The Curse of Hurlig Ridge: 1st Dive

World Tree Online, Book 1

By: M. A. Carlson

Narrated by: Anneliese Rennie

Length: 21 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

In the future, androids have taken over most jobs, leaving humans with little to do and even less to motivate them. Enter the World Tree Online, a fully immersive virtual reality experience.

Join Byron in his first 30 days of a non-stop fantasy adventure in the cursed province of Hurlig Ridge, a land filled with monsters, mysteries, murderers, and treasure. The people of the province have been tormented for centuries by a pack of voracious wolves. Now, with the arrival of the adventurers, dark forces have begun to stir, accelerating their dark plans. Can Byron unravel the mystery of this curse before it’s too late?

Adventure and excitement await anyone brave enough to join the World Tree. Will you be one of them?

©2018 MA Carlson (P)2018 Spectrum Audiobooks

Good story

Overall it was a good book, but the constant repeating of entire sections of text because of a completed quest or looking at details from a sub skill got old real quick. The lack of a epilogue in the audiobook was also a little annoying.

The narration was probably the worst part of the audio book, Anneliese Rennie isn't a bad narrator but she really didn't seem to fit with this book. I could barely tell the difference between characters, or when it was a general narration rather than an inner thought of a character. That doesn't even get into the random pauses throughout the book.

A great LITRPG story

*This book was given to me by the author at my request, and I provided this voluntary review.*

4/5

Ive read a ton of LITRPG titles, so the setting and plot wasnt a shock to me. Where this was one different, was the interpersonal connections it had with the people and main character of the story. While there were plenty of stat dumps, it wasnt too much. I was laughing at plenty of points throughout the book and loved the couple of easter eggs that were dropped in - they were a nice touch. The only thing I was a little put off by, was the use of thought-process setups for a piece of dialogue -- which happened quite a bit. "I wonder what this this thing would "X" or do "X"" followed by the literal event, dialogue piece, or interaction occurring. This type of thing was rather tedious to read, but everything else was pleasing, so I kept on going! Glad I did too, because the subplots and the 'to be continued' kept me on edge wanting more. I was also curiou about the narrator - she did a good job with doing impressions and narrating, but I was a little unsure of the "tone" used for some of the dialogue she was reading (such as using flat monotone voice for a time when I would have thought it would be more excitable and higher toned). Anyway, this is a solid 4 star read for any reader who enjoys LitRPG, who will definitely want to come back for more dungeon dives with Byron and Co.!

SORRY!

So much fun as a Gamelit book! My son and I loved the story and the characters. The only problem was both of us wanted to listen when the other wasn't there! It got me to buy the other books for us to read so we could find out what was next. I strongly recommend this audio title.

horrible narration!

I was only barley able to get through this book. the narration is awful.
example:
My friend said that we should all go to get some drinks I like drinks they make me less thirsty I climbed into my car and buckled my seat belt.

played at 2x speed. and yes all natural sentence breaks are gone!

amazing

lots of goofy fun moments and an amazing story, especially if you are into online games

Very Enjoyable

This was a very good start to the series. I have read many LitRPG books and some don't hold my interest. I actually cared about the not only the "real life" characters but also the NPCs. There doesn't seem to be anything new in terms of leveling, spells, abilities etc but I did enjoy the feelings and emotions the characters had in regards to killing within the World Tree.

The narration was great. I could easily tell people apart.

There were some hiccups on the tech side. Some sentences/paragraphs repeated and once around the middle it jumped ahead a bit.

Looking forward to the next installment!

