story. I will be listening to the rest of these books.

Great story

I really enjoyed this book. If you enjoy books that I enjoy, you'll probably enjoy this one. I really enjoyed this book. If you enjoy books that I enjoy, you'll probably enjoy this one

good story, odd auto narrator

the story was good and easy to listen to but the auto narrator had pretty bad pronunciation on easy words but thats to be expected , however I am still going to listen to the next one

Interesting Premise Weak Follow Through

I don't have a problem with the genderbend, in fact that is one of the things that drew me to the book. The premise was excellent and one I was excited to explore. I wanted to know more about what life might be like as a man summoned into the body of a woman, but was immediately disappointed when the main character's preconceptions exempted him from many of the challenges of having a female body simply through ignorance. The fun part about a genderbend story is the new woman learning about living as the other gender.

Given the premise there also should have been a great deal more women, as one third of men online play as female avatars online, so truth be told there should have been a great deal of men having to deal with being summoned into female bodies given the premise. The other sad thing is that supposedly all these men were chosen to be summoned after background checks had been done on them to determine they were good people. Yet how easily they all fall into the stereotypes of the handsey frat boy.

The main character is certainly a hypocrite - constantly saving the damsels from gropey men but is a closet pervert that I'd put in the same box as those men he is supposedly defending the ladies from. The MC's focus of their attention is often on other character's underwear. Its hard to accept this person's virtues. On top of that, in the setting it is laid out specifically that all of these women are just as strong if not stronger than the men, and that blades and weapons struggle to pierce skin given how tough their bodies are, but the women are constantly being overpowered so the main character can rescue them from men. I would be able to get over it if this just happened once or twice but degrading these superhuman women to damsels in distress who need constant saving gets old really fast.

The main character seems to be a Mary Sue, they are good at everything, a crafter leader and fighter. Good at fighting, good at crafting, everything works out for them, and combined with the constant posturing of demonstrating how virtuous this character is supposed to be I started to lose interest. 5 hours into the book and all the main character does is rescue one girl after another. She is a loner that prefers to spend her time alone, but is so magnetic as to attract followers and suitors everywhere she goes. I think I could get over this if there was just something else going on.

I really wanted to like this more.

Young Adult, PG Harem?

I almost got to part 5. I realized this wasn't written for me but hung in there awhile. I'd recommend it to LGBTQ friendly young adult. Lots of the minutia of a small guild in a medieval fantasy setting. The A.I. narration is ok but it repeatedly mispronounces the same words throughout.

decent story, but it has enough wrong that I won't continue.

the story isn't bad, has some good ideas,
but the automated narrator is just unpleasant to listen to, I've listened to a couple other ones with the auto narrator and it doesn't get better with time. 😆
so I'll skip any ones in future with it for a while until it improves a bit.
and frankly the gender swap is just off-putting.
the character would have been perfectly fine as a normal female lead.
and I don't know if the AI is pronouncing the names of the new race of the world right but (Gee-Flirt-in) sounds silly and a little lame.
the main character (nix the gender bend) was actually made interesting, from her interest in weapon and armor design, instead of just being super good at hitting stuff. 😆
while the side characters were a little flat.