Challenge

Unbound Deathlord, Book 1

By: Edward Castle

Narrated by: Jeff Hays

When virtual reality becomes real enough that people feel as if they're being transported to another world, Valia Online arrives.

A man running from his past joins the game to forget it all. Calling himself Jack Thorn, he chooses an undead race, Deathlord.

A mage by choice, and a swordsman by necessity, he soon finds out that he'll need to use much more than magic and steel to survive; strategy, creativity, and carefully chosen words can often accomplish what simple attacks can't.

As the game becomes too real and touches a part of him that he'd rather leave buried, he is faced with two questions: Who is he, really? And who should he become?

Challenge is book one of the Unbound Deathlord series, a LitRPG saga.

©2016 Edward Castle (P)2017 Podium Publishing

The writing is descriptive and not overly verbose

“Challenge” is the first book in the “Unbound Deathlord” series.  The book is authored by Edward Castle and the audiobook’s narration is expertly performed by, as usual, Jeff Hays.  In the very crowded Literary Role Playing Game (LitRPG) genre, this book sets itself apart by approaching the story from the perspective of a more evil or dark character (a deathlord) instead of your usual paladin or hero character.  It is a rather large book containing almost a thousand pages in the print edition and comprising nearly eighteen hours of audio.  Unlike many in the category, this book makes you feel you are actually experiencing a virtual game world.  If you enjoy LitRPG books, I believe you will enjoy this one.  Just be aware, the book is the first in a series, and it is the only one currently available in audiobook format.  I will be interested to see the direction the author takes this book.

If the sentence, “You awaken in a cold and damp dungeon”, sounds familiar to you, I think you get a good idea of the direction this will go.  The beginning of the story is nothing new from others like it, however I really was able to enter the world and it felt like a game rather than just another fantasy novel.  It felt polished and well edited.  One really gets a sense of the characters powers and abilities as he levels up; and who did not like this aspect while playing such games?  You felt the initial pain and struggle of a newly created level one character, and as the book progressed you felt the weight and struggles lift somewhat.  However, some of the newer quests matched or even exceeded the players skill level.  I thought the ranking system was also interesting.  Not only are we given a skill tree to understand, but the book also contained trait and class details as well.  Again, simply a nice touch adding depth to the story.

The world the author created consisted of many of the expected fantasy or adventure items and creatures.  There were swords, spiders, rats, but the author additionally included some different things such as a quite powerful illusion ring along with others.  Because the book was mostly focused on more dark characters, we were presented with vampires, ghouls, witches, along with other creatures who prefer the night.  Because the main character was a dark mage, there was some good detail provided around the magic system and the character’s process of learning it.  In many ways, the book is really a struggle between good and evil, however you are hoping evil wins in this case.  Jack thorn seems to be a rather unique player with a rather unique voice; covered in the narration section.

Although the book often filled with pokes, zings, or bantering between the players and NPCs, it also contained some serious and emotional scenes as well.  I thought the author did a decent job of taking us on an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish.  The opening sequence is action filled and emotionally charged.  That is not to say the book is overly deep or touchy-feely.  There is plenty of gaming humor and fun found within its pages.  The story is a bit darker than others in the genre, but it also deemed more complex and complete even though it is only the first book in a series of books.

The book’s narration was done very well by Jeff Hays.  With this book, I felt he was trying a new technique by voicing the main character and the narrator as two separate people.  Although the story was told from the perspective of the main character, the voice Mr. Hays used when the character spoke was quite different.  I’m not sure the voice of the main character fit what I expected him to sound like, but as with other parts of this book, it grew on me.  For the length of the book, the audio was performed flawlessly.  No noticeable audio artifacts were heard.  I also thought he did a good job of pacing the book’s narration.  I even enjoyed the games female Artificial Intelligence (AI) voice at the end of each chapter.  I will say that I did not enjoy the character stats given at the close of each chapter, however it began to grow on me and I wanted to hear how the character grew from the previous chapter.  Again, his level and skill elevation seemed to be in line with the actions he took during the chapter.

For parents of younger readers, I would not recommend this book as the subject matter is geared more towards an adult audience.  The book contains a fair amount of vulgar language (rather heavy at times), high-level sexual topics, and a few scenes containing intense graphic violence.  If any of these offend you, I suggest you grab a different book.

For someone to want to be placed permanently into a virtual world due to a life event, you have to feel for him.  Yet, even though he selects a dark character type, the story is written in a way that you want him to succeed.  The writing is descriptive and not overly verbose.  If you are a fan of the genre, I recommend you pick up Challenge by Edward Castle, and give it a listen.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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I liked it a lot except for

great story and I understand the importance of cliff hangers and similar writing devices but I always feel so bummed out when it ends up feeling like a set up for the next book. that being said SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!! i didn't really care about his real life world and the book made it seem like he didn't either and then that's where it ended. I didn't even get to say goodbye to valia! still though, good book.

Just amazing!

It was narrated beautifully and written with ups and downs, highs and lows. Just when I was getting use to the ride the author switched it up on me and punched me in my face. It is a must buy. Can't wait to see what happens next.

great book

love the characters cant wait to see what happens in book 2. As always perfect perfomace by jeff hays

Its grate!

Its one of the best LitRPG book that i have found. Story at first seems slow but it dam good till the end. its a bit grim but its worth your time.

Twists & Turns

a great story that grows in complexity the farther you get, continues to a climactic ending leaving room for a great sequel.

That ending though!

The repetitive reading of stats and game text was a little distracting but overall loved the book.

One of the better LitRPGs

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I've listened to a lot of LitRPGs and this is one of the better constructed ones. The main character is a very interesting take on a protagonist. He's not noble, but he's honorable; he's not a nice guy, but you still find yourself rooting for his every move. He's a very interesting "gray area" type of protagonist that is challenging to pull off in a convincing way, but Castle manages to do it.

The only complaint I have, minor as it may be, is the way the MC's stats are listed at the end of every chapter. This is easy enough to get around by simply skipping to the next chapter when the listing starts.

Jeff Hays does a phenomenal job at narration, as he always does. I rarely lost track of who was speaking and almost never got confused about the story. The few times I did, it was due more to an outside distraction rather than a failure on the part of the narrator.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to any LitRPG fans. This is one I'll probably be coming back to multiple times.

one of the best books ever

jeff hays is by far the best narrator I've ever listened too. the book was intriguing and kept you interested from start to finish. I love it!

good book

like the storyline great amount of action and love some of the humor and the extra storyline makes the book more unpredictable