The Trapped Mind Project

A Science Fiction Fantasy LitRPG Series

By: Michael Chatfield

Narrated by: Tristan Morris

Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

As he looked at life...

...surrounded by the trappings of success...

Austin wondered, is there anything else? 

He made it to the top. As CEO of an asteroid mining company, Austin has accomplished everything he ever wanted in business. Now, he needs more. To get away he turns to a fantasy video game. 

Is virtual reality the answer? 

Should he pick, elf, gnome, caster, or swordsman? 

He just wants peace and quiet, play as a dwarf, build a house, do some smithing and character building. His idea of the perfect fantasy game. Then he learns their secret. 

Deceit hides in the shadows. 

And the truth is all around. 

Austin will need to level up. 

If he gets caught, it means death. He’ll need help along the way. How can he convince anyone they’re slaves in a bigger game and stay under the radar? If Earth was a simulation and the game was real...

Who can he trust? 

You’ll get hooked on this first book (of 11) in the Emerilia LitRPG series, because the characters grow and advance in the most believable of ways and the plot twists are fantastic. Any sufficiently advanced virtual reality makes it indistinguishable from reality.

Get it now. 

©2017 Michael Chatfield (P)2017 Michael Chatfield

One of the Top Five LitRPG Stories

Lately it seems all I listen to are LITRPG stories, I really like the genre and there are a lot of stories from which to choose.
I really liked, “The trapped Mind,” it’s now in my top five LitRPG stories. To give some perspective, here’s my list.
1. “The Way of the Shaman” series; a six book rollercoaster series of exciting twists and turns that grab your attention and test your emotional resolve, but in the end it’s worth the ride.
2. “The Divine Dungeon,” starting with “Dungeon born;” very clever giving a different perspective and new dimension to the LitRPG story. This series is still in progress and I can’t wait for the next book.
3. “Ascend online,” narrated by Luke Daniels, only one and a half books into the series but a great start and might take over the top spot if the story quality remains the same
4. “The Trapped Mind;” so far I’m up-to-date on all of the audio books that have been released and I really like the story. It’s another LitRPG with a different premise.
5. “Ready Player One;” the original, my first LitRPG, written by Earnest Cline, he nostalgically brought me back to the old time gaming world, great experience.
There are so many of these LitRPG coming out virtually every week that my list could change, and I hope it does because that would mean another really great story.

A real mind bending trip

I generally try to purge anything negative from my system first, and then tackle the good stuff. I do have some nits to pick, but nothing overly bad. I listen to books in the car. I drive a lot, and my wife will listen along with me. Since the majority of what I have been listening to has been LitRPG/Gamelit stuff she gets really annoyed when all the crunchy bits start flying. In other words, when stats or alert notices start flying and never end. It can be distracting, but she had to make me turn this off, as it overwhelmed her. It does bug me, but I got over it. However I see her point. Damage reports, level alerts, and anything else that repeats is fine on a page, you can skim that. On audio it comes off like Dr. Strange meeting Dormammu. Thankfully, once we get into the meat of the story this sort of dies down.

Additionally, and this is only speculation, I have to wonder if Chatfield started writing his book twice, like from a point that he found interesting, and then at the begining because he does rehash some of his world building stuff several times. I don't know if this was two books that got folded into one, but it was a touch distracting to go over something we already knew.

Now the good stuff. This book fed my need for action, but it also sated my intellectual needs. There were great periods of character growth, story building, and some mind blowing concepts. Chatfield really flipped everything on its side and bounced it off a wall. Brilliant concept.

The characters are interesting. The plot grips you. The unexpected truth will knock you down. There is good action here as well as the quiet moments. The story will grab you and take you for one heck of a ride. All that stuff I said at first was just minor crap. The real meat of this book is delicious, and the amount of fat and gristle is negligable. The story and characters progress in a realistic speed

Morris makes a great first impression on me as a narrator. I had never heard him before, but I can see why he has this gig. He's really good, and brings the story to life. He works hard to give each characters a distinctive and individualized voices. Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. In fact, getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.

If this review helped, please press the YES below. Thank you immensely!!!

