The Mayor of Noobtown

By: Ryan Rimmel

Narrated by: Johnathan McClain

Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

It could be worse. You could be stuck with a literal shoulder demon.

After dying and being reborn into a world that's built like a video game, Jim has found himself stuck in a very old-world style new-player zone for low-level adventurers. Unfortunately, the zone fell out of use centuries ago, and no one told the monsters they were supposed to take it easy on the Noobs. Even worse, the only new player around is Jim.

Jim has been given an opportunity, and he'll do his best to take advantage of it.

©2019 Ryan Rimmel (P)2019 Podium Publishing

Like the land but actually finishes story lines.

This book reminds me of the Land, different mechanics but solid lit rpg. Humor is a good borderline between tasteless and pre-teen boy. Just the right amount in between to make it enjoyable.

Oh and this actually finishes some story lines lol. Over all a great listen. I say give it a chance.

Excellent

Very well done. Humor was on point and not overdone. Great performance by McClain. Interesting world and world building. A very powerful/lucky MC, but I think it is deserved and not OP, though that may be in our the future judging by his progress. However, Rimmel seems to be scaling his encounters well and realistically, and keeping it interesting.

My only true criticism is the jarring way the MC looks back on his past. We haven't really discussed in it a while, then BAM: Rimmel remembers that Jim cares about his family and is sad for a minute. Still, the way he pops in tidbits to shed light on Jim's past while keeping the focus on his new life is well done.

Again, as most litrpg is a guilty pleasure for me, I found this to be refreshing and don't feel guilty in the least. Highly recommend if you enjoy litrpg or are curious about the genre. As long as the series holds up, this will easily be a top 5. Looking forward to number two.

Language and inuendo

Interesting story, but the language and sexual inuendo makes it not worth listening to. Enjoyed the narrator though.

Al most perfect

This is a rare gem. It is one of those books that is funny from start to finish, is serious, and tells a complete story while managing to leave the door open for more. Technically, the book could have ended right where it does and I would have said great book, wish there was more, but cool. That’s not true, I would have written Rimmel and begged for more.

In truth, I originally thought this was a harem book called Mayor of Boobtown, but was sadly disappointed to learn that I was wrong. I thought it was part of the classic boobtown series). Ok, bad joke, but I have to say that I loved the concept of Noobtown from start to finish. It begins with a man getting run over by a truck and waking up somewhere else. He’s being character built by some mysterious voices and while their attention is turned he begins to explore the “character center” looking for class options. He soon discovers that the voices are demons who want to erase his memories and send him off to fight a dark lord. From there havoc ensues and the MC and one of the demons become bound together beginning the start of a horrible friendship.

As I said, the book is filled with humor, both situational and banter types and ninety percent of the jokes stick he landing. Probably the best and longest gag is that of the MC’s name, Jim. It harkens back to the Monty Python Joke There be those that Call Me Tim, but adds to the silly name in a fantasy world bit. The MC comes off as over powered, but this isn’t a video game MMORPG, even if the world he is in has those elements. His abilities stem from his time spent in the character creation center and are pretty cool. So, Jim can have and level any class in the game from thief to swordsman, mage to sage it doesn’t matter he can be it and gain the skills and abilities for each class he has. Downside is that he has to actually acquire the class via normal means, he can’t just announce that he’s going to be a wizard. He’d have to do some schooling, for example. This allows him to achieve some neat feats that would normally be impossible. The only time I thought Rimmel stretched probability was during the time that Jim was setting traps for a rescue. He set a ton of traps in a very small window of opportunity.

John McClain narrates, and I am so glad to see he stopped doing film franchises. What? Wong McClain? Sorry. Actually, while the guy is new to my ears, he has narrated just under 100 novels, and it shows. He has incredible comedic timing, he also gets the way to tell a joke, or more importantly describe a humorous situation. He does an amazing job, and this is another guy I telling you all to look out for.

Final score. 8.6 stars. I had a lot of fun with this, was sad it ended so quickly and can’t wait for the next book.

Preview is misleading

The sample that played did not go with the book. Different narrator. There were some sound quality issues. Sound started soft and ramped up occasionally. Not horrible, but distracting. Not sure if on purpose, but seemed to be read slowly as if to draw out duration time.

The story of a man constantly complaining.

I found it hard to get through.

Author is constantly reusing the same words, and most of the jokes fall flat.

It was the story of a man constantly complaining. It just kept deteriorating. Elaborating on the entitled "everything sucks" personality of the main character, a constant victim competing in the pain olympics. Even when things seemed to go well for him. In a fight he says, "and then it got worse", although it really wasn't bad to be winning the battle.

Character development was also lacking. It seems there was an attempt through the banter between the sidekick and main character. Each exchange between them, and including the "names", total cringe.

The narrator reads like it's spoken word and every, line, sounded, so, pointed, yet, also rushed.

Sorry for the harsh review, I feel like there is a lot of missed potential in this story.

Surprisingly good

I avoided this one because of the goofy title but it's actually one of the better written LitRPG novels out there. Portal fantasy with hybridized progression. A little pen and paper with a little MMO. Main character is witty without it becoming exhausting. I look forward to the next one.
I am also a big fan of this narrator. He was part of the Ninth City Burning cast and has been under utilized in scifi/fantasy.

I didn’t like this book at first.

My first impression after reading through the first few chapters of this book was I didn’t like this book at least the storyline that is. But I pressed on and the story improved quite a bit. But unfortunately the storyline follows the same old storyline of so many other in this same genre. Plus the main character it’s not very clever and too many times survives by pure luck. And I really don’t like stories where the main character can only survive by having the god of luck (The Author) looking over his shoulder all the time. This is just the author stepping in to push danger level to the extreme just to make it more exciting. Putting the lousy plot line aside the author is very good and talented writer and if you don’t mind all of these flaws this is a good book to read.

