The Nexus Games

By: Shami Stovall

Narrated by: Dan Calley

Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Special Forces Soldier Alex Kellan has three problems. He’s on forced medical leave, he’s alone on Christmas, and two men are actively stalking his every step.

Things get worse when Kellan wakes up in a twisted world, where people have magical abilities, and high-tech weaponry. It turns out, Kellan’s stalkers want him to participate in a deadly competition - whether or not Kellan agrees. Forced to participate in the infamous Nexus Games, Kellan must risk everything to survive the competition, and save the other members of his ragtag team.

A litRPG thriller with high-tech magic, and a game with the ultimate prize.

©2021 Capital Station Books (P)2022 Shami Stovall

A lot like Dungon Crawler Carl in a good way

This is a really great series once I started listening I couldn't stop and I went through both books in about a week. Love the characters and the action is very good.

Started slow but kept getting better and better.

It definitely started off slow. I didn't get hooked until around the 3 hour mark and the story definitely picks up in last quarter.

The narrator was great. I don't know how the sound was mixed but it was really soft and quiet, I had to turn the volume in my truck almost all the way up just hear it well.

Fun story but mc is not special forces

The story is pretty entertaining overall and the narration is done fantastically. However, there's simply no way to believe that the mc is special forces. It would have been more believable if he was a cop or some random guy with firearms training. Probably wouldn't be as jarring if it wasn't constantly being brought up that this guy is supposed to be a tier 1 operator like delta yet actively sabotages his teams' chances at survival and puts them into jeopardy due to his own ego several times

surprisingly good

at the beginning of the book I was a little confused since you get thrown into his confusing life, but after a little while you start to understand, and the book gets better and better, if you enjoy litrpg books you will enjoy this one, I hope there is a 2nd book

refreshing and hilarious

A new spin on the LitRPG genre. The world and setting really hooked me and I'm a sucker for reality tv so the death game vibe pulled me in the rest of the way.

The magic system seems really deep with mages being vastly different from one another even if they are the same types.

Check it out if any of this sounds up your alley.

A fun read!

A fun story. A little out of the norm, but more believable/captivating than most.

Dark, Gritty, Fun, Creative

"Gold Arcana is good for the soul, Red Arcana takes its toll"

Normally when I am choosing a litprg I am looking for some Type of medieval setting.. I want to see a goblin, wizard, X, sword Or something of that nature. Normally when I see a cover like this that looks kind of tecky I skip over it. This is obviously a mistake because I am missing out on some great books. I would have missed out on this one if it were not recommended to me. I went ahead and listened to it and was pleasantly surprised. The MC Is a special forces guy who is on medical leave. He is definitely a scarred character. And when I say scarred I don't mean as in bruises and cut, I mean mentally scarred.

Being a veteran myself, I loved all of the references especially when they had other veterans noticing things about other veterans. As I was focusing on that the book took a different direction than I thought. I am not going to spoil it here until you how it did that, But it was definitely entertaining.I will say the scene in my opinion it's dark and gritty.It seems that the settings had shades of Gotham city, matrix, and Mulan rouge.

Honestly those comparisons are hard for me to explain, but they are the 1st they that came to mind.The narrator did a great job as well. I normally just followed narrators that I know of,So again I was taking a chance.Even though their voices are very different, his cadence and style reminds me of Dion Graham Particularly in the Gideon series.

I would definitely be looking out for more of the author's series, especially on audible.

Litmantuck Book Reviews

Oy Shami. Get some decent alpha/beta readers, please!

This should have been a really good audiobook. Dan Calley did a great job with the narration, the prose and dialog were well done, and the world was imaginative. Usually, I really don’t like “arena competition” books, but Shami Stovall managed to make it exciting and much less repetitious/tedious than most other books of this type.

So why was this book only pretty good? Because the MC who is supposed to be an experienced Delta Force operator makes dumb mistakes and fails to do some of the most basic things that you’d expect a normal person with no special training to do.

That the author has written the MC as a trained and experienced professional makes his obvious blunders and oversights completely unbelievable. Like I said, a normal person with no military experience would have to be half an idiot to miss some of these things.

So why does the MC do these stupid things? I can only think that either Stovall’s alpha and beta readers are useless or she’s not listening to their criticism. Let me be clear, I have no experience with covert operations or even overt operations.

I’m not one of those guys who returns a book because the firearms specs are inaccurate. But I found that the use of the MC’s obliviousness as a device to get the plot to move the way the author wanted was actually insulting to my intelligence.

So to sum up, this was mostly a really good audiobook. Honestly, I was surprised by how good it was. I was fairly skeptical when I spent the credit and was not expecting much from it.

Which is why it’s a bummer that such obvious and glaring flaws were allowed to be included in the final draft. Overall, I really do want to listen to the next book in the series, but I’ll be waiting for some written reviews before I actually decide to spend the credit.

Well folks, round one of the Nexus games is done!

Dark isekai adventure, gritty and interesting. the setting is complex and tastefully disturbing. By the end I really felt for the denizens of the nexus.

Where the heck is bk 2?

So I have been looking at this book for over a month wondering if I should give it a try. I finally buy the ebook but I don't have time to read and use the Whispersync option and get the audiobook. The whole time I'm hoping that I didn't waste my money on an unknown author. Ha! I couldn't stop listening and was ready to snap at anyone who made me pause the book.

There was plenty of intrigue and plot twists. They arent crazy twists just slighty left or right of what could be guessed at. That was plenty enough to keep the plot fresh.

The book is now devoured. My annoyance with the ouside world has diminished. I am back to normal after thoroughly enjoying this book. I then go looking for book 2...which is not ready yet. I'll wait patiently for it because I know you can't rush the good stuff, but I need bk2 soon.