Valley of Death

Apocalypse Gates Author's Cut, Book 2

By: Daniel Schinhofen

Narrated by: Andrea Parsneau

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Alvin had a rough week. Thrown into a digital death game, Apocalypse Gates, with only his wits and a less than helpful AI handler, Alvin's prospects for survival looked bleak. Managing not only to survive but to thrive, he helped build a settlement of survivors in Green River, Utah. Along the way he met the very sexy and broken Gothy. He's taken on the undead, mutated bugs and animals and the worst possible enemy - other people - and triumphed. Nothing looked like it would be a major problem, except for the flight of dragons.

Now the Gates are opening, and Alvin and Gothy are heading out along the roads of America. They'll need to earn XP, upgrade their stats and gear, find new settlements, find allies, and hope they survive long enough to explore the world and each other. The end of the world had come, and a new one awaits. Welcome back to Apocalypse Gates.

(This book contains adult situations, in all their horror and glory. Ranging from abuse to drug use to murder. It also contains graphic sex scenes, which contain elements of BDSM. You’ve been warned.)

©2018 Daniel James Schinhofen (P)2018 Daniel Schinhofen

great audiobook

I enjoyed this audiobook, loved the litrpg setting post apocalyptic, there way alot of sex scenes I'm not s huge fan of that however I'm still greatly enjoy this series much as I did with alpha world.

better

first and foremost the narrator who always does a fantastic job no matter what she's working on. as for this book specifically overall I like the story where it started and where it ended. as for the series so far obviously the beginning of any series can be shaky things and this series is no exception. ideally at least in my opinion every following book should get better and this one does. Of course it's only book to but from what I've seen so far I'm a hopeful as to what is going to happen in books 3. I will say this though, I read the blurb for this series and walked away. it's been quite a number of months since then and I saw another series by this author that caught my attention. It was kind of a coin flip for me but after having listened to it I love the series and cannot wait for book 4 of Luck's Voice. after that I checked into another series by this author and then another both with the same results. liking this author's writing and with nothing new out from the author for the aforementioned series' I came back to this one. there are a few reviews that I've seen to the series that make me a little nervous but I always try and take those with grain of salt and after the others that I've read from this author he's bought the benefit of the doubt.

too sexual

overly sexual which detracts from the story. The first part of book 1 was really good. This one feels like part of a bigger story and almost feels incomplete

Only downside is that it ended

This novel was the perfect sequel. Expanded world, characters, and a much deeper peak into the plot line. I'm sold and anxiously awaiting the next book in the series.

Gets better with every book

The story characters and the performance all get 5 stars wish I could give more. The narrator is in my top 5 all time favorite. Will definitely look for more of her work. The book reached the perfect balance for me and the author will be on my list to buy on site.

Great book, with a caution:

Story is great. A little too sexually focused for my taste, but then it does feel more real that way I guess.

oh my God this whole book takes place in 2020.

Literally it all happens around the time that covid started I should have read this book so much sooner especially considering in the book it's February 2020 so this literally happened just before lockdown it's fucking magical. Not going to lie I mostly started reading this book for the sex scenes and because it's one of those books that is voice acted by Andrea Parsneau, then I found out that for whatever reason she doesn't voice act in the next three books which would piss me off normally but I'm actually really excited because Tess Irondale is fantastic too and I really love this story can't wait to see where it goes next definitely would suggest reading this book even though the voice actors change.

Not bad overall

The Author has a good story but way to much sex in this book. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against sex in books however, in this case it detracts from the story. Every conversation between AL and Gothy ends up turning to sex. When they do have sex the Author spends a great deal of time going into graphic detail of what becomes a five minute sex scene followed by un-needed does he really love me on the part of Gothy, followed by Al saying yes and then more Sex. Honestly I know that many sequels have already been written but I sincerely hope the story takes a more prominent role in the future.

Lots of adult

I should have known about all the adult content before I started this series but I didn’t expect this much. The overall story is great so I just fast forward through all the sex.

Valley of death fails to kill it

Make no mistake, one of my favorite style of games to play was survival horror, I was a Resident Evil Junkie, and I played Dino Crisis long after I should have. Hell, I bought an entire gaming console just to play Alien Vs Predator when it first came out. I love horror, not the crappy stuff that Stephen King calls horror, I mean real horror. Like when John Caprenter was actually crafting films, rather than cranking them out. Ghosts of Mars, I am looking at you. So, when you hit me with a book with a horror theme I’m all in.

