The Glass Bard

By: Darryl DeCelle Riser

Narrated by: Scott Servheen

The last thing Jack Daw remembers is falling asleep at his desk. When he awakens, he is trapped in the procedurally generated open world of a computer role-playing game. Befriended by the beautiful runaway slave girl, Sai, Jack must use his ability scores, the luck of the dice, and his knowledge of every video gaming trope and exploit he's ever encountered to beat the game. If only he hadn't rolled a bard.

©2017 Daryl DeCelle Riser (P)2018 Darryl DeCelle Riser

I felt cheated in the fact that it wasn't long eno

I felt cheated I thought this was not long enough this needs to be flushed out and made into at least the 10 series books this is an amazing story with great potential the glass bar and his dancer friend all I can say is the author needs to make this into a book it's great hopefully we'll hear more from him because this shows an amazing understanding of this genre

Way Better than i imagined

Any additional comments?

short books are allways way too good they burn bright for a moment then vanish making you wish you would see the light again. In more serious term i really liked the book still wish it was longer tho really liked where the story was going and the pace at witch the story was moving. I will for shure buy the second one of this series. Just going to hope that its a bit longer tho 9/10.

A glass tale in a land full of stones

This is a weird little short story that runs for just over an hour, but feels like it is twice that time. The Story is about an MC who is a PC who wants to help an NPC while stuck in some MMORPG. Got that? Ok, lemme flesh that out for you. The main character falls into a game tutorial, and meets Sai, an NPC. She is not only an NPC, but she is also the tutorial guide, and within minutes of meeting the titular Bard, she tells him just how many times she has been raped by one player, and sold into slavery by others. She is surprised to learn that he, the MC, is self aware when he is also back at his desk clicking away on his keyboard (or at least that is supposed to be where he is at).

There are a few problems with this audiobook, and the run time isn’t one of them. When I first saw this I thought well here’s a great opportunity to get a LITRPG short story, hopefully get a cool premise or world, or even see something great about a Bard. Little known fact, bards (when done right) can be fun as hell. I refer you to read the bard in Quag Keep by Andre Norton. When done wrong they come across as a wannabe singer for a Carpenter cover band. Here, I really never got to see the Bard do bard stuff. Ok, so he sings in order to speed along his journey, and he sings to a few people, but there is no real bard magic at play here. The most clever thing I saw was the use of the autosave. The rest of the story is basically the bard being a complete gentleman to his slave companion and doing everything from sleeping in an uncomfortable chair for her to be willing to throw away his very life for a computer generated character. There is no real reason for this, he literally makes no connection with her to a point he should be willing to die, but hey, plot points! Aside from some overwrought angst or unrealistic sympathy I could see no reason for such instant and automatic willingness to die for her. The only reason I could logically conceive of was that he had been the player that raped her 200 times, and had logged in under someone else’s profile. Otherwise he has no real connection to her.

The narration is rife with background static, and the narration by Servheen serves no one here. This is mediocre work at best. Let me tell you. I can allow some mispronunciations, but there are certain words that I cannot let slide. Given that I work with blood vessels all day long, and with this particular beast especially, I have to say that I could not believe that he pronounced carotid as carroted. Yep, you don’t have a carotid artery, you, like Bugs Bunny, have a carrotted artery. Like I say, nothing horrible, but this is really the sign of a low level narrator. If you don’t know how to pronounce something, look it up! His delivery is most likely responsible for the low score, because he doesn’t bring this story to life, but he sure as hell shoots it in the foot. Given the right voice work this story might not have been so bad.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, he is called a glass bard because he eventually realizes that he is just like a glass tank. A character who packs a good punch, but shatters when hit. The only problem is, we never really see him actually pack a powerful punch to account for his tank accredidation. Lack of real Bard action in a bard story, mediocre narration, and some audio issues leave me no choice but to go with the low scores. Clean it up audibly, change narrators, and this could have been much better. As it is, I'd suggest the book on Kindle rather than Audible.

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.

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