The Two Week Curse

A Military Portal Fantasy LitRPG Series

By: Michael Chatfield

Narrated by: Todd Menesses

Length: 19 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the 10 Realms....

....the only stat that mattered was strength.

Was that about to change?

Erik knew one thing after dropping in, when he first saw the numbers before his eyes, the rumors about the "cursed" were true. He was in another world. Survival wasn’t assured.

Cultivate, get skills, grow abilities, or die.

His old life, as a combat medic, had been hard, but he had learned some valuable lessons. And he wasn’t alone. His best friend, a marine recon sniper, like always, was right by his side.

Could they figure out this fantasy world?

What does it mean to ascend?

How will they master the magic of this strange place?

You’ll love this LitRPG/Gamelit, because of the mixing of Eastern Cultivation and society with western magic and modern ideas. It will hook you from chapter one.

Get it now.

©2018 MC PUBLICATIONS INC. (P)2019 MC PUBLICATIONS INC.

2 Combat Vets, Kingdom Building, Great Litrpg!

Great Litrpg! It has the kingdom building and ruling aspect of litrpg's that I love, while being mixed in with plenty of action to keep things interesting! Each book features a unique new tiered realm, a great idea allowing the protagonists to get incredibly powerful, until they get to the next realm where everything is a challenge again. It helps keep things fresh with each new realm allowing the writer to go in new directions. Having two "brothers in arms" as the protagonists sets a great tone for the series. The wounded warrior opening had me really identifying with the characters. I also loved how the blacksmith and alchemy professions were a main focus of character leveling. RPG professions and min/maxing have always brought out my inner geek, and it was done very well. What makes this new book great isn't anything super unique, but Michael has taken several different ideas from other authors and refined them into something that works better. I'm hoping more authors will use a similar tiered world system to avoid writing themselves into a corner. I enjoyed the narration from Todd Menesses enough to browse through other books he's done, I hope he gets the other books narrated soon! Check out the new book on Patreon if you are as impatient as me!

Awkward and repetitive

I've read and listened to a lot of books similar to The Two Week Curse and this is one that I would not recommend you spend money on. First, the language is awkward and unintelligent. I don't have a problem with foul language especially from a group of combat veterans as it lends realism. I do have a serious problem though when the author uses such language in his narration rather than in his character's speech. That shows such an incredible lack creativity that I very nearly stopped listening to the story each time it happened. Characters can swear but the moment the author does it to lend force to the story is the moment the author loses all respect. Seriously, as an author, if you can't find a creative way to add force to your story other than dropping an F-bomb you probably shouldn't be writing. Second, if you removed each time the character sheet or pop-up notification was read or repeated you could remove several hours of audio. It's almost like listening to someone read a game manual at times and so a lot less happens in the 19 hours of audio than you would expect. Finally, on several occasions I restarted a chapter thinking that I must have missed something. I hadn't. There are just enormous holes in the story that either the author assumes you will figure out for yourself or doesn't feel are important enough to provide to the reader. This combined with only cursory descriptions of characters, beasts, and locations paints a picture that is more 5-year-old scribble than work of art. All things considered, this is a poor work of fiction. It is entirely unremarkable and will not be continuing the series.

