The Ruined Temple (A LitRPG Adventure)

Eternal Online, Book 2

By: TJ Reynolds

Narrated by: Andrea Parsneau

Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

A tide of war. A tyrant king. Will Dahlia and her allies be strong enough to withstand the storm of foes? 

Given a short reprieve from debt collectors, Dahlia must focus on finding the source of a world boss’s power. She’ll have to rely on Madi and Alysand to help her endure a wave of enemies from every direction. And level up fast enough to survive.

Slay a God-Tier boss? Done. 

Convince allies to join the cause? Working on it. 

But when Dahlia discovers that an army is marching on the quaint town of Taelman’s Pond, she’ll need her wits and will to fortify its defenses and fight. It isn’t a question of bravery, but rather one of numbers: How can few stand against many?

Continue this epic LitRPG adventure, perfect for readers of Luke Chmilenko, Carrie Summers, and Tao Wong.

©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Audio

My gut said don't buy this...

After listening to the first book I was very torn as to whether I could continue with this series. I wrote a review that said as much. I thoroughly enjoy most LITRPG books. This one had a strong start but leaned heavily on the emo teenager part of the book and was light on the game mechanics, story arc, character development and almost zero tension building. I thought "Its the first book, the author will get legs and this could take off." I was wrong. If anything, this is much worse than the first book because it doesn't even have the strong introduction and there isn't a new hook for me to latch onto to carry me through the rough writing. It picks right up with the issues from book 1 and amplifies them by adding 1st person perspective swapping OUT OF THE BLUE.

The Good: The narrator's voice when doing the MC.

The Bad:
Zero tension building.
Fantasy Tropes ham-fisted into the book.
First person perspective jumping.
Comically evil Gargamel-like bad guys.
Power creep out of the gate.
Complete personality swap within a month of starting the game (forgivable I suppose but mixed with the other glaring issues it is amplified).
Unimaginative writing after the intro from the first book.
Voice actress has two male voices - country bumpkin or British Lord. Its.. .not pleasant.
Voice of Mari is TERRIBLE. (yes - I know that these are my opinions and you may like them - that's how opinions work)

This series feels like it should be targeted at Young Adults or even kids, but I wouldn't recommend it to either my 11 year old daughter or my 7 year old daughter. Neither would enjoy it.

Good continuation!

Good story and narration!

Dahlia is back and still struggling to get out from underneath her father's debt. Meanwhile things are progressing in the game world she needs to get more pieces of her sword and protect her town from an army that is soon to March against it! She will have to think fast and be tricky to deal with the vast numbers arrayed against her!

Andrea does a fantastic job with the narration!

This is a great second book and I can't wait for the third to come out!

Enjoyed it

Is it a Grand adventure! I'm horrible at reviews though I enjoyed those enough to put something down here. Looking forward to what might be next!

Building to something

The first book did a good job of introducing the main characters and the world. This one continues the adventure (and leveling), but mainly it is setting the stage for some grander quest/saga/adventure.

For the author... I’d recommend a look at your damage vs HP stats. It feels as if way too often, weapons that do max a few hundred damage kill creatures with thousands of HP in very few hits.

loving it so far!

I found it is really easy to get trapped listing to this series! I would recommend all of these books

This book didn't live up to my expectations!

I was excited to start the second book in this Eternal Online series... but to my dismay I found, a story that just didn't quite live  up to the standards  set by Shattered Sword (book 1 in the series)! What I particularly enjoyed about the first book was the story threads that co-mingled Dalila's real life dilemma, with the in-game story of Hana (her game character's name). These two storylines gave her a purpose and balance in an atypical kinda way, and in my opinion, really made the book! This book didn't spend much time IRL, though... and so it almost feels like it's not in the same story arc as book 1.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy all of the action and fight scenes that Eternal provided! I also loved all the story threads, and the set-up as the Ruined Temple came to a close, but it made me think that book 2 was just an odd bridge to get us from the end of Shattered Sword, to the beginning of the final book, Fallen God!
This is a story told from many different view-points, and Andrea Parsneau's narration performance was spot on! 😊👍 

A bit different than the first book but still good

In the first book there was a lot of building friendships, exploring the world, and making relationships with the NPCs. It was a very raw book with the MC dealing with her emotions and really feeling what she was going through, I loved it. This book goes a bit in a different direction, it's a lot more like a typical LitRPG. Characters begin to gain some very unique equipment and (more LitRPG OP like), and there are more battles and such. This isn't bad, it's just a change from how the first book started the story, but makes me a bit sad to see the uniqueness from the first book kind of go away. It's not all gone though, we still have two very strong female leads, which is great to see. It is also great to see pro LGBTQIA messages in this book series, so there are still unique things about this series that help make it great.

