Chrysalis (A Fantasy LitRPG)

Beast Realms, Book 1

By: R.P. Jones, Portal Books

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

With regenerative abilities, a badass tail and the potential to evolve his body, how could Art resist choosing a lizard man as his avatar? All’s well until he accidentally joins forces with an acid-spitting, enemy-consuming shadow-bound grub, causing his light-bound guild members turn against him, and a deadly fire mage to wage a vendetta against him.

Venturing through enchanted forests, into mage enclaves atop ice-capped mountains, through thief-ridden sewers and into ancient temples, Art must defeat the Legendary Beasts and claim their gems of power before his enemies can stop him.

With the odds stacked against him, it’s time for Art to undergo some dangerous and unique training.

It’s time for him to evolve!

©2020 R.P. Jones (P)2020 Portal Books

Basic, but well done

The writing is good, but the story is kinda basic and predictable...
I enjoyed what I got, but it was very easy to see where the story would go at any given point and there were no real surprises...
The system is interesting, but never really explored fully though it has potential...

This isn't Travis's best work...
That still makes it better than 95% that's out there though

Fantastic book

Thoroughly listening to this book. Travis was great as always, and I loved the integration of the animals. I'm also a sucker for the VRMMORPG method of LitRPG, so I enjoyed that too. I am looking forward to the next one to hit audible!

A thrilling tale!

Travis Baldree once again delivers a spectacular narration. The story is well written and exiting in all the right places, but it truly is Baldree’s stunning performance that takes this book to the next level. Fantastic fantasy that the litRPG fan will be sucked into and be left craving for more.

Fantastic - bugtastic

This was a brilliant, different kind of story. It was really well written and the narration by Travis Baldree was fantastic - he was full of character and brought the book to life for me. Plus, he had to sing a lot, which was brilliant (and the songs added to the already cool world of beasts and animalistic players).

I really loved the lizard MC and the fact that he and his bug beast companion weren't OP. They had to work as a team to come up with clever tactics, rather than just running in and slashing. They also evolve, which changed the games and battles regularly and was really unique.

I also appreciate that the MC and their teammate (a thief with a giant spider) were a bit different to the norm. They were clever and even kind at times, their reactions and emotions felt genuine, and their dynamic worked well. The only niggle for me is I'd like even more of the teammate, Nux, as she's so cool and has so much potential! I was glad to see a well developed female character. Maybe we'll find out more about her in the future? Can't wait for book 2!

pretty good

This is one of those actual video game stories. As a gamer my entire life I sometimes have slight issues with the lack of limitations. Anyone in any of these stories can pretty much do anything but video games are not that advanced and they need to have safeties in place. You wouldn't be able to assault other players. For all intents and purposes Beast realms is an entire world and there seems to be literally no limitations to what you can do. Why even make it a video game at all? They should have just had players transport into the world because honestly that's how the story plays out. The only limitation I saw was that Npcs Can't do missions to attack players. Even the NP c's are incredibly advanced with limitless dialog that never repeats. To never any indication on how advanced an artificial intelligence could do this or any hints that the beast realms are actually real. I very much enjoyed the performance and this story. You just need to be careful with stories that take place in video games because if it's a video game it should play like one. One of the main characters literally is doing experiments and stitching body parts together and all sorts of crazy things. There's no way developers would let you do literally anything in a game and there would be some restrictions. I haven't read anything else by this author but there were some definite plot devices just to move the story along where the main characters did something incredibly stupid. The main character essentially ignores a quest he can complete at any time that debilitates his character for no reason. If the author had created a timeline or an actual reason to ignore this quest as it destroyed his character it would make sense but he literally just ignored it which drove me crazy for 5 chapters. Also as soon as they get a valuable item the main character turns around and essentially gives it to an enemy. Enemy is in a fortified location has proven that he can defeat any character in game and They decide to attack himAnyway. However I do like the way the story ended and I and I did enjoy the ride so I will be purchasing the next. Is solid 3 or 4 stars depending on if you like the performance. Say 4. I'd recommend it.

amazing

Honestly its a great read, the ups and down gave it a refreshing feeling not neing overpowerd our underpower

Great novel and narration!

I truly enjoyed this novel. Art's use of a non-traditional species for his character, as well as his choice of companion, was an interesting deviation for this genre. The author did a wonderful job of character development, for both the character inside the game and outside the game, while his world-building did a good job of providing information while also raiding questions that forwarded the story.

I look forward the next book in the series, to see what happens to both our main characters as well as the antagonists (both major and minor) set up in this novel.

If you enjoy litrpg novels, you will not be disappointed. If you enjoy fantasy, but have never read litrpg novels, give this one a shot; you will not be disappointed.

I will also add that Travis Baldree did a wonderful job with his narration. His voice was engaging and made it easy for me to keep my focus on the novel (which I sometimes struggle with on audio books).

For transparency: I was provided a free copy of this audio book for a true and accurate review of it.

Needs to stop using st postfixes

Author never uses while or among, instead opting for whilst or amongst, even for supposed modern day characters. Also uses whilst instead of although, and other words.

Travis was, as usual, excellent.

Non-standard character in a non-op setting

Before getting to the story, the performance is by Travis Baldree which is always solid and well performed and edited. I'm yet to experience an issue with any of his narrations and they flow well.

In regards to the story, the book took me a few chapters to get into it. The start seemed slow and the fascination with bugs was odd. But once the story gets rolling it doesn't really slow down. The best aspect I like about the book is the MC's personality. To me he comes off as a socially awkward person out of game and it partially transfers into the game. In addition he questions standard fantasy tropes such as just because your class is supposed to be a "holy" class doesn't mean all actions you do are good and automatically makes you good.

Best character sadly is the hissing spider, it needs more screentime

interesting but not necessarily my cup of tea

So first and foremost this was an interesting World build and setup and there are definitely good things about this book but there are equally not so good aspects in this book. I applaud the author for his creativity however his creativity is overshadowed bye the several plot holes and the lackadaisical approach to how the author moves the story forward. One thing that made me think about putting the book down not even halfway through was how predictable this book is and how nonsensical the MC choices were to the point of predictability. Every single step of the journey meathook was there to mess with the MC even though the game world is supposed to be huge everything felt extremely forced and unfortunately, there was not a flow to the book at all. I can't see myself checking out the next book.