The Fifth Realm

A LitRPG Fantasy Series (The Ten Realms, Book 5)

By: Michael Chatfield

Narrated by: Todd Menesses

Length: 26 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's Summary

After taking and defending Vuzgal, Erik and Rugrat have a new task to complete: build a city. 

They have been racing through the realms at this point, but Vuzgal is a prize that they can't simply give up on. Alva is mobilized, as are their allies, to build out the new city. 

It is time that they solidify their gains, working on their crafts, their fighting ability, and cultivation. As they expand their personal power, their gaze turns toward Vermire, to the dungeon. It's time they started to exert the strength they've built up. 

Alva moves in the shadows, but to what effect? The answer lies in the Fifth Realm.

©2019 MC Publications Inc. (P)2021 MC Publications Inc

Too much filler

This book and the last really showcases the problem that this series has. That being a lack of focus on any main character. All I really care about are Eric and Rugrat. They shouldn't be over shadowed by 20 other side characters. I get wanting to create a world that lives and breathes, but this feels like two separate stories jammed into one.

Review

Of all the audiobooks I listen to in the series, I would consider this one of the weakest. There was progression throughout the story, but it was dragged out throughout. The audiobook is over 20 hours, but most of the storyline could’ve been wrapped up in 10 hours. Unfortunately Michael Chatfield fell into the trap of trying to extend the story longer than it needed to be!. The previous books before this one are great. The fifth realm l, I would consider a transitional book. You’re not really missing anything. You can easily listen to summary and not miss out.

Disapointed

Honestly, I don't know where to start with this one. I am just disappointed that this entire series has become not about Eric and Rugrat exploring, adventuring and fighting in the realms. It has turned into tiresome mess of crazy side projects. If you are the gather the total time of Eric and Rugrat in this book, you would get about 3 hours total, maybe. Sure, they went to the 5th realm bought some books, pissed some sects off, but for only about a day, within 1 city and ran back to the 4th. Nothing else.

Great Story

This book should really be called between the realms and not the fifth realm. There was not much going on besides a consolidation of their power and cultivation. I really enjoyed the book just don't think it was labeled correctly.

Feels like filler

It's not a bad book it's just filler Entertaining filler but filler if you're bored and want something to listen to it's not bad but it feels like fourth realm2.0 looking forward to the next book

It would be worth it to skip this book

To summarize the book: they got stronger. The end.

It’s called the fifth realm, but they spend maybe 2 chapters there, buy some stuff, and leave. Never returning for the rest of the book, and that doesn’t happen until halfway through the story.
The first quarter of the story is a large section of office meetings that are more like “meetings that could have been an email” rather than an actual story.
The last section was the worst. I hate how the book had another last meeting that could have been an email. I really wanted it to end with a good something: An explosion, a fight, a twist, ANYThing; but, it had to be a meeting...just why?
Some characters get introduced for one chapter, they feel like main characters, show up in one more, and then never get seen or talked about again.
Add to that the few dozen you forget about between books and with the four main story areas I just can’t care about remembering anyone not a main character, there’s just too many.
For instance, there was a plot device character that got rescued-ish, introduced, seemed like a main story character, then just kinda never did anything I guess.

The adventure parts were fun and there was some that I really liked in the later half of the book, but they were short and I feel like the early half was missing any kind of “adventures with the two main characters” kind of fun. That buddy adventure stuff was what drew me into the first book and pulled me through the rough parts of the fourth book, but it’s just not there anymore.

Overall, it feels like one big meeting with a few snack breaks and back to the meetings we go.
I still like the first book, but I think this is where I’ll end the series for me. Good luck with the other books. I hope they are awesome

Great story

As always Michael Chatfield does not fail to amaze. I can’t wait for the next in the series.

Not up to the standards I learned to expect

Where to begin

When ever there has been a delay of over 6 months I relisten to all the prior books so I can remember what was going on

I was sort of disappointed in the book due to the inconsistent story. I do not know who is responsible for making sure that the characters are consistent through out the books but they missed a few problems.

That snippet about Quinn and Jalila at the Formation arena where they watched seems to be unnecessary as it does not seem to be enough to forward the plot for a conflict. If indeed a conflict will occur the passage was so short that its going to be necessary to explain the conflict in the next book.

the bad Alva people - captured, tried and executed- Ok now what? I can not see where that will go.

5th realm less then 2 days shopping, a couple of auctions and fried chicken in the park then a run back to alva dungeon - is that really enough to title the book the 5th realm?

The relationship between tansu and jalila - no where in the prior books did it mention that jalila's mother was by herself and had to be nice to men to support the family. In the second realm books tansu and jalila's were sisters and their parents used Tansu smithing for money and wasted it ran up debts so she disowned them and their brother was a not a nice person. My husband insist that they are saying that they had different mothers and fathers in this book. I am not sure I agree with that but the relationship description is somewhat murky

I will buy the next book hoping it will be back to the prior standard and that someone who read/listened to the prior books does a consistency check before publishing

A long time coming only to be disappointed

I waited a long time for this audiobook only to be disappointed. The story meandered through every element going nowhere. The book was over 26-hours long and only perhaps one hour involved the realm the book was named for.

