Dungeon Life: An Isekai LitRPG

Dungeon Life, Book 1

By: Khenal

Narrated by: Michael Gallagher

In the first book of this thrilling isekai adventure series, a human becomes a dungeon—and soon that dungeon becomes something much, much more . . .

The usual result of a human taking a runaway semitruck head-on is a very sudden, very fast track to the pearly gates. But for one newly noncorporeal man, there's another option: become a dungeon. Feeling sorry for the desperate angel assigned to him, the man relents. Heck, if it doesn't work out, he can always chat with Saint Peter about it later.

Next thing you know, he's a dungeon. Admittedly, a small run-down, somewhat unimpressive dungeon (more of a house, actually), but you gotta start somewhere, right? Slowly but surely, the new dungeon learns the ropes, building himself up with scions of every creepy-crawly sort he can find; gathering mana; dealing with invaders, delvers, noobs, and annoying guild reps; and gradually becoming a local legend known as Thedeim (get it?).

The more Thedeim's power and reputation grows, the more he becomes a part of his new world—and the more its various denizens become a part of his. But how is a proper dungeon supposed to instill spine-shattering, mind-melting terror in a pack of questing adventurers when it's so much more fun to play along with them?

The first volume of the hit LitRPG fantasy series—with more than seven million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2024 Travis Alen Rule (P)2024 Podium Audio

Fun Slice of Life Dungeon Core Story

I have read Khenal's story before it was published, listened to two people narrate on youtube, listened/suffered through a TTS program to boot and now I am listening on Audible. It is safe to say, I love this series.

This is a slife-of-life dungeon core story and is not a typical dungeon core where the adventurers are just fodder to level up the MC. The worldbuilding is also pretty good. If you want gore, you won't find it here. There are actions scenes but they aren't very flashy. The cast of characters will grow. If you think Book 1 has a LOT of characters by the end of it, there will be more. Not a requirement to keep track of them but they will pop up when the situation calls for it. This series will contain anthromorphic races - warning you ahead of time since I saw a review where the guy can't fathom a ratkin.

Michael Gallagher did very well in narrating the story but he is currently #2 in my personal ranking of narrators for this story. The reason for being #2 is because I have a fave character that #1 did well in conveying their personality. It is not a knock on Michael's work, I just currently prefer that guy's version. Whether or not he eventually moves up to #1 remains to be seen.

Freakin awesome

I'm seriously loving the overall scheme, I haven't found a good book like this since I finished "Blue Core" so I've been looking hard. narrative is great and voices are very distinct. I can't gush enough about it and I'm looking forward to more.

Amusingly different dungeon design, typical Isekai tropes

I read a lot of LitRPG and similar genre stuff. The first thing I will get out of the way here is that the standard Isekai trope, of outsider reincarnating into a magical world, and using knowledge from our world to find all the cracks in reality and bend them to make something completely new that no one in that world has ever seen before; and otherwise just completely break all the rules that everybody has always lived with, is on full display here. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it is what one expects with Isekai, and it is the rare author who even tries to avoid that when the main character is Isekai. I’m just saying that if you were expecting some genre breaking stuff here, you probably won’t get it.

What you will get is a rather unique dungeon design, with quite a different philosophy than most. Many Isekai MCs, take the opportunity to break all of the rules of reality because no one told them they had to follow them, but tend to go a little morally sideways because it is a break from the expectations of our universe. That is not the case here. This dungeon is almost hilariously upstanding by the rules of our world, and yet it doesn’t really come off as self righteous or condemning to the rest of the genre. At least in my opinion.

Now to what I will consider some flaws. The biggest one I think, is that some of the important events get kind of gloss over. This is a spoiler although not really surprising to anyone who reads far enough to know why it’s important, but when battling another dungeon, The final defeat happens off screen. Or at least so subtly that “blink and you’ll miss it” seems to apply. I don’t get that—I’m not sure what the writing decision process might have been there.
A few odd word usages and self-indulgent bits, but the above is really my largest complaint.
The steaks never really feel that high, which I guess they don’t always have to be?

One other thing I don’t understand, is why the MC doesn’t ever think about his past, except for the technology and innovations of our world. Clearly he had one, had a life of some sort. But he doesn’t seem to care that he lost it. I know that some people really aren’t that self reflective, but seriously?
Maybe later on there is going to be a Wandering Inn style reveal, that there is magic at play which is preventing him from thinking about his past. But it doesn’t feel like that’s what’s coming. It feels like the author just didn’t care and didn’t think we would care, so didn’t write it.

Overall this was some fun, light reading. I enjoyed the length, and will probably pick up the rest of the books the next time they are on sale.

The narration was pretty good most of the time, except that every once in a while he forgot what character was speaking, or changed to another characters voice in midstream . That annoyance aside, he had a good range of voices and kept everyone pretty recognizable.

Love this book.

I'm so happy for the author. I first heard this on YouTube and was disappointed when it disappeared, but then happy when I heard why. I can't wait for book 2.

Read this since it started on Reddit.

So very good. The narrator was the perfect person for the job. Looking forward to book 2.

great

one of the best dungeon core books I have read in awhile and the narration was great! too I can't wait for book two for sure following this author

Hard start but fantastic

Really hard start. Hard to keep my self listening, but about half way through it gets great. I can’t wait till book two. First in a series is always hard. Really really worth the read.

Amazing story.

This is an amazing story. I absolutely love it. I can't get enough of it. I hope for more in the future.

The audiobook version of lo-fi

If you're in the mood to listen to a journal-like discussion of how a dungeon and its denizens and scions are growing, this is exactly the audiobook for you. What I most enjoyed: a dungeon that doesn't grow by killing adventurers. I loved the non-violent resolutions. There wasn't much of a plot, or rather, it's like a series of short stories. Perhaps the first low conflict LitRPG I've listened to.

I'm not completely done yet, just under an hour left, but since the only big conflict happened about 30% of the way in, and the rest has been literal dungeon-building, I feel safe in describing it as a lo-fi low-conflict story.

The narrator has done an excellent job although his female voices are a bit cartoony. He's injected emotion, thoughtfulness, and slight changes in tone between characters.

It's great world-building for the inside of the dungeon - we don't really see the world outside of it.

Really enjoyed this!

It's a pretty well written story. A little different, but in a good way. I got it last week and have already listened to this one, part two, then this one again!