Paragon of Blood

Paragon, Book 1

By: Luke Chmilenko, Alex Knight

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Length: 15 hrs

Publisher's summary

All Auric Cain ever wanted was a chance.

A chance to prove himself. A chance to take control of his life. A chance to be more than a lowly D-Tier, the lowest of the low, in a world broken by the arrival of an alien, enigmatic being known as The System.

And the seemingly endless hordes of Gateborn that accompanied it.

But chances are hard to come by in the fallen remains of humanity. A century of decline, of desperate struggle, making just surviving another day challenging enough. Let alone striking out to find and challenge an Ascension Gate.

Or in Auric’s case, even getting permission to try.

But when he finally takes matters into his own hands, that's when he finally gets his chance. A chance that sets off a chain of events that no one, let alone him, could have ever anticipated. A chain of events that could very well reshape Reality itself.

Unless he can find a way to stop it.

©2021 Aetherworld Productions Inc. (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

Torn

The author has exceptional skill with written language. The Narrater is amazing. The action is pretty good. I’m torn on this because I want to get into the story so badly but there’s just too many holes, too little actual character development, and the ranking/class system seems like an afterthought. I won’t go into detail aside from saying that the ranking system does not benefit higher quality levels, only individual levels within the tiers (D through A). It’ll make sense if you listen.

I don’t regret the purchase, it filled the time while waiting for the next He Who Fights With Monsters to be released.

I enjoyed my time, just didn’t love it. Had no difficulty stopping the audiobook at any time. Never became invested in any character. They seem like characters. Which they are so that’s fine. Possibly not fair to compare this to other works or even this author’s other works which I truly enjoyed.

It’s an honest 3 star experience for me. Happy I listened and at the same time relatively apathetic to the outcome of the series. I will be purchasing additional books if/as they are released.

It wouldn’t be in my top 100 but not in my bottom 100 either.

The feeling of Cradle with a new story

It may because Travis is narrating this but the story gives off the feeling of Cradle. The similar start of a weak MC who by chance gets thrown into the world of the strong.

My biggest hope is the story gets written in a faster release cadence and we get to see the MC abilities actually shine

Great Story, Solid Writing, Fast Paced

Good story, the world is interesting, the power systems cool. I really enjoyed it. The story was incredibly fast paced, I can't tell if that's a pro or con for me. The main character gets a massive power boost that skips him to top tier and maybe not in a good way. I'm worried it's cheapened the experience, rather than true growth a fortuitous event makes the MC the "chosen one". I'm hopeful story development continues to improve but am worried about reliance a trope as it tends to cheapen the plot. I'm gonna read the next one either way and hope it holds me as well as the first one.

Thoroughly enjoyable, but…

This was a lot of fun, and I appreciate Luke using the LitRPG genre to put a newer spin on post-apocalyptic fiction. There were some story elements I felt were rushed or unexplained in comparison to his previous work, but all in all it was a solid, fun story.

The worst thing about it has nothing to do with the book at all. It’s that with each new book he publishes, we’re that much further from the second book in the Stormweaver series and the continued adventures of Reidon Ward. It’s been far, far too long, Luke. Call up O’Connor and do it, man!! You’re killing ussssss.

Oh, and Travis Baldree was perfect on the narration. He’s never anything less than perfect. The guy is just…*chef’s kiss*

I liked it

Really cool world with some very interesting game mechanics. I’m a fan over OP MCs but I feel like the meteoric raise in power here cheated me out of enjoying the game mechanics and the world. This was exacerbated by delving in atypical gates. I wanted more of the “normal” world not all these exceptions. That being said, I really enjoyed the story. I am hoping for more character and world building elements in the next book now that we have some things established. Baldree was great.

Thrilling litrpg!

Paragon of Blood is a spectacularly written post-apocalyptic litrpg. It's filled with tense moments that steal your breath away, and twists and turns that will leave you questioning what you think you know. This book pulls you in, and is very hard to put down!

Good, but frustrating

It's a solid start of a series but it was very frustrating for 1/3 of the book. I barely remember any of the MC's abilities since it wasn't used in any interesting ways. Has the power to control blood and mostly fights non-blooded creatures. The powers seemed underwhelming and mostly just a fighter who can create weapons on the fly or summon a companion to help fight.

right so...

ok this is good it really is I just have to roll my eyes at the names thrown at us... like really... is that his name really, like come on my guy you really came up with some pick me names here and every time I had to stop and roll my eyes and laugh otherwise pretty good but every time some of these names popped up I felt my self pulled out of the story and they pop up alot

Enjoyed the book.

So why no exclamation point? The MC is just so immature and stupid throughout the book as to almost ruin the story. Sorry Luke, I just had to tell the truth. Maybe the next installment will show some growth of character in all facets the MC lacks. Spoiler, at the final battle, the MC takes forever to use the system given power. I mean, how stupid is that. He had to be told by another teamate that he and the other system blessed guy needs to use their power. OK, I know you wrote this Luke, but it just seems that if they had this power, they would be using it all the time. The blood and any other powers were secondary. Some things just have to be a little logical, even in a fantasy world. So my two cents. Thank you. I'm hoping for an even better sequel.

very good!

I very much enjoyed this book wasn't to slow and wasn't to fast It had just the right amount of pacing for me really hope for a another book but not sure if that will happen but regardless I'm glad I listened to it.