The Legacy Builder: The Chronicles of Lincoln Hart

By: Ember Lane

Narrated by: Tom Konkle

Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's Summary

Barakdor, a virtual fantasyland packed with elves, dwarves, gnomes and trolls.
Barakdor, a world sliding helplessly to war. 

Lincoln wanted to be a warrior, a rogue or a mage, but he'd made a promise to himself, so he chose builder. He wasn’t supposed to play the game on his own, but now he wanted to build a legacy for Joan, a sanctuary in a virtual world. 

It was supposed to be a place where folk could come to get away from the terrors that the land held, a utopia he would create with his bare hands. It was supposed to be Joan’s legacy. But as the growling thunderheads of war gather, he begins to think it might be a last refuge. He begins to think it might be the land’s only hope. 

Fantasy collides with LitRPG in the the Land of Barakdor. The Legacy Builder is the first installment of Lincoln's journey. The Veils of Lamerell is the first in Alexa's game. Follow them both in the next book to be released, Hero Hunting! 

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©2016 Ian Richard Thompson (P)2018 Ian Richard Thompson

Awesome game building LITRPG

most of the LITRPG books I have been listening to have been the classic adventure style, one or two dungeon based ones. This was my first intro into more of a city building LITRPG. It was very good take the same adventuring dynamics and apply them to also include your classic strategy RPG game where you also have to build and maintain a city, population, morale, defenses, alliances etc. great game mechanic and storyline. Can’t wait to hear/read more. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

1 person found this helpful

A Great Listen

Disclaimer: I received this audiobook at no-cost from the author in exchange for an unbiased review.


The Legacy Builder isn’t a book about a character who found this character who discovered this niche class that lets him become this super powerful OP character. This is a book about Lincoln, a man who’s past his prime, was never interested in virtual reality games, but he came to Barakdor to build a town to honor his wife. This was something we’ve seen before in city builder LitRPG, but that’s not what this felt like. The publisher summary described it well saying “Fantasy Collides with LitRPG in this first novel from The Land of Barakdor.”


The plot starts off slow, but not necessarily in a bad way. This isn’t much of an adventure novel, but it does have a healthy amount of action in it and its action is well-written. The focus of the book is Lincoln working to build a city that will stand as an honor and legacy, not to go adventuring and get rich. The world around the plot shines through at times, there’s some interesting world-building concepts that while I can’t say are completely unique or that they’re completely threshed out, they are very novel and interesting to read and find more out about.


The Main character, Lincoln, is a clever man, but it doesn’t come across as in your face clever or too clever. There is a little bit of where Lincoln “cheats” the game by using loopholes in logic to get what he wants, but it’s a minor thing and it fits fairly well in the system that it was found in. Lincoln is relatable, but he’s not the idealized protagonist I’ve come to expect in LitRPG, the idealized version of the video game nerd most fans of the genre tend to be. He’s, as I mentioned earlier, older, not as accustomed to video games, this is new territory to him, this makes him interesting.


The narration is easy to listen to. As I listened the minutes loped by and kept me engaged. The writing was natural and and turned into narration with ease.


Overall, I quite enjoyed this book and I look forward to the next in the series. It's not the stereotypical LitRPG, but it still qualifies and is great for someone looking to get out of that mold or to start crossing over into LitRPG territory.

1 person found this helpful

I love builder stories

The start of the book is a little slow and off putting, but after that it becomes a great start to a town builder story.

2 people found this helpful

There is a balance, this is not it.

As much as I enjoy the LitRPG genre, there is a balance between story and interrupting the story with character/town status upgrades. In this book it is completely disruptive to the flow of the story. In combination with a narrator that seems incapable of distinguishing the multitude of characters through tone or accent causes this book to be just another in a list of mediocre LitRPG fully capable of getting lost in the crowd.

This is disappointing because the premise is good, and certainly worthy of expansion. Find a better way to present stats for audio format and get a narrator that is a performer instead of a reader and you have a reasonably good book.

2 people found this helpful

JUST NO.

