War Aeternus the Beginning

Joshua Swayne and Charles Dean a talented authors and this show of there talent . Our hero is living his boring life . All of the sudden he gets a visitor at work by a talking mouse and the roller coaster ride starts there . And with the voice acting talent of Jeff Hays who skills makes this characters and world come alive 12/10 stars ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆.....

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Great story and narration

The story and characters are great. The narration is excellent. Combining the two led to many laughs and a really enjoyable listen. Highly recommend.

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Big ideas that don't quite pull off.

This was an interesting book. It's got some good ideas, but it all feels like the author doesn't quite have the skills to make them work.

The basic story revolves around a guy pulled into a medieval type fantasy world by a god who needs him to do his bidding. It's a common enough trope, and it's done reasonably well, with the added twist that the god needs the MC to convert people to his religion, so there's a 'faith' element though the mechanics aren't too deep.

Narration is at times spot on, and in other areas awful. I think this is important mention, because I picked this book up on the strength of Jeff Hays as narrator. You'll read it in other reviews too, but in short - the MC's inner monologue is all over the place. Sometimes it's in the MC's voice, sometimes its in the narrator's mid-western drawl, and it's *really* distracting.

The author is perhaps a little too clever for his own good at times, and it's this just as much as the narration which made me give the story 4 stars (and really, it bordered on 3). He makes jokes which break the fourth wall but don't quite come off as funny enough to justify the cost of breaking me from the story. He also has a habit of inserting the names of fellow authors into his book as random side characters. 'Chmilenko' for example is the name of a god mentioned maybe only once or twice, but it's an unusual enough name that it's pretty obviously fashioned after a litRPG author Luke Chmilenko. There's a heap of other references too, mainly at the start, and while in theory this is a really nice nod to the greats of the genre, in practice it broke me out of the story every time it happened and I really just didn't enjoy it.

On a similar vein of 'not quite pulling off what was intended' the book had some big theological ideas, but they weren't quite well enough done. There's a lot of awkward thinking and tedious introspection, though props for trying something a little deeper than your ordinary litrpg.

Many of the religious themes were also a little uncomfortable. In the book, the MC acts as a Herald for a God and must recruit followers in order to gain his freedom. He does this by sprouting Christian religious theology, and it was here that I wasn't quite sure whether the author was mocking existing religion, making some meta-point that I just wasn't smart enough to understand, or just simply making some really weird character conversational choices. As an example, in one section the MC is commended for burning alive a group of people, and then called 'the son of God' by a group of religious followers immediately after.

Story is decent - there's a plot, goals, motives and the like. It was all believable and came together nicely in the end. Fight scenes are waaay too complicated. At times it was literally a blow by blow account of each fight. 'He swung with his left hand. The bandit blocked with his right shield. The blow bounced off.' kind of thing and motivations are over-explained, making what should be tense action long-winded nine times out of ten.

So, yeah. I'd give this 4 stars as a litRPG, and maybe 2 stars when compared to the wider fantasy market.

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1 person found this helpful

Awesome

This book makes u think has an awesome plot and was narrated with perfection (thank you Jeff hays) all that and wrapped up in litrpg couldn’t ask for a better book pls I need book 2 lol read and enjoy

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Horrible thick southern drawl narration

I really loved the sound of this series but couldn't get past the horrible thick southern drawl accent they have used to narrate it. I struggle and tried to push through. I'm really sorry to the author but i don't know who made the decision to use such a horrible voiceover. I had to return this book.

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1 person found this helpful

inner monologue in narrator's voice

it's iratating and jarring to keep hearing the voice even when it's lees thoughts

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Wow

Wow couldn’t even get past the first chapter, a whinny MC and A- hole God Character not a good combination for a interesting story. Sorry not my cup of tea.

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Heavy Narration Accent

The chosen accent for the narration is incredibly jarring. It's a shame, because the story is otherwise perfectly serviceable.

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