Arcane Arctic

By: Peter North

Narrated by: Evan Glasser, Renee Glasser

Isekaied into an ice world? Could be worse... Right?

Yeah, apparently it can be a whole lot worse....

When Jay Morgan and his bestie, Molly O'Brian, take "wrong turn" to a whole new level, they end up sucked into a world that makes the arctic look like a beach vacation.

Even worse? After a bump on the head during their trip through the portal, Molly's taking an unplanned nap of potentially eternal proportions, and Jay has no choice but to carry her through a frosty wilderness that gets weirder by the mile.

Enter the Delvers: half-animal, half-nutjob nomads who tell Jay he can save Molly—if he's willing to brave the infamously cursed Ice Dungeon for a legendary item that is rumored to be able to heal portal-related injuries.

No biggie, except Jay's about as prepared for dungeon diving as a penguin is for a desert marathon. No party, no class, no relevant skills... He's pretty much f*&$ed. If Jay wants Molly to survive, though, he has no choice but to try.

So when an arctic fox-girl named Lyra appears, offering Jay a crash course in survival, of course he agrees.

Turns out Lyra is an Arcane Archer with more quirks than arrows. There might be a reason she hasn't got a diving party of her own. Why are the cute ones always crazy?

Crazy or not, though, the silver fox-girl is Jay's best shot at saving Molly.

When you're battling frost monsters and your ally might be nuts, you either laugh or you cry. And Jay's not much of a crier. Can he save Molly and keep his sanity intact? With Lyra's "help," it's going to be a close call.

©2024 Peter North (P)2024 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

A fantastic first book

What an amazing beginning!!! I have always enjoyed this author's works but this one is much much better in my opinion!!! Great world building, fantastic characters and a fun dungeon/portal storyline, you can't ask for more!!!!

Awesome!

Amazing narration just for that alone I recommend to give this book a go. I do have to admit that when I got the e-book I quit really fast because my initial reaction was " wow the dude is a simp on the friend zone". so I gave the audio a try after listening to the sample and liking the narration and well I completely enjoyed the story and characters and while they didn't advanced a lot in the dungeon they did get a lot of levels and I quite liked that. yeah I bought the second book as soon as I finished this one and will definitely get the audiobook when it comes out too.

MC is a creep

They never dated one kiss always been friends and yet he can barely go three sentences without mentioning her or feeling bad about being interested in someone else like she was in a relationship with him. This is the kind of guy I could put in jail for stocking.

I need book 2!

Loved it! Loved it! Loved it!
Great characters, action and spice.
Wonderfully female dungeon and moody wolfkin.
With a sexy foxkin to make it fun.
This story is a lot of fun and I can't wait to get my ears into book 2.
Great writing and narration.
I'm giving this book 8.5 out of 5 stars.

Ok...with criticism

Fair warning, some examples may be used from the story, so spoiler warning.

First, want to caveat one of these reviews again in this genre with I understand that the vast majority of stories in this genre are not meant to be taken THAT seriously. Yet, I also want to say again, that despite that, it's not a hand-wave-away-excuse that some people (including authors) want to use it as.

With that said, this story isn't a bad story in the sense that it deserves a one or two star rating, but I can't in good conscience give it more than three stars for the story, four overall due to the performance of the Glassers. While new narrators, at least here on Audible, I thought they did a wonderful job although it's evident they, or their equipment, have room the grow.

On to the rest of the review and criticism.

As I said, for the most part there are good parts of this story. The Dungeon's personality and antics being one of them. Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not saying more because nothing about the Dungeon is really in the blurb so that would be really giving away too many spoilerish details. Suffice to say, the Dungeon does have a personality. That's all you need to know for anything else I might bring up. But I considered this the most interesting part. Not that it was novel or unique, it's been done before in this genre and adjacent genres, but it was entertaining and kept me interested.

Yet, there were problems. One that did make me push pause for a while only to come back, push pause a few more times only these times there were shorter periods in between me pausing and going back to listen. That's likely alarming to some potential listeners/readers so let me explain.

Problem that caused me to pause: MC. Yes, I know that sound horrendous and some of your are ready to nope out right now, but as I always say in these, it will depend on your mileage and also for some reassurance, I'm still listening. (So, yeah, full disclosure, I'm typing this although I haven't finished but, so far, the big plot issue has been resolved, so I feel safe doing so). Anyways, my beef with the MC is that he's written as one of those MC's that impulsively do things often to his own detriment and the detriment of others around him.

