The Third Realm

A Military Portal Fantasy LitRPG Series

By: Michael Chatfield

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 17 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

With the third realm, new challenges arise. 

Erik searches for Old Hei while Rugrat deals with his broken mana system. For both, their path takes them toward the alchemist association's trial. 

They didn't mean to get into trouble, they swear, but in the ten realms, trouble is not far behind the duo. They'll have to fight across the third realm to complete the alchemist association's trial. 

All isn't peaceful in the first realm as Alva and Vermire will face one of their greatest challenges yet.  

Chaos or creation? There's no knowing what might happen in the ten realms.

©2018 MC Publications Inc. (P)2019 MC Publications Inc.

It should be 5 stars but....

As the books progress, the author focuses too much on the non-MCs. it is a 20 hour read book!!! and more than 6 of that isn't about Rugrat or Eric. It gets worse in the rest of the series to the point where you can just skip any chapter that the first paragraph doesn't have Eric's or Rugrats name. Doing this subtracts nothing from the book. I will say that there are a few really cool non MC chapters but instead of just including the good stuff you have to hear all the boring, drab, annoying, nobody cares!!!! stuff.

A story should be a story, not a text book, and certainly not every single thought that goes through every single persons head (there are like 12 non MC,MC's now...)

This series is in my top 10 of all time reads, but instead of being at the top it is like 9.

SO, should you read this book? YES!!! DO IT NOW!!!! But could it be better? yes, it could. The next two books also do the same thing. Too much side stuff. I'm am here for Eric and Rugrat, not every person they meet in their life. I don't care about them no matter how "cool" they are. You know the good from bad parts in a book when you reread a story multiple times. The stuff you skip is bad, the stuff you read over and over again is good.

Performance is amazing again!!! Thank you Todd Menesses, it was worth waiting!!!

typical mike

This is another great entry in the ten realms series. The only reason I gave the story 4 stars is because there isn't a category where I can rate the authors writing from a technical standpoint. I think the story of these books is a solid 5/5 as far as wuxia / litrpg goes but this book is filled with michaels somewhat wordy and repetitive writing style. To me, it feels like he writes book as fast as possible and then doesn't have anyone other than himself proofread them, and then only proofreads them once. It doesn't really take away from the story, but I get a little frustrated with how dumb some of the sentences sound. He also doesn't like to use the word 'it' after introducing the subject of the sentence, which for some reason irks me a little bit.

He says things like: "He picked up the heavy table, the heavy table was made of hard mana steel" followed by "He moved the heavy table and then set the table down"

It's kind of a whiny gripe but I've noticed this in all 12 of his books I have listened to.

"He picked up the heavy table, it was made of hard mana steel. He moved it across the room and set it down"

Is that so hard? Do you have to tell me its a table 7 times for me to understand?

So in conclusion, I think the story is great and so is the world and all the systems and facets that come with it. I think that Michael could improve his writing a bit instead of just doing the same thing over and over again, but then again is making sales and money so I guess it's not really necessary. I liked the book even though the writing is annoying sometimes and will buy the next in the series for the great story and detailed crafting.

Side stories abound.

Way too many side character stories. Honestly break the side characters into separate books so you have a flowing narrative instead of a jumbled mess. This book was a bit of a bummer.

Great story and performance, but tempo seems off.

The story and performance was amazing as usual but the tempo seemed off this time. I greatly appreciate the length of the book, but the story seemed as though the last four hours were added on to an already complete story. That's not to say they weren't an enjoyable four hours, but they seemed detached from the rest of the book. It felt like there should have either been another chapter or two, or the last few chapters could have been put in the next book. As it stands the ending feels abrupt and forced *spoiler* ( the last sentence is literally "Casually talking about a course with the express purpose of making it easier to kill other human beings" ) it could just be me but that just doesn't seem like a good place to end the book.

Just wait for the 4th realm.