Better than Expected

I love the LitPRG genera, but it's become absolutely saturated in the last year with sub-par, self-published books with the same rehashed plots and mechanics. For that reason I didn't go into this book with high expectations, I expected it to just be a generic time filler, but while the book was not perfect, it was refreshingly different and very enjoyable. PLOT: The book is about 1/3 adventuring and 2/3 base building. Honestly I didn't expect any base building, so I was surprised by this. I personally like that style of LitPRG, but others might not. Some sections of this become a bit dull as I think too much time was spent on the mundane aspects of city management, but most of it is good. There are plenty of scenes outside of this base building, but they are all focused at the beginning and end of the book. There are some interesting sub plots from the first part of the book that do get followed up on in the end, which is nice because in a lot of LitRPG those things sort of get forgotten, The Land series is a prime example of that. I don't want to give up too much about the plot, because it's hard not to spoil it, but I will say the story does not proceed in the way I was expecting. I should mention pacing and chronological order is a problem for me with this book. Sometimes it feels like a month of activity will go by, taking up a dozen chapters, only to be told later the amount of time passed was 5 days. Things seem to be completed in unrealistically fast time. This would be OK if there was some reasoning behind it, but we are lead to assume time flows normally. Some mentions are made later about the amount of time it takes to, for example, build a building, but it feels like too little too late and it still does not explain how you can do things like turn farmers into grizzled veterans in a matter of days. The worst part for me though is feeling like the timeline got messed up.... almost like entire pages were misplaced. Sometimes it feels like they are talking about something they are planning to do in the future as if it already happened, or that they are discovering things they should have already known about. Sometimes it feels like things happen more than once. I actually wonder if the Audible app messed up the chapters or something, I will have to re-read it to be sure. CHARACTERS: There are two main characters, which is a bit different for the genera, as most LitRPGs focus on a single player. They are a bit different than your typical MC as they come in with a military background. The other characters are mostly decent, with a couple that stand out. Character development is not the best in this book, but it's pretty good for the genera. WORLD AND GAME MECHANICS: Lots of new concepts and ideas in this book, most of them pretty cool. Unfortunately some of them don't feel consistent or feel completely thought out. Some of the mechanics are explained over and over to the point of being annoying while others are barely touched on. Most of the mechanics and systems are really interesting though, it's just some of them feel awkward or unfinished. Most of it is not major to the story, just slightly annoying. Some examples are being given a list of resources in the city management screen, but resources are never talked about in the story, there really is no resource management, it just feels like there are infinite resources. Another is how skill books are consumed when they are used, yet they want to build a library where people can go and read them, making it seem like they have infinite uses. Just lots of little strange things like that. WRITING QUALITY: It falls somewhere in between self-published and a traditional published book. There are mistakes and awkwardness, It's not so much there are glaring errors, it's more that there are a lot of odd wording choices, and scenes and dialog that could have been executed better. There are times where the writer goes on odd tangents or randomly returns to the same topic discussed a few paragraphs earlier, like when someone is telling a story and remembers an earlier part of the story, so they mention it before continuing with their original train of thought. Again nothing terrible, but it just felt like it could have used some more time in editing. This is pretty common in this genera, especially since many of the books coming out are self published or translated. NARRATION: Pretty good, but I took a star off for the bad Chinese accents. Many of the residents of this world are apparently Chinese, but the narrator uses the same cheesy accent for all of them, making it hard to differentiate. The accent he uses sounds more like the type of fake accent someone would use to make fun of a Chinese person. His other accents are fine, he has a decent southern sounding one, and he is not a bad narrator, I just don't think this narrator was well suited to a book with so many Chinese characters.

Was it really that good?

Short answer.. I couldnt put it down. I listen to it in two days.... Now I'm waiting for second book to come out. I been listening to a lot of litrpg books and this book was refreshing. Micheal Chatfield did a great job with character development. Making you feel like you are there. While one the edge of your seat. I always put a 30 min time on when I listen to book in case I get board or fall asleep. But this been had me up for 3 hours resting the time until I had to force my self to go To bed. First time hearing Todd Menesses performance. He bring all the characters to file and I will be looking into other books he has been apart in. You made a good pick.

Good story, writing needs work.

The narration is good but could use a little more bite during combat. The story is also good but needs work. There are times when it focuses too much on little things then skips ahead days just to progress. The main nitpick I have is how much repetition the author uses. Every other chapter is filled with repeated words. An example would be a paragraph that has the word body in it four times, twice in the same sentence. The very next chapter has the word city in it four times. It makes me cringe and you can hear that the narrator doesn't like it either. It's a shame because the story is really good and I like the main characters. But, it hurts my soul to hear the same word used over and over.

Where's the rest of the series?!?!?!

FINALLY!!! An author that actually sounds like he knows what it's like to have been in the $*** and low crawled out of it, or at least knows some who have. I have never laughed as hard listening to a book as I did for the first 20 minutes of this one, the conversations and actions are exactly like some of the things my old squad mates and I used to do and say to each other all the time back in my time in service. The story line is awesome and while it moves pretty fast at times the narrator doesn't try to rapid fire the words out just to make up for a lack of skill to voice the urgency. These two make an awesome tandem in a wonderful story line. Now Amazon just needs to saddle up and get the next two books in this series on audible so we can enjoy the others.