Hour after hour of unprogressive story telling that could have been condensed down to fit a book the size of a Harlequin novel.

To much going on

way to much of the side story, less than an hour spent in the actual 5th realm overall a confusing and convoluted plot

Lost it's way a bit this one.

First let me say as a series I love this one, but this book itself was a bit of a let down. Author seems to have forgotten that what people loved about it was that it was Eric and Rugrat exploring the Ten Realms and trying to reach the top. While you expect them to meet other people and them to become part of the story they shold not become a major distraction to the main characters and they utterly do in this one. Honestly, I felt like I was watching my favourite TV show but filled with twice as many adverts as normal that I didn't care about.

Also, the way it was written in a shotgun, scattershot method of writing where the characters swapped multiple times in in a chapter meant where they were doing something dull made it feel like it was just filler. I don't mind switching to one of the dungeon group if it has relevance to the story but otherwise most of the characters he switched to in this book are shallow, doing something often tedious.

It's a shame really, as there are good points to this book, hence it is a 3 star for me, but I truly hope he lessens the number of characters in book six and seven. He is trying to tell the story from too many characters point of view, which for me just isn't working. Based on reviews I'm not the only one that thinks so.

I shall hope with the two going up to the next realm or two in the next books that it will focus more on the two characters that made this series, and not the placeholder second tier characters. And please don't let this somewhat negative review take away from the series, or even this book. I was just disappointed I guess more than anything.

One of the best lit rpg i have listened to

One of my favourite series the ten realms had a good ballance of fighting to crafting. It has a well thought out world building, keeping the tension and stakes high despite the main characters power increase. Cant wait for the next book.

4.5th realm.

I found this one very hard to finish and found myself skipping enormous swaths of it, far far too many chapters dedicated to side characters and the happenings of Alva I would say at least 80% with barely any progression made, when we do follow our protagonists they are shopping.... All in all I found this one a poor addition, same situation I had with his Emerilia series as he adds more and more side characters the story becomes less and less focussed on the characters we love by proxy making me and I am sure a few others lose interest, damn me if he doesn't over explain every little change or realization, then again this was the case with his other titles as well, I don't mind an explanation but we do not need the implications as well.

In summary.
This book is essentially filler, more focussed on settlement management/crafting/shopping, very little in the way of progress to the higher realms or main character development or main characters in general.

Hoping the next book won't be like this one

I had been looking forward to this book for a while. I found myself frustrated by it unfortunately. I love the series as a whole. The concept, the magic system, crafting, cultivation, and even town/city building. All aspects I look for in books.
What frustrated me was spending so much of the book focused on side characters and diving in to the minutiae of everything they take on. In the spirit of avoiding spoilers I won't go into details but I think the Vermire developments could have been handled in the background with brief, far more occasional updates. The end result would have communicated the development of the outpost just as effectively without bogging down the book with yet another list of characters to follow and series of events to try to care about.
It was interesting to see the different paths experts take to reach their ranks but I think that point could have been made without having to follow a load of secondary characters through tedious, lengthy processes.
In contrast, Rugrat and Eric's personal development is kind of bounced off of. Where we're inundated with detail in every other section they take leaps in strength with far less depth than the previous books.
My hope is that this installment has done all this set up to get it out of the way so that the next can be a return to the much more enjoyable formula of following Rugrat and Eric on their adventures, with the occasional chapter featuring secondary characters.

Dropping quality

I gave 5 stars to books 1 to 3, but have to stay with 3 stars on this one.

20 hours in and so far it's side stories.
There's little to no arc of the story so far. A lot of side characters take center stage but even those are not very developed or well known to the listner. I would rather have a more focused story around 4 or 5 characters than constantly jump around getting only a quick glimpse of some event or another.
This tendency was present on the previous book but it's worst in this one.

An interlude here and there is fine, for context, but a compendium of interludes is quite borring.

The voice acting...The characters...

I've had to quit this book (and series) a few hours in. The narration is just childish and the accents were bad enough for me to be embarrassed to let anyone else hear it (most characters have a stereotypical "Chinese" broken English accent, even when they're meant to be Scandinavian).

I'd enjoyed the series so far for it's conquerer strategy and theunique union of magic, and modern military weaponry/ tactics... but it's just poor.

There's essentially zero character development and their only distinguishing traits (besides their cartoonist accents) are their goal, role and level of talent (which are all stated with every appearance). They don't seem like actual people at all.

It's a fascinating world and premise but it's more like s report of a bunch of events than an actual novel.

plz give me nr 6 right now

amazing book as allways, really looking forward to the next chapter, want to see them fight a bit more like in the 4th book and the first