Now, this would work if he was written as more of an aspirational hero and I suspect that's what North was partially channeling, but the problem is MC doesn't really know anything about this world. Yet, when he's told details and dangers, he just handwaves those away and says he will get it done SOMEHOW without any plan ahead of time and is the type of person who leaps before he looks and then haphazardly throws together a plan after the fact hoping it'll work. I get it, for some people, that character type is fine and they are happy to see the tension said character creates with their foolishness. For people like me, it's a gigantic annoyance and really calls into question the character's well uh...character.

Case and point. MC knows the Dungeon has taken a unique interest in him and is doing unique things around him that also endangers Lyra (Fox girl mentioned in the blurb) who is dungeoneering with MC to fulfill the plot (also mentioned in the blurb) to save Molly. Full disclosure here, part of the problem for me could've been that North didn't endear Molly to me and instead made me dislike her because of what I felt was her using MC despite friend zoning him. (Later, there's an implication that this might just be MC's perspective, of course). Anyways, what I'm getting at is that the Dungeon gives them a quest that is extremely dangerous. Lyra, rightfully said they weren't ready for the quest since the creatures they had to hunt out leveled them. Again, I want to stress without giving away anymore spoilers, that MC knows AND HAS EXPERIENCED AND HAS LISTENED TO LYRA SPEAK ABOUT the uniqueness of the dungeon and the wild and crazy dangers that have gone on around them. Let me also add to this, that before this MC asked a hypothetical question about whether or not they should listen to the dungeon message if it gave them an easier way to do things and Lyra flat out told him No, don't ever do that since it could be a trick. So, when MC gives into Lyra's sound reasoning, they go to walk away from the quest but MC is his phenomenal intelligence and wisdom decides to accept the quest foolishly thinking they could just hold it in their quest log LIKE A GAME (mind you he had told himself prior to this to stop thinking of this like a game he was familiar with) only for the Dungeon to hit them with a semi-curse that if they didn't finish the quest within a certain timeline they'd receive a penalty that would severely harm Lyra and kill MC. it was at this point I took my first long pause.

But yes, those are the types of impulsive actions MC will take with or without information that should have him pause and consider. What also bothered me is that he admitted that despite being desperate to save Molly, he'd also throw himself on the fire and kill himself to save Lyra. I'm like that doesn't make sense. (Later in the story another dumb, impulsive decision of his puts Lyra in danger and he wigs out ready to kill himself to save Lyra, completely forgetting about Molly. Again, I realize this is supposed to be something we're supposed to cheer for, but to me it just showed his impulsive, lack of any forethought, lack of any consideration for others outside of when they're in immediate danger...character trait)

This is getting long, so I want to wrap it up with one last criticism. This has Hyper speed romance. I mean Warp 12 type of romance complete with failing inertial dampeners and neck break speed. Let me explain as quickly as possible:
Day 1 - MC and MFC1 (Molly) arrive
Day 1- MC meets MFC2 (Lyra)
Day 1 - MC and Lyra go into the dungeon
Day 1 - MC and Lyra start to catch the feels
Day 1 - MC and Lyra have a full-blown heart to heart about their potential super serious relationship (WTF?! That was fast)
Let me add here that MC and Lyra go into the dungeon when it's dark outside, so this is at best going on within a handful of hours.
Day 2 - More stuff goes on.

Yeah...hyper speed....

Again, with that said, and I know all of this is criticism, I want to stress that this isn't a bad story. Your mileage may vary and if you're a fan of the genre you're likely to be far more lenient than I am with some of these. Some of these aren't deal breakers. Some may dislike the fact that MC is impulsive and often stupid, but some of that lack of intellect is to be expected for a fish-out-of-water character and his impulsiveness and leap before he looks personality may just be chaffing with my preference for a more reserved character, etc.

So, one more time. Your mileage may vary.

Loved this one

Really enjoyed the arctic aspect of this story. The author has a compelling command of storytelling and keeps you invested in both the plot and characters. Very interested to see where Book 2 goes.

What a great story

It’s a fantastic story. The narration was on point. The only downside was the Molly thing was super creepy. I hope it plays into something bigger later in the series.