Christopher

It was good.

Reviewed: 01-24-25

I enjoyed this audiobook. It comes off as a good first novel. If the author continues to improve their craft I will look forward to their future works. That said, it was good but not great. For me the inner turmoil was a bit ham-fisted and could have used a bit more nuance and subtlety. The narration was adequate but I felt like the narrator, while skilled, was not always a great match for the material.

All in all it was definitely worth the credit, but there’s room for improvement.

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Not bad. Though the title seems unintentionally ironic.

Reviewed: 12-21-24

This audiobook very much felt like the first novel by an author with some potential (hence the above review title). So the plot was interesting and had well-defined characters and pretty good pacing… but it does have its flaws.

A lot of the MC’s inner monologue was overwrought and cringy. There were a plethora of missed opportunities and missteps with the game mechanics, and the world building was very myopic in its detail. The plot was interesting and engaging but the overall story arch had some holes and could have done with a more deliberate structure.

As for the narration, it was above average, though if you’re like me and don’t like narrators who over-express the dramatic descriptions and MC angst then you will find some of it to be a little annoying. I’m sure plenty of listeners won’t even notice it judging by how many people think Daniel Wisniewski is not a ruiner of every audiobook that he has ever narrated.

On the whole I would recommend this if you’re in the same spot as I am, and you have already listened to every single GameLit audiobook on Audible (that was written by an author who’s level of intellectual and sexual maturity has made it past junior high school anyway). This isn’t the book I would hand to someone who has never read LitRPG/Gamelit before, but it does fine when your only other options are audiobooks with covers that are dominated by cartoon boobies.

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Far, far above all of the other farming cultivation stories.

Reviewed: 12-20-24

Every time I come to the end of one of these books I feel a little heartbreak. There isn’t another author writing right now who is so able to create a world and characters that are able to so thoroughly pull me in… and make me want to stay for every minute.

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Pretty good with a big caveat.

Reviewed: 12-06-24

While somewhat slow to coalesce this story was a compelling and enjoyable one to follow. It does take a while to get into the meat, but still I found the narrator’s voice soothing and the adventure fun. For the first half of this book there was nothing objectionable, but there also wasn’t a whole lot of effort to make the story anything but a pretty generic Isekai/LitRPG by numbers affair. Fortunately, the story eventually introduces more characters and plot and the audiobook went from pleasant background noise to something I was actively engaged in.

It continues that way through to the end. Now for the caveat…

I personally don’t mind a cliffhanger ending in most cases. Especially if the cliffhanger comes after a certain amount of plot resolution and a proper climax. Unfortunately, in this case the author made an inexplicable choice to end the book right before the climax with absolutely no resolution whatsoever-ever. It’s like you are sitting on the couch watching a movie and right before the hero walks into the villain’s lair, your mom walks in and turns off the TV and tells you to go to bed. Pretty frustrating, especially considering how long it takes the book to meander into the plot.

I still gave this book 4 stars for a few of reasons:
1. I enjoyed listening to it and at no point (before the last two seconds) did I want to slap the author.
2. the narration was good and didn’t interfere with the feeling of immersion.
And 3. if the next installment was available right now, I would pick it up instantly just to find out what happens next.

So what I’m say is that essentially, this audiobook is way better than 85% of the Isekai/LitRPG titles available on Audible even if it’s not perfect. So in an effort to make this review relevant and helpful for people like me, I’m grading on the curve. So if you’re like me and have already listened to all of the even remotely not-terrible audiobooks in this genre then this book will satisfy while while waiting for another audiobook that isn’t narrated by Daniel Wisnewski or Wayne Mitchell.

Although if cliffhanger endings send you into a blind rage then I highly recommend you wait to listen to this until the second book comes out so you don’t end up pulling your hair out and screaming at the ceiling.

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Every installment a hit.

Reviewed: 12-04-24

I’m not prone to effusive reviews, but I can’t resist joining the masses on this one. If you’ve made it this far in the series then you probably don’t need to know more than the fact that Plum Parrot is still writing at the top of their game.

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1 person found this helpful

Extra star given for not having harems nor inexplicably stupid characters.

