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Respawn: Lives 1-5

Respawn, Book 1

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Respawn: Lives 1-5

By: Arthur Stone
Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
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About this listen

You are no one. Level zero. Empty of mind and memory. Even your past has been stripped from your brain by the inscrutable System.

A long, difficult road lies between you and remembering any part of who you are. A road punctuated with one death after another. You are too puny to survive by might alone. Information is the single resource that might keep you alive, but the brainless “digis” have none of it. Only those with experience can give you what you need, but most care nothing about you or your plight. In fact, some make it their mission to kill you.

So die you will, again and again, your life counter clicking lower and lower. Even the creators do not know what happens when your counter reaches zero, but many are sure that your last life here is just that. No more respawns.

You are not the first player in the world of STYX, and you will not be the last. You can only hope luck will be on your side. The luckiest players are those who find a vulnerability in the System. Those they call cheaters.

Perhaps cheating is the only way to win.

Enjoy your game.

©2018 Arthur Stone (P)2020 Podium Publishing Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Adventure
All stars
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Had some very bad writing and many scenes of stupid dialogue, but still managed to entertain.

was entertaining

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I really liked it. I selected it as it was free but enjoyed every second.

I was caught by it immediately.

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loved it for the most part slight blah at times but over.all a great read will read all other in series 👍

well worth the credit

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Great character development, clear character differences and an amazing storyline!

Am downloading the next book as I type this!

What a way to get people hooked on a series!

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I generally don't like zombie or luck stories. This series does both amazingly well and even sprinkles in some litepg (not annoyingly like some). It takes a minute to warm up but once it did I binged the whole series as soon as I could. Give it a go, you won't regret it.

one of the best

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TLDR
Great narration, misogynistic MC with no redeeming arc, heavy romance plot in latter stages of novel.

Longer review:

For the first half of this book I was convinced I'd finish it a raving fan. Unfortunately as the story went on I lost interest, then actively disliked the MC. There are also a couple of huge swings in story direction which come out of nowhere, so be prepared for that.

A brief spoiler free summary, first. The story starts with an average dude waking up in a dorm with no memory of who he is or how he got there. It quickly turns out that he's in a zombie infested litRPG world, and he'll have to learn the ropes as he goes.

The first 30% of this novel is litRPG. It's actually pretty good! It's a slow burn but really interesting, and I found myself looking forward to what the character discovered next.

The middle 50% of this novel was zombie fiction (with almost no litRPG). Again, this was good, though I found myself mourning the reduced game-like elements.

Then we hit the last 20% and the story just flat up turns into a romance. I'd read other reviews talking about the romance elements and just thought it was whiny dudes who couldn't handle a subplot. But no, this is Romance with a capital R - it's like I was reading a whole new book - one with a barechested dude on the front cover and a woman swooning... or in this case, the other way round. The MC's thoughts are filled almost exclusively with thoughts and conversations about unrequited love.

Then there's the MC's attitude misogynistic attitude toward women in general. He's written that way and acknowledged as such within the text, but it's still not the hero I wanted to cheer for. In fact, once the chauvanistic stuff came in (at around the 30% mark) I actively started to dislike him. Here's just one example, copied word-for-word from chapter 10:

"He had trouble calling a creature that beer-bellied and lumpy a woman. Hag maybe. The woman's rags and dirt hidden legs repulsed him... slender legs were great, but only when joined by an equally attractive rest of the body. Everything above the hips was rough. Looking at this mud heap made him want to go blind. He wanted to vomit onto the sawdust covered floor. Of course, all of this was external. He could be blind to things like that and still cooperate with even the ugliest of trolls."

Urgh. There's a fine line between giving an MC room for growth and just making them a generally unlikable person. The author fails here because the MC doesn't ever seem to be sorry for his misogynistic thoughts, speech and actions. He's given plenty room to grow, but experiences no growth.

While I'm at it, be aware that this book has a solid trigger warning for r4pe. There's lots of discussion about the threat of it happening because the bad guy is all about it, though there are no actual scenes within the book.

On the upside, narration is awesome. Like, really good. Michael David Axtell may not have a huge range, but the stuff he does is really, really nice.

So yeah. Some good points, but the book quickly lost any favor it had generated as the story progressed. This isn't a series I'll be finishing.

Decent LitRPG ruined by MC and Sideplots

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Some of the literpgs devolve so quickly into *me did stuff and powered up*.
This had the right mix of mystery, action and GASP A decent developing plot.

Admittedly i did not like the main charicter at all. I felt like i was suposed to? But i thought he was a shallow prik. But that did not stop me enjoying the book.

Worth a look

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It has to be in the top 5 litrpg out there and it is number 1 in all the apocalypse world end books.

Top 5 litrpg

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Honestly, the story and dialogue is very long and stupid and the MC personality makes you cringe. Allot of better stories to put your money and time towards.

Wouldnt recommend

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When you listen to the few chapters, they're okay. There's mystery, the world-building is good, but then you get to the characters... Nothing much stands out with them in a good way, but here you are hoping that would change. Then, few chapters later, nothing is happening for them to grow or change for the better--or maybe the worse. Then you discover that the author was trying to make it a sad love story with no emotional ground to stand on. It's just all by consequence and situation they fall in love, no actual drama or heart wrenching scenes. The love story was brought about proximity and not because of feelings and choices that you would read mostly in character driven books. So yeah, this book didn't know where it wanted to go or do, just like the protagonist.

It's a trying hard love story.

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