Valley of Death does that thing I like where they pick up where they left off in the last book. I just wish that the tone would have carried over as well. This book confused me on a couple of levels. Book one set up that Alvin, the anti-hero (because he’s a self professed A-hole) is set on the task of creating various safe places for humanity to rebuild from, or at least take a solid stance to survive from. He fought some zombies and mutated animals and basically did what he set out to do. He managed to start a settlement and have it prepared to defend itself. Then these things called the Apocalypse gates get opened, making things even harder to survive in. Sounded even more interesting, as we would now have more monsters for Alvin and Gothy to fight.

The truth is it kind of turned into a hodge podge of genre’s that took away the horror elements the first book established. Suddenly there are dragons, wyverns, drakes, and Fey to deal with making the book into more of a dark fantasy survivalist setting. Sure there are still zombies and mutated animals, but Alvin literally has a discussion with a set of mutated birds that eliminates a need to fight, and we gloss over that the zombies are becoming more intelligent and using weapons. This reminded me of the Walking Dead TV show in one way, they pretty much overlook the zombies until they are necessary to the plot. What could have been a great turn of events is overshadowed by boring flying lizards and and weaksauce elves. Oh, and you know how I am always kvetching about doing research before you write something? Here is a prime example. In the book, Alvin and Gothy are attacked by giant toads. It was a cool scenes and awesome premise, but toads do not live in the water. They are amphibians, yes, but the ONLY time that they live in water is during their metamorphic stages as tadpoles. Once they are adults they are land bound. They would not have gone into the water, and I don’t want to hear that they are monsters and so can do whatever the writer says. That’s a crap argument. If he meant frogs then he should have used frogs, the terms are not interchangeable. It is stuff like that that takes me out of a story pronto.

Another issue I had was that in spite of upping his charisma, which as supposed to make his life easier he still seems to run into jerks that don’t trust him or try to kill him. This is in every single potential settlement. Secondly, and my biggest beef is that there are massive changes that happen at the end of the book that really negates everything that Alvin has worked to achieve. It really makes no sense. It felt like Schinhofen had gotten tired of the outline that he had and scrapped it in hopes of making something more suited to what he wanted. Don’t change horses midstream. Don’t rewrite code while you are playing a game, and don’t shift a plot for no discernable reason. Granted, as I listened to this book I kept saying to myself that it felt like Schinhofen was just spinning his tires. It was try to start a settlement, have sex with Gothy, kill something, have sex, start a settlement. I could see that even with the gates open that it was just a kill a new kind of monster adventure.
My issue comes from the fact that I totally respect Alvin and Gothy’s relationship. It is very healthy and supportive and shows that two people can be adults and not fight all the time. There is no struggle in their relationship. This is the books shining achievement, and it gets a little undercut with the constant sex. I would have preferred a tender moment or two over three or four of the sex scenes. Sex scenes you can skip, but open emotional feeling filled scenes, ones played by the intense Parsneau add a hell of a lot more than them boning for two or more pages. I know there are people who skip the sex scenes, but I don’t, and even I felt like there were more than there should have been. Especially towards the end of the book. They just popped up like daisies.

Parsneau is what keeps this book on an even course. She fuels it with emotion, and can read an action scene far better than Michael Bay can direct one. I know that I often come across as an unabashed fanboy, but Andrea really knows her craft and tells one hell of a story. I doubt that I would have enjoyed this story as much if she hadn’t been given the reigns. It is her portrayal of Gothy that just resonates with the listener and rings so true she makes you believe that she is real.

The book lacks a solid direction, and really did nothing here to advance the story. I was not happy with the changes that were implemented, which seemed to be arbitrary, and by that I am talking about the entire Settlement issue. I don’t see why that was redone, and it pretty much negated a lot of what Alvin did in the first book. Still, I enjoyed the book. I just didn’t see any progression, and it was a step away from the horror elements introduced in book one. The fey are not creatures of horror, no matter what they do, and dragons in any setting are fantasy creatures.

I’m giving this book a 7.7 stars. It isn’t bad, but it was just one long run down a dark hallway that had no door at the end, in other words it went nowhere fast. I sincerely hope book three does a course correction and gets this back on track. 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. 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.

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