This is a review for 9 of the books in this series

I will keep it short:

The story and premise are quite good, but the writing and narration take it to a 4-star (still good!) overall.

first the bad:
My biggest issue is that Mr Chatfield reiterates the same stuff a lot. And he also has an issue repeating words that follows him into his other works as well. Here is a pretend example to illustrate what i mean more clearly because i don't know how to explain it:

Dave picked up the sword, he really appreciated the craftsmanship of the sword, he noticed a dent in the sword and began to repair it.

This sentence could have been:

Dave picked up the sword, the craftsmanship was beautiful but he noticed a dent. He began repairs immediately.

Now in the context of this one example it may seem like a frivolous complaint, but he does it constantly. "His eyes started to become misty as tears fell from his eyes" like why did you have to say eyes twice. His eyes became misty as tears began to fall.

This writing style uses a lot of basic descriptions to say one thing which makes it feel very verbose at times and can be a little jarring. Essentially the writing itself is average C+-B level but the story is very interesting. The emotions he wants you to feel can be very forced at times, even when they don't need to be. Ex: The previous chapter talks about two characters relationships, the current chapter one of them dies and then he goes on to completely re-explain their relationship and throw in how crushing the death is at multiple points in this re-explanation. He does too much tell, too much expository dump and not enough letting the events of the story speak for themselves.

The good:
Like I mentioned above the story and chain of events is quite good. The scale goes from minuscule to galactic, and the characters have a lot of development time, there's epic battles, cool powers. the whole nine. Not many twists but it doesn't necessarily need them.

Overall i would recommend this book on the condition that like me, you have listened to or read a TON of books and there isn't a whole lot of litrpg left that has this many entries. Comparing this to a great authors works makes the writing here look bad, but I think the story is worth it if you are looking for a long litrpg series with a great story and many hours of listening.

PS: The narrator got 4 stars for his variety of voices. I am comparing him to someone like nick poedhel or jeff hayes. He still did a great job, but some of the characters voices are really similar to the point where you aren't exactly sure who is talking until he gets to the "Said X" at the end of the sentence.

The most infuriating 5 stars ever given

It's truly a testament to this books premise, story, and characters that depicts the many writing flaws it's an amazing experience.
That said FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THE REPETITION OF INFO DRIVES YOU NUTS THE FIRST 10 HOURS
Seriously you wanna shake the author screaming "I @$@(&(($&& KNOW ALREADY"
But once the final act gets going it stops completely and really buckles down on a rather spectacular and thrilling finale.
Worth the listen and greatly look forward to what looks to be a pretty expansive series

this story could be so much better

Have you ever heard the advice, show don't tell? if you haven't this book will show you why you should.

the author constantly tells everything instead of showing. if you don't mind that you will probably love the book. if you do, it still is ok, but it isn't something I would ever recommend to anyone.

Skip This

I usually don't write Audible reviews, but I am just completely mind boggled how this has such high reviews. Finding good LitRPG can be tough, since much of it is either translated or self-published and poorly edited. But given the interesting premise in the summary and high reviews, I figured I'd give this one a shot.

Bad move.

This book could be used to teach a writing class exactly what not to do for "show, don't tell." Nearly all of the world building, plot, and character motivations are presented in large info dumps, usually by way of awkward dialogue or inner monologue. To make it worse, the author frequently contradicts his own world building and most of it is devoid of any logic. Couple the info dumps with unnecessarily long and frequent stat recitations, and it's unbearable. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind hearing character or item stats in LitRPG so long as those mechanics also play into part of the story. But in the case, the rules don't really apply to our MC, so they really serve no purpose.

The main character is your typical overpowered, super "special" Gary Stue for reasons that are totally unapparent to the reader (except for the fact that the story keeps beating you over the head to tell you how special and interesting his). There isn't a single well developed character to be found anywhere.

Dialogue is awkward and stilted and continually presented as just "he said," "I said," "he asked," lI answer

Meh

Not well written or edited but relatively entertaining. It's pretty uneven, some parts very enjoyable while others can be a little excruciating...

Can't believe I'm downloading the next book!

It reads a little bit like fan fiction for two or three other stories I can recognize. It was a little while before I realized that the author had some ideas of their own, that were quite..... Good.

The author needs more <or> better proof readers like a walked dog needs a pooper-scooper.

The narrator needs to slow down and remember or learn the pronunciation and meaning of the words he's reading. He has a nice voice, though. Maybe he just needs a proof listener.