Good but needs a proofreader.

The first part of the prologue is very military. It's gritty and nasty but gives you some background on the characters. The second part of the prologue is a more standard prologue and is important to the story. If you don't like hard core military stuff, skip forward a few chapters until nobody's shooting and you'll get to the second part of the prologue. The main story I really enjoyed. It has a very different feel to it than virtually all of the novels I've read as the main characters are hard core military, in a fantasy world with stat screens. It's got the "video game feel" that characterizes the litrpg genre. I love the fact that the characters are left with freedom to do what they want. There are plenty of "quests", but they mostly happen because the main characters got involved in something, not because the game world decided to give them one. There's also a great deal of flexibility and realism in the skills and abilities they can acquire; they can even create some. I really enjoyed the first two audiobooks, but I wondered why it sounded garbled occasionally. Normally I'd put this down to a problem with the reader. However, I couldn't put the series down, so I picked up #3 and #4 in ebook format. That's where the "garbling" came into the light. Michael needs a proofreader to go through and fix the handful of mistakes that exist in EVERY chapter. Partial words, wrong words, weird words("between the circle"-should be within/inside/in),doubled words(ie: 2 different options in a sentence and they're both there), heck even changing monetary system mid-page(one instance that I think was in book 3, they said that they'd spent X gold to buy something, then they sold it for Y silver, and therefore profited Z silver...it's 1,000 silver to the gold, so at even 1 gold starting price they'd have taken a loss). Overall, I really enjoyed the first four of the likely 10 or 11 novels, and found the audio version easier to enjoy as the words roll by and then keep going. So when there's a small mistake, you may or may not hear it, but then it's gone; you don't get to look back and confirm that it was a mistake.

Perfection

First off, how have I never heard of todd menesses before. His narration was absolutely fantastic. The start was a little slow but after that it took off like a rocket. Absolutely amazing storyline wile avoiding most of the clichés. Would definitely recommend. Note: I paid for this book with my own damn money, and this is a REAL honest review.

goofy, but not in a bad way?

I struggled with how I wanted this to be more imaginative at times. I wanted more unusual enemies and challenges. Very interesting character mechanics. Would only recommend to fans of the genre

Seems abridged Lacks depth Wait for rewrite

Another take on the common RPG literature. Character development seems sudden. It's more like the characters take sharp turns rather than slow growth into someone new. (oh I'm this new emotion now for no apparent reason without any plot development to show they've been moving in that direction, if the main character had been a serial killer, mid stabbing somebody they might go oh you know what doing this is bad let me heal you.) Main characters suddenly have well-thought-out plans and ideas without Rhyme or Reason as if they've been thinking on it for weeks when taken by the arc of the story they've only been in the situation for a relatively short period of time. (oh I've been in the situation for 5 minutes now, without discussion or reference to having had discussion let me and my supporting main character suddenly agree on everything to the extent as they might as well be one person even going so far as to answer in detail questions asked of the other; Let just go ahead and lay out this 40 step program they are putting together on the fly.) Just wait until the NPCs/background characters start conveniently answering the main characters questions in the immediately preceding scene by following scene the main character just happening to walk up on npc at the beginging of the conversation so as to hear all the relevant information. There are many other issues that causes it to have an abridged feel but I think I have referenced enough situations without providing actual book spoilers. Edit: Just coming back from having finish the second book. Some of the previously mentioned issues the author has with writing are mitigated not really fixed in the second book. Overall there is never really a sense of urgency or suspense and the entire storyline is missing any sort of fog of War. These books really should not have gotten past the editor let alone published at this stage. The closest analog I can give you to the feel and pace that this story arch gives is something like World of Warcraft where you're just grinding it out and you will never reach level cap or endgame. It has potential, real potential, but save your money until it gets a rewrite when the author has had more extensive experience.

