The Mayor of Noobtown

Noobtown, Book 1

De: Ryan Rimmel

Narrado por: Johnathan McClain

It could be worse. You could be stuck with a literal shoulder demon.

After dying and being reborn into a world that's built like a video game, Jim has found himself stuck in a very old-world style new-player zone for low-level adventurers. Unfortunately, the zone fell out of use centuries ago, and no one told the monsters they were supposed to take it easy on the Noobs. Even worse, the only new player around is Jim.

Jim has been given an opportunity, and he'll do his best to take advantage of it.

©2019 Ryan Rimmel (P)2019 Podium Audio

Al most perfect

This is a rare gem. It is one of those books that is funny from start to finish, is serious, and tells a complete story while managing to leave the door open for more. Technically, the book could have ended right where it does and I would have said great book, wish there was more, but cool. That’s not true, I would have written Rimmel and begged for more.

In truth, I originally thought this was a harem book called Mayor of Boobtown, but was sadly disappointed to learn that I was wrong. I thought it was part of the classic boobtown series). Ok, bad joke, but I have to say that I loved the concept of Noobtown from start to finish. It begins with a man getting run over by a truck and waking up somewhere else. He’s being character built by some mysterious voices and while their attention is turned he begins to explore the “character center” looking for class options. He soon discovers that the voices are demons who want to erase his memories and send him off to fight a dark lord. From there havoc ensues and the MC and one of the demons become bound together beginning the start of a horrible friendship.

As I said, the book is filled with humor, both situational and banter types and ninety percent of the jokes stick he landing. Probably the best and longest gag is that of the MC’s name, Jim. It harkens back to the Monty Python Joke There be those that Call Me Tim, but adds to the silly name in a fantasy world bit. The MC comes off as over powered, but this isn’t a video game MMORPG, even if the world he is in has those elements. His abilities stem from his time spent in the character creation center and are pretty cool. So, Jim can have and level any class in the game from thief to swordsman, mage to sage it doesn’t matter he can be it and gain the skills and abilities for each class he has. Downside is that he has to actually acquire the class via normal means, he can’t just announce that he’s going to be a wizard. He’d have to do some schooling, for example. This allows him to achieve some neat feats that would normally be impossible. The only time I thought Rimmel stretched probability was during the time that Jim was setting traps for a rescue. He set a ton of traps in a very small window of opportunity.

John McClain narrates, and I am so glad to see he stopped doing film franchises. What? Wong McClain? Sorry. Actually, while the guy is new to my ears, he has narrated just under 100 novels, and it shows. He has incredible comedic timing, he also gets the way to tell a joke, or more importantly describe a humorous situation. He does an amazing job, and this is another guy I telling you all to look out for.

Final score. 8.6 stars. I had a lot of fun with this, was sad it ended so quickly and can’t wait for the next book.

Good LitRPG entrant, terrible name

The name of this book nearly kept me from giving it a shot. The name screams “jumping on the fad” and not in a good way.

The book follows all the LitRPG tropes - character trapped in a game rule world, little/no hope of leaving, an intelligent companion, an unbalanced protagonist, and some settlement building (I suspect a future book will lean heavier into this aspect). That said, it is one of the better written and paced books in this space. The characters are well written and don’t rely on being over-the-top to be interesting. The running “Jim” joke really fell flat to me. Feels like a D&D table inside joke.

I’ll gladly read future releases for this series.

great book

it was very amusing. i ended up liking it even more than i thought I would.

Fun adventure

What happens if you are dropped in an RPG and have to fight for your life? Well, first it hurts like hell....and if you are unlucky enough to be bound to a demon, it is frustrating as well. Interesting world building, thrilling adventure and ended before I wanted it to. I will be finding the other books in this series.

loved it

great story. great narration. if you like dungeons and dragons, this is for you. hoping for more!