The Good, The Bad, and Overall...

The Good: If you were doubting your capability to finally write that great book you have been debating upon, wait no more. This is one of those super rare books on Audible that demonstrates anyone can write a book. Ryan Rimmel not only cranked out this linear, poorly written, with depthless characters excuse for a book, but has written multiple follow up things that some call books. So, buy this book to motivate you to finally write your own book.

The Bad: I knew I was in trouble when the narrator decided to pronounce the word 'room' as 'RoOoMmm'. It wasn't a special RoOoMmm just an ordinary room. Sadly this random annunciation continued throughout the rest of the story. I believe Johnathan McClain thought he was talking live over the radio. Perhaps he was channeling the late great Paul Harvey, but in a bad way. He wasn't awful, but he was not a good fit considering the subject matter. All of the characters were paper thin, especially the protagonist. Having just recently died he had a rather laissez-faire approach to being separated from his wife and son. Oh, and to build upon that; when married men remanence about their family internally they do not refer to them as 'my wife' or 'my son'. Unless, of course, the author has never had a wife... due to still living in his Moms basement at 50+, unless of course you count the RPG wife he has (she's an elf) that he fastidiously preserved the original character sheet (on lined notebook paper) which has yellowed as the decades have passed from high school... so so many years ago. But he loves her so he is knowledgeable about family dynamics. If you enjoy back to back to back McGuffins, this book may be for you.

Overall: To be fair it did have it moments. Not book worthy but still a few good moments. He is probably a great game master. It would help if his Audible Bio wasn't full of grammatical errors. Such as that old gem of never, ever, ever end a sentence with a preposition. To confirm, I read the Amazon review of the E-book and they have stated lots and lots of errors (to include spelling). I guess he couldn't afford an editor. Every couple of pages or so he breaks out his trusty thesaurus to add a 'smart' word to demonstrate his capability, as a literary genius. I don't understand the firewall 5 star reviews. The writing style is for young readers (8 - 10 year old's) and sadly he took the same path as other questionable writers by throwing in some F-bombs to demonstrate that he is writing for more mature readers (14 year old's). I guess family members and fellow (online) neckbeards (from their own basement kingdom) have heavily padded their reviews (like he did this weak premise of a book). So, learn from this 'book' and try not to make the same mistake when you publish your book. I bought this during a $5 sale, so there's that. I would have returned it if it was full price though. As it stands I feel I was charged $4 too much.

Very long-winded and repetitive but it "OKish"

I wanted to like this book a lot of people I know like this book however, This book has a horrendous amount of bloat text even past the stats it pretty annoying. The author goes out of his way to make the book longer by adding completely unnecessary additive. There's also a lot of repetitiveness with Jim's inner thoughts and let's be frank insults from the demon. There's also what seems to be an obsession with saying peoples first and last name the whole book and then going as far as to make fun of the MC multiple times with different characters. The author either has a very weird and dry sense of humor or goes around and saying everybody's first and last name every time they talk to someone. The narrator did okay however because of the way he pronounces the demons name I'm still not entirely sure what it is.

Overall there's the potential of a good story and maybe the second one will be better but it as it stands it's pretty mediocre at least in my opinion

MC references the "High ground" twice

Revenge of the sith quote referenced twice, so automatic five stars across the board.

Aside from that it was an enjoyable if short listen that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Edit: yea, I was about an hour in before I bought the next two books. I was fairly drunk but sometimes you just know when you've got a winner. This book made me laugh repeatedly laugh in a park when I was on my own, which is even more awkward when there's a global pandemic on.

Not worth it

This book just feels like someone reading character sheets and trying to find ways of leveling up. Not much of a story.
There are better books in this genre out there. Try "The wanderins inn" instead.

worth reading.

The first book in the series and probably the weakest. That's not to say it's bad just that the other books are great. If you like fantasy with LitRPG themes this series is a must have.

I like where this one is going.

Keeping it sort for this one. Really like the first book good fix for this LitRPG addiction I have a the minuet. Nice start with the slow addition of people into the town more of a adventure book than a city builder in the first book any can't say I don't mind it though the name of the book and the cover art does have very little to do with what occurs in the story. Good voice action as well

decent

2nd best humour top50 dynamics, basic to good world building.
not original characters outside of mc's. demon is great. true to combat the stilted guidance more than most.

above average litrpg high tier but not very top. As though it's great with humour and dialogue it has not put enough time into the creativeness of creation in creatures, story and world building.

if you are out of 100+ratings litrpg audible and are tempted to clock on something like... guild master... Or god forbid "weirdest noob".. then listen to this before it's too late.

Cracking read

Great light read. Good humour, keeps you listening hour after hour. Narrator does an excellent job of keeping you interested.

HILARIOUS

Absolutely love it. Can't recommend it enough. Just the right amount of serious to satire. 💯💖

Good paced, fun and some awesome fights!

A must read/listen for GameLit enthusiasts! Listened to the book in just two days and can't wait to continue in the series.

A solid book

It is a really good book. The mc is fun and I like the tone of the dialog. For me it was a bit heavy on the charter table as they were not at the end of the chapter so it was harder to skip if I wanted.

Funny, but not sure it's quite enough

The author has clearly gone for comedy value and with the narrators dead pan style, it does kinda work.
I'm just not sure the story has enough to it to keep my hooked. Like any genre, the litrpg genre has some truly great works and some absolute dross; this isn't either of those, but clearly falls somewhere in the middle.

I'll probably try the next instalment, but I'm not rushing into it.