Sloppy writing, strange narration

The writer clearly has a story to tell, possibly a good one, but the writing is sloppy. You often get sentences where an item or person is referred to multiple times by exactly what it is, instead of "it". In general the text just isn't great. The narrator does a lot of weird accents. He also puts emphasis a lot of strange... PLACES..! Overall I was entertained but annoyed throughout the book. You shouldn't actively avoid it, but it's not on my recommended list either.

a few editing errors

great story performance was good there were a few editing errors where a scroll seemed to turn into a book couple of other minor things like that. I did really enjoy the whole thing though

Boring and non-immersive

I simply could not finish this book, I chose to buy this due to its' underservedly high review score. The lack of vocabulary and imagination combined with a monotone narration and a holed story made it hard to get immersed. I listened through most of the story yet I still feel no connection to the protagonists Eric and Rugrat, they are still just grunt one and two doing stuff with no explanation why. Like many other of the low-end litRPGs the author keeps explaining the motivation behind unimportant actions, and leaves out explanations for character developing actions. It seems the author wants to show that they are kind until threatened though we only get a bland and shallow insight of the characters and their motivations. Eric and Rugrat seem quite unintelligent which is normally not a problem, though in the case of this story they are apparently smarter and better at magic than the native population of a world where it seems magic users are as common as merchants. The character stats are repeated over and over but they seem to have little to no real influence on the characters, their behavior or their development hence the stats are redundant and could simply have been left out of the story altogether. At some point of the story Eric and Rugrat finds a creature, which is described from their perspective as something different and inferrior yet related to another species, but they still think of it as the other creature even though there are many names in the English language for said creature. Overall this has been a bland, unimmersive and at times very frustrating listen.

Starts week but gets to speed

Didn't really like the beginning but as the story unfolds I started to like the characters and the world is pretty cool. the base buildings and resources are a bit lackluster but still enjoyable

Great story

I was kind of put off by the cover art when I looked at this a few months ago. Judging books by their covers and all. What a silly chap I was! It is very good. If you like isekai lit RPG with a milSF/fantasy angle I would strongly recommend it. The world draws you in and the plot moves along well. The narrator gives characters distinct voices and does a good job conveying the emotions. He does a very good job bar the odd pronunciation issue (granary is not pronounced graynary whatever accent you are doing!) overall excellent voice acting. MCs are OP as usual for this sort of faire but it doesn’t detract from the challenges they overcome and rugrat and erick are very relatable, you want them to succeed and become even more OP. Some good low comedy in there (later book but rugrat occasionally sharts at embarrassing moments and I laughed out loud at how it was handled, don’t judge me!). There are a few continuity issues at points: scrolls become books then become scrolls again. At one point I think it is stated that master is before expert ranking and that confused the hell out of me. A she becomes a he temporarily (very progressive!). A teleport spell with a 100m radius would produce a 200m wide teleportation circle not 100m so the difference between radius and diameter got confused. Little things that while noticeable don’t break the immersion but should have been caught by the editor. Overall if you like litRPG and enjoy a rip roaring adventure I would strongly recommend. I’m about to start number 4 and I hope number 5 is out in the next 25 hours please?

A good bit of everything

It was refreshing to hear a LitRPG novel, which had a bit of everything (fighting, town building, level focus, skill focus, development) story was interesting and sub plots stopped the story from getting dull.

Slow, boring and exposition heavy

I couldn't finish this it was awful. From start to finish it crams exposition down your throat is monotonous detail. The story explains its systems and magic when they aren't even relevant to the moment. Characters are one dimensional and boring no motivation is shown anywhere. Whole story lines are started explained then dropped in the course of 1-2 chapters which are between 9-25 mins long about 10 mins average. If you know Litrpgs AVOID THIS. one of its worst sins are the character sheets ok we need to go though them every now and again that's cool. Maybe once ever 1-2 hours is fine in most LitRPGS. However this book has 2 maybe three in 10 minutes EVERY 10 MINUTES . My god I could chalk up an hour maybe 2 hours of this book is dedicated to character sheets if not more! I don't care unless a lot has changed ffs Hate this book a waste of time narrator was meh ok but not great

Great series

I really like this series and look forward to seeing what Eric and Rugrat get into.

Good but...

I really enjoyed this book; and the series, but I do find the MCs a bit over the top. I like them and it doesn't put me off but I found my self eyerolling at certain points. That said the narrator has done a great job of capturing what you expect the characters to sound like. Really enjoyable listens, but I think ill take a little break before starting the next one.

magic and guns

i have read a lot of Michaels books starting with the free fleet, and moved on to the traped mind , but this is my favourite book, its well written and well narrated, the mix of voices helps a lot and plenty of action, if you get the book you won't be disappointed