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  • Shadeslinger

  • The Ripple System, Book 1 (A Fantasy LitRPG Series)
  • By: Kyle Kirrin, Portal Books
  • Narrated by: Travis Baldree
  • Length: 21 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (242 ratings)

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Shadeslinger cover art

Shadeslinger

By: Kyle Kirrin,Portal Books
Narrated by: Travis Baldree
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Publisher's Summary

Corporate flameout Ned Altimer dreams of leaving his world behind. So, when Earthblood Online splashes onto the VRMMO scene, he dives in and never looks back.

His advantages are twofold: exclusive access to the game’s three-day Head Start period, and a ridiculously handsome talking axe named Frank who has knowledge of the game’s deepest secrets...if the magnificent Frank ever feels like sharing them.

But those advantages also make Ned a target. Once the Head Start period ends, his fellow players will stop at nothing to rip that suave, violent, yet disarmingly charismatic axe right out of his hands.

In 72 hours, the greatest manhunt in gaming history is set to begin.

It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

©2021 Kyle Kirrin (P)2021 Portal Books

What listeners say about Shadeslinger

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great concept, I'm looking forward to the next.

I'm gonna try and be as fair as I can be, I really liked the overall story and character progression, the MC made realistic and well thought out decisions, and I found it very easy to become invested in the story. I'm especially looking forward to further developing the housing system setup in this book, and I appreciate the lack of sexuality in this book, I can't stand fantasy books that turn into power fantasy pornos, I very appreciative that this has none of that
But... my one big gripe that I have upon finishing the audiobook is the lack of adjectives used while writing character dialog, anytime someone said anything it finished with "so-and-so SAID". It's definitely nit-picking, but when two or three characters are having a conversation, it becomes very jarring when it's used over and over consecutively.
Other than that, I'll certainly be purchasing the next in the series when it comes out.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Solid and entertaining story

Great story telling with some good twists and turns. It's also nice in a litrpg to not have the main character building a harem as he goes. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Made it to 2 hours 30 minutes.

I'm a big fan of gamelit/rpglit but this didn't really feel like the genre.
There was no melting into the world, Immersing yourself until you forget it's not real.
The 3 supporting characters are interesting with uniqueness about them but the protagonist is empty. He doesn't make any strong decisions, doesn't have any intelligent plans and the story devolved into the stream of consciousness of a streamer beta testing a new MMO.
The secondary character has zero chemistry with the protagonist, they are polar opposites in every way that has been presented, they do not have a single point of commonality between them.
The main plot/goal feels ill defined and not a single character has expressed interest in furthering the plot.

It seems like some effort has gone into the worldbuilding but the protagonist doesn't care about it, The NPC's are not people with wants and needs but mindless characters with a script. When the plot devolves into kill X of Y quests... the only kind of quests presented. The npc's don't matter to the plot. It doesn't matter if he is killing bone flute making elven traders, they are just the Y he needs to kill X of.

I'm putting the book down, I may come back to it if I finish another book early but I don't recommend this book.

Narration was good.
Voices where distinct from one another, never wondered who was talking, solid performance.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

so boring

Probably the most boring book I've ever tried to listen to.

I've listened to other LitRPG. I found the Life Reset series fairly interesting and engaging. But Shadeslinger is so boring I only made it two hours in and couldn't force myself to go on.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wow!

This is his first book on Amazon/audible and I can’t believe it!
Love love love it!
It was long, but it didn’t have unnecessary part there just to pad out the story and the pace was great, which often I find lacking in the second half of longer novels.
The author took an unlikeable guy with an unlikeable sidekick and made the weirdly likeable, and totally supportable.
Cant wait for the next instalment ... even if I know this one only just came out. 😅

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

very good

if u like mmorpg u will love this book can't wait until book 2 is out to continue the story

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Solid Premise and Characters

Tempted to stop reading several times when the game creator came in to arbitrarily nerf the player (who wasn't even particularly powerful). It breaks the whole litrpg progression premise.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good listen

Enjoyable, grabbing plot and development looking forward to the next one. Narrator did an excellent job also. The story mechanism are well done characters are interesting and sometimes there are lol moments

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Rob
  • 19-03-2021

Love it

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A talking axe with a bad attitude, a world out to get you, a hand full of loyal friends, a balanced story you win some you lose some, and great voices to boot. What else do you need.
I read the comments for this book and thought this could be interesting, and boy was I right. This book is worth the purchase.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great listen

Well told story of a very different game launch lots of interesting characters and good story off to get the second book now

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