There are parts of the story that are great and an amazing new take on this kind of story. These parts are mixed just a little too liberally with drivel. At times I was just shaking my head at the nonsensical writing. The author seemed a little too taken with certain aspects of other stories. Hence my comment on "fan fiction."

There is also time and attention wasted on presenting things that are just the opposite of certain other stories. It occurs more as criticism of those other authors choices, than as original ideas.

However it's not so much any relationship to other stories that is the problem. It that there are parts that appeared grafted on to the story that make no sense with the story itself. Mostly the story seems to become more and more the authors as it goes along.

That being said this whole genre is profoundly cliched. When the author pulls it off it's fun. When they don't it's super annoying. On that premise I can cut this author some slack, especially because this appears to be their first stab at the genre. There are apperently
9 more books!

I am hopeful for improving skill and, Proof Reading!!


-Update: I read most of the way through book six. then I just couldn't take it any more. The lack of proof reading, and the authors sloppiness are still my main complaints. I am down-grading my stars a little more, and asking for some refunds. I do not recommend starting, Mr. Chatfield seems to have achieved quantity at the price of quality. And the price is just a little too high.

fun start, exciting dnding, boring middle.

So first the positive things. The beginning was interesting, the fighting was not overly arbitrary, the climax was exciting and THERE IS NO LUCK STAT.

The book's mechanics ect are basically a tweaked version of the lands. Tweaked mostly to give the protagonist a leveling advantage but the advantage is close enough to actual game exploits to not be too noticable.

Now my first big problem with the book is that the middle is basically all filler. And its all really stupid filler. Just one example, the protagonist invents the screw. You know, the screw, been around since before the founding of egypt screw. What makes it worse than that though is even if you think the screw is a modern invention. There have been thiusands of generations of players run through the game, constantly inventing stuff. And apparently none ever thought to make a screw.

Thats basically the level of dumbness this book's filler has. And dont even try to think about the economics of the game's world. You'll herniate. In addition to just that dumbness for filler there is also a dull uninteresting romantic plot. Which is just shoehorned in to fill in pages with needless kissing, flirting, groping and (thankfully) pg-13 sex scenes. But worst of all, are the redundant explanations. Every opportunity the author got he would repeat explanations in varying degrees of lengthy detail. Sometimes repeating thevsame information multiple times in a single conversation. It got to the point where I was dreading new character. Because every newly introduced character meant all the information would be repeated at least twice. Once from Dave or bob or whoever explaining things and once from their own perspective as they came to the same revelations everyone else did.

It was horrible, even at 1.75 speed I still had to skip ahead in many 30 second chunks. And for that insanely horrible filler I knock off 2 stars.

good idea that started off well but fell short

This book started off great. I noticed a couple of things that annoy me personally about the writing right off the batt but I looked past it. But gradually every encounter between characters became so cringey and lame. I don't know how many times I can hear "a smile crept to his lips" or "Dave laughed" "so and so smiled" "so and so laughed". The social interactions between people in this book were horrible. the jokes were horrible. the romance was horrible. I hated the way it was written and I hated the way it was performed. I'm a huge litrpg fan and I feel a little bad about being so harsh on this book but man...I swear it was written over the coarse of a week. Just bored writing as you go. making it up as u go along. the main character was not a likable person at all yet every person in the universe loved him lol. Ok I'll stop my rant. I'm sure there are those who would enjoy this book. dungeon born books are 1 million times better though

So long, but so worth it!

This series has been on my list for some time, but my actual reading time is so limited. When it came to audio I was super happy.

Michael is a complete wiz at weaving stories in and around characters that have amazing depth and motivation.

What starts off pretty slow build till you actually can't stop listening... there's good back story woven in, crafting (a must for anyone who loves litrpg) and intense action.

The 18 hours totally whizzed past me, and I wanted more. I know this series is a huge one, and I seriously hope that Tristan keeps with it because he was a great choice as far as voice and tone go. I'd not listened to Tristan before, but the tone and voices he had for each character, especially Dave were great. The sarcastic and then funny side to him just had me laughing while driving. Some parts I literally was on the edge of my seat. A total joy to the ears, and it made the book go so much quicker. I believe Michael and Tristan nailed this one, and I'm so excited for more.

Now for some deeper thoughts.