THE NEW NARRATOR IS JARING AND I CANT GET INTO THE BOOK. IM REALY NOT A FAN OF SERIES THAT KEEP JUMPING AROUND CARACTER FROM BOOK. I WANT TO STICK WITH LINCOLN NOT THIS AIR HEADED DUNCE. I DONT WANT TO READ THIS PERSONS POINT OF VIEW AND THE NARRATOR MAKES IT EVEN WORSE.

Not for me

No adoption for an audiobook as the stats are way too numerous and lengthy. The narration is too bland and emotionless for me.

Great Builder LitRPG

I received a free review copy.

I loved the book. The prose was very poetic at points with the way the scenery was described. I thought it was beautiful. I laughed and cried (a little) while listening to this book. I
I recommend the book.

The main character wants to be a builder. He travels to the future site of his city, making new friends of the downtrodden along the way. After he arrives, he works to build the city along with support from the people surrounding it. It was very satisfying. I look forward to the next book in the series.

I thought the reading was great! The narrator had the perfect voice for this character/story.

This is a great book

I received a free copy of this book for review purposes, my review is voluntary and unbiased.

This story is great, the motivations and personalities of these characters are fantastic. It's a bit different from other gamelit novels as Lincoln our MC isn't an avid gamer, and doesn't want to be a big damn hero, He's just a guy who wants to build a monument to his wife and keeps getting smacked in the face with adventure.

The characters are great, some of them aren't precisely likable but they are interesting, I was hoping to find out more about what happened to Alexa but I guess she gets her own books. so looking forward to that.

Pretty much everything that is good about this book is character driven, there isn't a whole lot of story going on that affects the characters as of yet. There are some warnings about war coming and that certain rulers are jerks but those are tomorrow problems

The first part of the book is Lincoln preparing to set out to find a good place to build a town, the second part is the journey there, and last is building the foundations of a settlement and preparing it for the future. Lincoln takes a long view of development and is planning for the future needs of a larger and somewhat isolated civilization.

The only downside of this book is the way the stat blocks are read. Each skill/stat/item and so on has several sets of numbers associated to them and most of them have no effect on anything perceivable. A skill will have a level a percent to completion and bonus number and an aptitude number, and the narrator reads commas by saying "comma", so you will get a skill list that reads something like

"Carpentry comma level 4 comma eighty-one percent comma plus sixteen comma 24."

for each skill and stat and so on, and other than the level none of those numbers mean anything in the narrative. It's just a huge block of text that means nothing. That could have been read as "Carpentry level 4" and moved on, the rest is just made up fluff to make it sound more gamey and has no affect on anything that is actually going on.

WOW! 6 / 5. NOT YOUR TYPICAL LitRPG/ Fantasy

This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by this author and I really want to listen to more. This is a great light LitRPG. We get some stats but it’s not too much. Just the way I like it. This book is certainly outside the norm as far as ones I’ve listened to until now.
I really like the constant interplay with his computer guide and how it tells him requirements to build, what the outcome of those builds is, what he need to support the workers, etc. Lincoln gains friends, starts a guild and a village, but things are about to get tough.
War is looming and they need to prepare.
The book ends without any conclusion, just a direct lead into the next book.

This is the first book I’ve listened to by this narrator ( Tom Konkle ) and I would gladly listen to another. His voice acting is engaging . He brings this story to life so well. His voices are varied and personalities suit the characters.

There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence or swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

really liked it

I really liked this book. The MC wasn't a whining simpleton, the supporting characters had some depth and the story moved quickly.

ok book

Lincoln wanted to be a warrior, a rogue or a mage, but he'd made a promise to himself, so he chose builder.

Nice game related builder book

I've started to get into these LitRPG/ isekai kind of books but previous ones have more been about the hero kill/ doing quests to get stats/ gold/ abilities. I've wanted to read the more sub genre of builder type books and this sounded interesting (I think I would even more enjoy a dungeon building book next).

The main character Lincoln Hart was very likeable. He was smart but not smug, easy to make friends and not overpowered. He came up with unusual ideas and was funny and occasionally exploited game mechanics which I enjoyed.

This was a nice start to a series with a taster of the 'game' and also hints of the bigger story and 'outside' world.

The narrator was good and gave Lincoln a great voice and was distinct with all the other characters too.

I'm interested to see where this series go and recommend this book.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]