This book barely had anything to do with being in the 3rd realm. They went there merely because they had to. Main characters took a backseat to the growing (annoyingly so) cast of names that really dont add much beyond seeing Eric and Rugrat's ripples of effect. Barely any fighting for loot or real danger for them in the whole book and then it ended mid-freaking-conversation. Just wait for the next book before getting this one as it's just filler about growing the town. if you like reading about crafting, taxes, blueprints, etc then this is the book for you.

Drags

Goes on and on with way too much detail on the world building. You'd think it's a study book for a test.

Mostly filler, weakest of the first three books.

about a third of this book was interesting but overall it was tough to get through. Kept falling asleep. The jumps from the main story to side story were jarring and so were mostly boring and lacked immersion as a result. Overall a competent but mediocre audio book. The first two were much better, and reviews indicate the 4th book is back on track. Book 3 felt like a long book 2.5. about 70% of it could be skipped without much negative impact. Just enough important info to make it so you probably want to read it if you like the series, but it's not a great experience by itself.

The 10 realms are a guilty pleasure

I like the world-building, Enjoy the two main characters. I would rate it higher, but this one seemed to be less about eric and rugrat and more about establishing the groundwork for the next book.

Typical Chatfield

Once again Chatfield finds a way to ruin a good concept. If you enjoy half the book being crap that isn't relevant to the story...if you enjoy listening to budget meetings yeah you heard that right budget meetings...if you enjoy listening to the day to day minute by minute life of crafters, farmers, and whatever else crap that does not contribute to the plot in any way...if you like books that do not have a ending this is the perfect book for you. No idea how this thing got a 5 star rating.

For the other half of the book that focuses on the MC's, this is a fun and enjoyable story. I really like the adventures Eric and Rugrat. When Chatfield can stay on story and brings to life these 2 characters the book is a great listen. If i do continue with this series when The Fourth Realm comes out i will be skipping all the garbage and just listening to what is written about them.

As for the narrator, Todd does a really good job with about half the voices. The other half are just annoying and childlike. Maybe there are just too many worthless characters to have to voice.

disappointed

The first 2 books had so much story progression and character building.
This book is going down the dark path of Emerilia, You could skip the first 16 hours and be happy with the last 4 hours...

Dude, get an editor for these books and focus

focus on the main characters more... you're starting to lose me...

also, stop saving money on the short term... you're losing more money on the long term if the audiobook will be the same quality as the future ebooks.

Awful in every way...

Terrible story written as if it had been translated from an obscure language by a 12 year old...

Why did you change the narrator

I did not purchase this version with this narrator I want the old version back

AMAZING BOOK

I’ve read ton’s of LITRPG books this one is of my favs! This is my second time listening to the series 5 out of 5!

Excellent

I usually wait until I've finished a series before writing my reviews.
Books 1-5 in this series are excellent. Great character building and the narrator really brings everyone to life.
Books 6+, I'll never know.
The narrator changes and its hard to tell when a character is speaking or if it's the story being narrated.
Everything is the same. I couldn't finish book 6a (the shortest book in the series).

If you can accept not finishing a series and leaving on a high note, Books 1-5 are great.
If you want to listen to the entire series, listen to samples from Books 6 onwards to see if you fall asleep or not.
The story is still excellent but the narration completely kills it.

I can recommend the book, but I cant recommend the series as a whole.

Great!

not much to say - just great! The story is really beginning to come together

a great litrpg/wuxia series.

a unique blend of western and eastern litrpg styles and a very interesting twist where they bring modern civilization ideas and systems into a medieval rpg world. very likeable characters. and to top it of a great narrator! highly recommend the 3 first books.

Another great entry

Another great entry into a great series the story is just getting more and more interesting and detailed

Does not disappoint!

I have fallen in love with this series. The two main characters make you want to cheer them on.

brilliant

great brook my third time of listening to it and I still love it about to start book 4 again, really hope book 5 comes out on audible soon