As I said the plot itself was slow to get going, I do admit that there were some word choices and lengthy sentences that even made me think twice about the meaning, but it really didn't detract from the story.

Dave is a very interesting character, from a big company to the game he wants to play it's totally opposite to his usual life and it's relaxing and interesting. The game mechanics aren't hard to follow and they develop nicely along the way, of course, there are some huge things for Dave to learn and to develop but he does so at a good pace. It's not over the top for me even though he does develop some interesting items and skills.

Overall this is good start to a series of over 7 books and I do believe he has more on the go! the man is insane.... can't wait for the next one on audio :)

Enjoyable fantasy twist on 'the Matrix'

I generally don't like books that tend towards the litrpg style, so I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this one, most of the time you could pretty much tune out the recitation of stats and simply enjoy a basic fantasy novel with a likable cast of characters.

When we meet the main character he is a rich CEO of a company on Earth who decides to play the virtual reality game Emerilia to get away from the stresses of real life, but over time while he is in the 'game' he learns that it is actually Earth that is the simulation and that in-game is actually the real world and a real world where humanity is not in charge.

The book follows his progress both from the perspective of his stats as a character growing and his personal as a real person in that 'game', culminating in a final battle that is obviously framed in the manner of a raid in an mmo.

The narrator gave a good performance overall, with Dave and the main supporting cast all sounding suitably distinctive without resorting to cliche too much with the wide array of dwarves and elves either.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and the narration and will be interested in hearing more of this series in the future.

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

Great story needed proof reading

Would you listen to another book narrated by Tristan Morris?
Yes

Any additional comments?
I really enjoyed the world, characters and game mechanics of this story but there were two problems that almost made me quit reading early on. This almost feels like an early draft with lots of inconsistencies throughout creating the impression that the author was changing their mind about how they wanted things to happen. For example the main character discovered the same levelling mechanic for the first time on multiple different occasions. There were also grammar mistakes that changed the meaning of a sentence to the opposite of what had obviously been intended.

Despite this I'm still giving it 4 stars and I felt it improved as it went on. I'm mainly posting this to encourage people not to be put off by these problems.

Edit: Sadly I ended up dropping this series. Later books spend more and more time on long drawn battles that are not that interesting individually, let alone one after another.

Just plain bad

Great premise, but it's so badly written...
Whole paragraphs seem to have been ripped from Aleron Kong's Chaos Seed books, without understanding why he wrote then in the first place.
Just a pale imitation.
Avoid!
Can I get my money back!!!

An amazing twist on LitRPG. Loved this book.

This is a fantastic twist on the LitRPG genre. It provided a wonderful basis to truly explore the story and characters. I think that the characters were well developed and crafted to add balance to the groups.

The story rolls along nicely never feeling slow or strained. It provides some lovely twists and grows as you move through building to a crescendo.

I loved the twist right at the end to give a gateway to the follow up book.

The narration was spot on providing in depth characters and distinctive throughout.
You never tire of listening to the narrator and you feel completely immersed throughout.

In summation a fantastic book giving a good intro to LitRPG or just a great fantasy book.
If you are already into LitRPG then this is a bit of a twist on the normal telling and adds a slightly different component.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily provided this impartial review.

So very bored...

I tried to give this a fair go but after 5 hours I was just unbelievably bored. I mean, the only real major plot point that was uncovered during FIVE HOURS was was nature of the virtual world. And that ought to have been a surprise and an emotional event, not just "Ah, yes, OK."

Slow Burner

This isn't a bad story although it borrows heavily from Tolkien and Peter Jackson.
The text is repetitive in places and the narrator sometimes misses context, but overall I enjoyed it.

Great book,

This was a great story, great idea, well written and brilliantly read by Tristan Morris.

I would happily listen to the other books in the series if read by the same narrator

This audiobook was given by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review via Audiobook Boom.

A different take

This is a different take on the idea of the living in a simulation idea. With fantasy elements and Gamers messing up the place its a good story. Including people who mess things up by accident.
To the Gamers this is a game. Except its not.
Add in aliens and its a different enough take to be interesting.
I enjoyed the book, presented well by the narrator and will be buying the sequel.

Its worth a listen for all the Gamers out there. Maybe you'll recognise yourself even.

Kool book

It’s a good story only bad thing is the fcking skill dialogues there so annoying 😡