The Dead Rogue

An NPC’s Path, Book 1

By: Pavel Kornev, Petr Burov - translator, Irene Woodhead - translator, Neil P. Woodhead - translator

Narrated by: Shawn Compton

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Virtual worlds are places of boundless freedom. Anyone can become an elven mage or an invisible rogue, join a clan, and go on raids, fight, develop their characters, and most importantly, escape from the daily grind.

However, a game is only a game if you can quit. This is something I learned the hard way. I just wanted to let off some steam in virtual reality and ended up getting murdered and imprisoned in the body of one of the undead - slow, clumsy, and cursed to die at the hand of other players over and over again.

The only way out of this awful predicament was to find the legendary Scroll of Rebirth, but the helpless plague-ridden corpse would need to be turned into a real killing machine. If only people knew what it was like to level up a dead rogue....

©2018 Pavel Kornev; English translation copyright 2018 by Petr Burov (P)2018 Tantor

Morbidly fun

You may not know this about me, but I love the rogue class. Rogues, thieves, bards, these are my people. I will take a sneak thief over a noble paladin any day, and I love paladins. Bards? How many episodes have I said I have wanted a good bard story? Probably every other one. I lament the lack of bard tales and burglars. You have to realize that I grew up reading about Gord the rogue and the Gray Mouser. My first D&D character was Lappoy Lightfinger, who lost a couple of digits trying to pick a lock early on in his career, so this book had me at the mention of Rogue. Also, I’m a funeral director, so it also sucked me in when it came to the Dead part of the title. One of my favorite Horror movies of all time is NOTLD, the original. I saw that when I was about three years old, and it cemented my love for zombies and the undead.

This book has a really interesting hook to it, the MC, John Doe, gets attacked by a player and when he respawns he does so as an undead. He’s gone from being a player to an NPC. He’s locked into the game as a result of a hack that the attacker used on him. The hack makes him unable to log out, meaning that he is effectively in a coma and unable to eat or drink anything. IN other words, not only is he trapped in the game, but he’s on a timer. If he doesn’t manage to contact the outside world he just might die in real life.

John faces a ton of obstacles including not being able to walk in the sunlight, speak to other players, or access his thief skills. In other words, he is totally boned. Now, this book really gripped me for about three quarters of the novel. The only slow point that I found was the city siege. It reminded me a lot of when I was listening to the dungeon village in Dakota Krout’s Regicide. It just did not fit the story, and I did think they could have completely cut that section out altogether. On the other hand, it might be a set up for later in the series, I really don’t know. One thing I will say is that I certainly enjoy listening to these Russian Authors. I think they are pretty creative and don’t get as much recognition as they deserve sometimes. I do believe that they were on the edge of Litrpg when it was birthed, and it is pretty cool to see the perspective of someone not in the US. I would love to see some Chinese or Japanese Litrpg translations show up.

There are a few issues with the translations in some points as the same words are used in the same sentence sometimes, for example, it felt like they said things along the line of “ It was spectacular how he swung the sword, and spectacular how the sword struck home.” That’s little things, and it makes it feel like I’m reading a Russian novel.


Compton does a solid job narrating. I think he worked the book well, and did use his voice to its fullest for a premium effect. I enjoyed listening to him, an while I won’t say I was dazzled by him I think he put out a great product, and I had no issue with his speaking, sound quality, or his characterizations.

This was a fun run, and I look forward to the next book in the series. I’m going to say a 7.9 star because I did not enjoy the city siege and felt it was just there to fluff out the book, and I will admit that he was finding the dead man’s set of equipment far faster than you would for a man who wasn’t actively looking for it. Either way the book was fun ,and I definitely want more.

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. 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!!!

As seen on the LITRPG AUDIOBOOK PODCAST, please check it out on Youtube.com

Great fun !!

I truly enjoyed this book. Interesting plot lines. A nice break from the normal litrpg. It’s cool to be dead.

It's different...