Another change in this book is following the three main characters from their perspective instead of the entire book being from Hanna's. This is an interesting change since it was not used in the first book, but it is also needed for when the characters begin to go their own way in the story.

Overall, the story is still really well done for a LITRPG, and I very much enjoyed it and look forward to the next book. I just hope as the story goes on, that the author doesn't lose the feel of the first book. The story is obviously developing into a large world event where the story will be impossible to be focused on this sweet girl who is dealing with her emotions, but she will have those outside of game thing to deal with, so maybe not.

The narrator, Andrea Parsneau is once again amazing. She is perfect for this book, and does such an amazing job with all of the voices. She does a great job putting emotion into the characters and making them feel so real. I still haven't listened to any other books she has narrated, but would definitely look for books she has done since she does such a great job.

Unprecedented For Me

I got so drawn in by the plight of the characters that I did something unprecedented for me...I could not wait for the audio version of the 3rd book to be released so I bought the e-book. As someone with over 150 audiobooks in my library, that's saying something! 10/10 highly recommend.

I could have done with much less Mari.

Going into this listen I was expecting more of the same fantastically narrated single first person POV throughout the story, however the POV jumps between the three main characters of Mari, Hana/Dahlia, Elisand*. This was a bit jarring honestly since it was a bit unprecedented coming from the first book, and I don't think it should have left me as confused as it did. When the POV first swaps from Hana to Mari, I found myself being confused by who was the perspective. Andrea is a beyond excellent talent, but i feel she failed here in differentiating who was telling the story, Mari or Hana. She would use the exact tone and voice for the narration that I would actually forget it was Mari and Hana wasn't even around. Idk if its too tedious or difficult to speak for chapters in an accent, but when the book is in first person it seems necessary for the shifts. The Elisand parts were fantastic but sometimes she would use her deeper voice and others it would go back to the normal narration. I did actually struggle to get halfway through the book, but the first book was so fantastic i was already invested in the story i stuck it out. The best way i can think to review the audiobook is in POV parts.

Hana/Dahlia: Andrea completely brought this character to life, from the emotion down to the cringe-worthy nerd culture reference curses (which i loved for the character!). The story is more of the same for her, she has an OP sword, PTSD and social awkwardness. I don't want to get into any spoilers, so I'll just same I came here for more of this story and character and got exactly that and decent character development. I feel even more invested in her now and i awake the next in the series.

Elisond: A new POV i would have never thought we would have. Mari made sense, but to have the POV of an NPC? That was pretty enlightening and he is a fanastically well done character. Hearing of his sacrifice and his own backstory from his own memory really did him justice. How ever the narration did suffer a bit. I can't imagine its easy to maintain such a different pitch for long and there were time where i was jarred to hear Hana, but in Elisand's head?

Mari: I almost quit during multiple of Mari's parts. As I mentioned before, it was jarring and confusing to keep up with the same exact narration but for a different but still first person POV. I would get used to it a few minutes in each time but I really thought about turning off the book multiple times due to it. But I can forgive that, and even attribute it to just not being my taste for it. It took a minute but i got used to it and i still loved hearing Andrea. But, I couldn't stand hearing Mari go on and on about this GORGEOUS or that BEAUTIFUL woman. I get it, we all get it. Mari is gay, and my issue isn't with a homosexual POV and love interest, its that it was shoved down our ears. Every chapter/POV swap consistently. My issue is that it felt that her defining quality was that she's gay and the love interest, more words were spent to tell us "HEY I LIKE LOOKING AT GIRLS" than about her actually character's issues and struggles and growth she's making. I started to roll my eyes halfway through the book with it, then I noticed how much Hana appreciates every woman too, and it made me cringe, but when Mari started talking about a woman's it really hit me that a man must have written this. This feels like a male perception of a lesbian, and i say this as a straight male. One with zero opinion on gender/sexuality issues going on today. Dahlia's cringe is cute, it made sense. Her going on about the women bc she's struggling with her sexuality. Mari's felt like a 14 year old horny boy and it would embarrass me to listen to sometimes.. If the story weren't so interesting and the rest of the book so great i would have given it 1 star and refunded it.

will fall in love with this book . its a rpg game

this book is fucking amazing any rpg fan will love it . swordart online or any meta gamer will love it

Sweet

I was waiting for this and oh yes it didn't disappointment me at all .An excellent follow-up to the first book in the series. Hana, and now Madi and Alysand, are excellent storytellers.
Andrea Parsneau she is just fab. Soo now I need to wait for the next one .... ;)

a tale told from 3 perspectives

I enjoyed this a lot but was thrown by the change to various peoples perspective other than Hannah's. being irish the irish accents always amuse me lol. if you like fantasy like lord of the rings this is for you as well as d n d