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Sweet tale you won't want to miss

I have been wanting to get this reviewed since before I got really sick, and am sorry it took me sooo long to get this out to you guys. This is one of those books you listen to and wonder why everyone isn’t talking about it. Personally, I think that Hurlig Ridge kind of got hit with a situation like a summer block buster smash. Sort of like how the Princess Bride came out right after Fatal Attraction. I don’t think that the amazingness of the fantasy film could compete with the hype of Glenn Close’s crazy rabbit boiling psycho. Hell, I even went to see Fatal Attraction instead of PB, and I can remember seeing the Bride advertised on the lobby walls. I think that happened here, several hyped books popped up at the same time as this and this book kinda got lost in the shuffle.
Now, you know I love getting into the game quickly. I tend to get bored or annoyed with books that take a tenth of the novel setting things up before the player actually gets inside. Not here. It was almost like we get to meet the MC and he’s already in the game. I loved it. That, my friends, is how you do it. The story is almost a slice of life, and I am not a huge fan of those, but lately I have been opening up to the concept and am enjoying them more and more. Still not my favorite thing, though. Thankfully, the book does have paths that it follows so it is not aimless. There are issues with PVP stuff and even a mystery that evolves and pulls the story in a direction that is both fun and exciting.
Another aspect that worked for me was that the entire gaming system is well thought out. The only thing that sort of bothered me was that the only way to really improve yourself is by training. No cheat points pop up when you level so you hafta hit the metaphorical gym. This would have been fine, and I actually enjoyed it at first, but it is a frequent thing. All I could think of was Rocky, when his trainer Mick yells and say “You’re gonna eat lightning and crap thunder! No go chase a chicken.” We level up and then ByeBye is drinking 6 dozen raw eggs and Syrio Forel is telling him to go chase cats. We don’t get a montage scene, but I would have appreciated one or four a few times. Now, obviously I jest but my sons did keep playing Eye of the Tiger the longer they heard me listening to the book.
If that is the worst thing about this then whoopity whoop. I loved the book. It is long, over 21 hours and so you get your money’s worth and you won’t mind the time investment. The MC is interesting, there is plenty of action and mystery. I also appreciated how we stay in one spot for the duration of the novel, but the world building was obvious. A lot of thought went into this land and its people; just like the game mechanics. Carlson has obviously put a TON of work into this book before he ever started writing. I look at it as the way Tolkien developed different languages, a whole geography, 10,000 years of back story and so on before he ever started the Hobbit. The hard work and effort pays off and it shows. As much as I ribbed it, I think I liked the concept of the slow build of a character over rapid point distribution as you level. It was different and stood out when compared to the way most systems are laid out.
Can I just say, first that I simply love Anneliese Rennie. She is an amazing narrator, and the work she has been doing is a real boon to the community. The last book I got to hear her in was Hummel’s Radiocative Evolution where she played a dragon. This is much better because narration-wise, so to speak, because she gets to play everyone! She’s one of the few people that I could listen to all day. I think she handles the characters with finesse and tells the story like she was living it. She rocks this book and I think that it is obvious how much she enjoyed narrating it.
Final score 8.4 stars. I believe that this will eventually become a much bigger series, and will get noticed by the community for the great work that it is. Good characters, cool game system, and a madcap narrator who takes you on a ride in her word mobile makes this all worthwhile.

Really enjoyed it!

**This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.**

I've read a lot of litrpg recently where the MC is the chosen one so when Bye Bye got a unique class and was billed as "the one" I wasn't too excited. Thankfully I didn't need to be worried the stakes are more scaled back but are just high enough to make it interesting. The levelling system is great and it feels like an event when someone levels up but one thing I wasn't a fan of was every time the party turned in a quest the system message got repeated which I didn't feel necessary as 9/10 times you you don't need a repeat. I'm looking forward to finding out more about the world as a whole as we only got to see a small starter area. I hope more is explored about the real world in the next book as it was referenced but we don't really know what's happened to make everyone want to escape into a game. Finally one major plus point was skipping over the walls of skill ups after the first few times it happened, they can get very annoying very quickly especially in an audiobook where it's harder to skip.

Loved it

Loved it, good book and well written. Main character is male but narrated by a female voice actor wich can be a little disoriantating at times but you get used to it.

Story is fine so far

So far, it's a pretty standard start for litrpg. I'm only a half hour in, but I need to say... the editing on this audio is terrible. Awkward pauses between sentences, random parts cut out... it's pretty hard to listen to.

In my opinion, it needs to be completely reworked and shouldn't be on here. I sincerely doubt anyone actually listened to this before it was released.