It's not the normal LitRPG books I listen to but it's not horrible and I will get book two to see what happens next.

I'm also not a fan of the narrator by any stretch of the imagination. I don't hate him, he's just not for me.

Of course, I am comparing this to Dungeon Lord (which I really like) and Caverns and Creatures, which is my favorite.

Good book but rushed ending

I liked this book and wish author could have flushed out the middle more. I did not like how selfish the characters are but they do stay true to ideals so I can accept it.

One spoiler I will mention is that you should not start this book series if you looking for normal progession of a character through multiple books. The mcs avatar is changed and reset throughout the book and the Mc’s selfishness and half loner mentality does not change throughout the series.

That said I listened to all the books and enjoyed them all and would buy book six if it existed. And the selfishness that I mentioned might be viewed as pragmatism. the author is from a different country where getting by in life is much harder then where I was brought up

Overall pretty good, well written and entertaining

It only starts out as him being stuck as a zombie and unable to communicate with players. So dont worry the whole book isnt like that. The main theme of the book is that he gets trapped in the game and was intended to be captured there by baddies via his mobile respawn point. However he gets away and the has to keep his respawn safe as well as figure out a way out of the game before they take him off life support. I really didnt give away any spoilers there. This all happens within like the first few chapters...maybe first half hr of book lol.

The narrator is good but he doesnt do female voices very well. Which really isnt a problem because theres only a few that come up anyway. The MC has to duck and dodge most players anyway due to his nature.

This is a very refreshing book tho that does focus on story line and plot points vs harems like some books recently. Def worth a credit.

Butter for My Morning Toast

The narrator dances between bored sarcasm and the factual description of predator and prey from a National Geographic documentary.

great story

really enjoy this it was a great listen kept me captivated the whole story nonstop.

interesting story so far

I've been looking for a story like this where the main character is undead. so far I'm enjoying it. It's got a "The Fugitive" feel to it, where the main character is constantly and mercilessly being pursued by an antagonist, while all he wants to do is (prove his innocence and) survive. The world building is interesting. It plays a lot like an MMORPG, with quests, raids, and factions. The NPC's don't seem to have the intelligence built into them that most other litRPGs have. This isn't a "guy gets pulled into an RPG world and everything is suddenly real" scenario. This is a game world and stays a game world, simply the guy can't log out ( because of external real world reasons), but everyone else can still log out. That being said, the stakes are real for the MC. About the only thing I dislike is how almost everyone else that's a player is an asshole. Like, everyone is terrible. However, that does sort of seem accurate since everyone views this as a game where life is worthless and you can just unapologetically kill everything - just like actual MMORPG. I just hope that the protagonist finds at least one or two friends in the following books that aren't NPC. Also the narrator isn't great. I mean, his voice is fine if this were a normal novel, or a documentary, a history book, literally anything else, but as a litRPG his voice is just too boring in my opinion. I don't feel any excitement or emotion from the narrator, but I've heard worse so I'll stick with it and listen to the next book irregardless. All in all, I like the story and I'm going to keep listening. I recommend you check out the first book and see what you think.

Enjoyable

Solid storyline and worth the purchase. Enjoyed the multi class/race variety in this LitRPG. I will get the next book for sure.

It’s okay

I’ve read and listened to a lot of litrpg books over the past 2 years, (over 100) and this book happened to pop up under my suggestion list.

The summery of the story is mediocre common,
Guy plays game, guy gets trapped in game, only way out is to “beat” it (in this case go to a certain area and claim a item)

The overall story isn’t to bad, entertaining.
The main “bad guy” is pretty annoying, but other then that, the story seems to always fall in place for the MC.

No character development really, the leveling explanations (skills ) are a generalization, the MC mentions going a specific build but it always feels like he is just randomly selecting skills based on feeling and not need.

If you have run out of books to read, it’s not bad.
But I wouldn’t put this on the top of my reading list either.

Pretty much a 2.5 out of 5 stars is what I would rate this book.