The Genesis Game: Volume II

World Apocalypse, a LitRPG (Dungeon Apocalypse)

By: Wolfe Locke, Andrew O'Kelley

Narrated by: Christopher Harbour

Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

The Black Seraph lives again.

Murderer. Psychopath. Bastard. Seraph knows what he is. The best hope for humanity to conquer the World Dungeon and survive the Genesis game.

By his own actions, Seraph has become a pariah, ostracized and rejected by the few humans inside the World Dungeon. Far removed from the savior, he was tasked to become. His mission to bring humanity to the Altar of the End and save them from Wormwood is endangered by the hate of the Elves of Hometown toward him and the distrust of other people.

The past has changed.

Seraph has one hope, a hope to secure a prime Guild Hall for the upcoming influx of people into the dungeon. But, short of allies and desperate for survival, Seraph is forced to enter the second floor of the World Dungeon alone. Never forgetting that failure means the doom of humanity, and for Seraph to save the world, no method is off the table. No price is too great.

©2021 Wolfe Locke (P)2021 Wolfe Locke

Even better on audio.

I loved this story. Let me start with Christopher Harbour is really coming onto the scene. I love his work. The story was awesome as well and I highly recommend it.

Good premise there is a failure of execution

The author came up with a good idea for a story and made it fast moving to entertain. However there is a fatal flaw in the speed at which the author moves the books. They just keep throwing things at the mc without any time to process. The mc flows from on crises to another without space. It makes the book feel rushed and dilutes what could be an awesome pair of books. I had hope that the second book would be better than the first but unfortunately it was worse. The author sped up the story and made all of his characters flat as a result. I gave the book 3 stars on the strength of the idea which I would rate 5 stars. The actual execution deserves 1 star. So I balanced it to 3 stars.

TFTC!!

TFTC! Seraph goes through a meanginful character journey and arc and I cant wait to read more!

Tied up very well

One negative first, I am not sure if it was audio issue or gaps in the books, but it feels like their were small parts left out at the beginning of the book. Nothing major, just a few spots where it felt like a little bit of dialogue or action was skipped, and you only realize it when the characters refer back to it.

This author does such a great job such a great job of wrapping up this story without using magic as a cure all to fix a shattered psyche. The protagonist's growth was hard fought for, leading to a very satisfying conclusion.

A bit uneven but it all shakes out well in the end

Disclaimer: I was given a review copy of this story without having read the first, so I'm not sure how it compares to part one.

The story starts out edgy to the point where I was rolling my eyes and considering dropping it. Thankfully, this seems to be just a brief hiccup, and things normalized somewhat as the story progressed, so I'm glad I didn't drop it too early.

It takes a bit to get to the point of the story, but gives a good enough overview of the world and set up that I never felt particularly lost despite not having read book one.

There were some times when the characterization seemed off or inconsistent, but now that I've listened to the whole thing I think that was intentional. Side characters are nicely varied in their reactions to the main character, some willing to work with him, others shunning him, but never ignoring what dark deeds lurk in his past.

The narration is capably done and not distracting, but it's nothing exceptional either. I would neither seek out nor avoid the narrator in future.

Despite its rocky start, it does all come together in a satisfying finale that feels like an appropriate conclusion to Seraph's arc, while providing plenty of opportunity for follow up stories.