Shade's First Rule: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure

Divine Apostasy, Book 1

By: A. F. Kay

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

A new LitRPG world has arrived!

It's Ruwen’s Ascension Day, and he finally dies for the first time. His newly revived body can learn spells and abilities for the class given him by the Goddess Uru, and dying is no longer permanent.

Ruwen’s high intelligence makes becoming a Mage inevitable. With his new powers, he will locate his parents and clear their family name. But nothing goes as Ruwen imagined, and when a rival God tries to kill Ruwen shortly after his disastrous Ascension, his focus turns from his future to just surviving.

His choices place him in the middle of an ancient war, and he must overcome the limitations of his unexpected class to reach level five. Only then will he have the tools needed to survive. But dying now comes with a terrible penalty, and failing Uru might not only cost him his life and loved ones but his entire world.

It turns out dying on your Ascension Day is the easy part.

*****

Hey, LitRPG readers! I've created an FAQ for Shade's First Rule to answer some of the common questions and to help you decide if this book is for you. It can be found at: afkauthor.com/faq.

©2019 A. F. Kay (P)2020 A. F. Kay

It was ok'er then I thought it would be

Mr. Baldree saved it for me. Story was ok, but the childish banter had me rolling my eyes. I know it's YA, but some of it seemed to a target an even younger audiance. some of the insults were little better then "You're a poo poo head" and the hapless MC was grating at times. It was however a nice change from some of the heavier adult stuff I have been listening to lately.

Good start

If you like books like cradle, this is on par. A slow start but it gets better in later books.

The story felt at first like a video game you would rather be playing but later you will appreciate all the details.

The first book is good but not excellent. Just keep on reading.

The MC is my only complaint

The main character spent his whole life (teenager) preparing to get a class that is a combat class so you would think he would have a concept of what is going on. if he was ripped into another world and was clueless I would understand how lost in the sauce he is.

The main character has a high intelligence, but yet....he makes choices even before any debuffs get a chance to screw him up that are just dumb.

This isn't a huge problem for me as the book is still great. Beginning number 2

Painful Main Character.

The main character is 16 and acts like you would expect of average 16 year old. The issue is that you are constantly being told that he is a genius. He was so smart he finished school years ahead of schedule and then effectively moved into the local library. Made friends with the librarian and even had his own room in the library where he spent all his time reading books. So he is SUPER SMART. This is stressed every 5 minutes.

The trouble is that any time we are not being told how SUPER SMART this kid is, we are listening to him doing the dumbest thing possible. Now, if he was your average 16 year old then fine. Doing stupid things is par for the course at 16. The issue is that this guy is supposed to be the smartest kid around.

Listening to this book is like watching a yoyo. He is smartest kid around, but stands around watching mages battle knowing that one of those mages is actively trying to kill him. He is a genius, but in all the time he studied he only ever studied about being a mage. Never during YEARS of sitting in a library did he think to even study the basics of the other classes. He is constantly clueless about everything around him. Yet we are supposed to believe that all the other kids are dumber than he is? If that is the case then this world is doomed.

Fun Story

I like this book, and I look forward to reading more of the series. The characters are diverse and unique for the genre, and I find myself becoming attached to them in a relatively short amount of time. The use of character voice is fairly strong, and the main character is justifiably ambiguous, as he doesn’t really know himself yet. Character strengths are not gender specific nor do they allude to any kind of political ideology, at least not from my point of view. It’s just a fun story that can be read or listened to quite easily. The litRPG adventure books are always a favorite of mine, and this presents a new take on an older dungeons and dragons theme. If you liked “he who fights monsters”, you will definitely like this book. Thanks for the fun read, moving onto the next in the series. Oh, and Travis is phenomenal as always.