Reviewed: 10-12-24

If you liked the first book then you will like this one too. Honestly, for me this is a four star book which means it’s really good, but not perfect. If the slow pace of the overall plot from the first book didn’t bother you then you’ll be fine with the second one. That said, while I was engaged and entertained all the way through this book, I was a little disappointed that the plot did very little advancing by the end.

It’s tough when you have 6 main characters to follow. Balancing their individual perspectives with more overarching developments is really not easy. The author does a great job switching between MC’s without making the book feel choppy and keeping the story cohesive. But in doing so well at that we end up with a bit more of a slice-of-life experience than a faster paced storyline.

Again, the audiobook was great, I just feel like my 5-star rating is a bit disingenuous. However when a really good audiobook only has three ratings I feel compelled to give it an extra star just to keep it from falling into the doldrums of the sub-4.6 star purgatory that many good books struggle to ever make it out of.

This is why 5 point rating systems for nuanced things are idiotic. And why any of the tens of thousands of audible books with 4.3 star ratings could be the best audiobook you’ve ever heard, or so mind-numbingly terrible that it damages your psyche permanently.
…And there’s no way to know which is which beforehand! It’s frustrating.

Sorry, just couldn’t help myself from going on a little rant. I blame coffee.

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2 people found this helpful

Good story with less than perfect narration and writing.

Reviewed: 09-04-24

TLDR: Good plot, engaging throughout. Writing was not bad but also not great. Male narrator not my cup of tea. Female Narrator was good. I will pick up the next book but as with all Royal Guard Publishing books I will do so somewhat warily.

For those of you with more time on your hands:

I did enjoy the story and some of the characters in this book. In my opinion, this is one of those series that you follow because you want to find out what happens next not for the quality of the writing and narration. The writing isn’t bad but it’s also not great. Unfortunately, it shares the same issues that a lot of the subpar LitRPG books that Royal Guard Publishing releases…

For instance, this book is not funny. The “jokes” are always forced at best and at worst the only way you know that the “joke” even exists is that the author has to tell you that the characters, “fall out of their chairs with uproarious laughter!!” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “wait what are they laughing about?” Then I rewind and realize that the annoying sidekick character said his catch phrase for the fifth time in this chapter. Also, if the word “antics” is used more than once in a GameLit book then it’s almost always a red flag for the author writing characters or banter which are supposedly funny but are very much not.

Another example is when the characters are made aware of something, or even discuss that thing enough to make it totally obvious what conclusion to draw, and then two chapters later the MC is scratching their head and saying, “I wish I knew about this thing,” Making the reader/listener super frustrated. No one wants to follow an MC who is unintentionally dumber than they are. For whatever reason the lesser of R.G.P. books often struggle with giving the MC and the reader enough info to figure something out only to have the MC be stumped or just totally oblivious. It’s super annoying.

I could go on giving in depth examples but I’ll just leave it at one last common flaw which is that the secondary and especially the tertiary characters and locations all end up feeling like props or outlines that were never fleshed out. These less important characters are generic archetypes whose motivations are opaque. The scenery/locations don’t feel real or they aren’t fleshed out enough to give the reader/listener any true sense of place.

So what I’m trying to say is that if you’ve listened to a number of Royal Guard Publishing’s audiobooks and noticed that there’s a bit of a chasm between the well written books and the much larger portion of not so well written books, then this one does lean more towards the good ones, while still suffering from some of the flaws of the very much not so good ones.

As for the narration, it’s not that Adam Stubbs is bad at narrating. It’s that Adam Stubbs falls into the category of narrators like Daniel Wizniewski and Wayne Mitchell. Which is to say that while they can do the actual reading part with some skill, they seem totally unable to differentiate between a mundane description of some wallpaper, and the climax of the ultimate fight between good and evil. I say this because they will deliver both bits of prose with the emotional subtlety and discernment of an obviously well-used dildo sitting on your mother’s coffee table. Which is to say their performances are overwrought and hyperbolic for every single sentence of the entire book. Which ends up being too much for me by about the 4th sentence.

Adam Stubbs is by far a lesser evil than DW or WM, but he’s from the same neighborhood. Mia Fothergill did a fine job with the female voices and I would have rather had her narrate the whole book, but wcyd?

So finally, in summation this audiobook was entertaining and I will most likely give the next one a try, but depending on how discerning you are about your GameLit you might either think I’m crazy because this is one of the best LitRPG’s of the year, or you might think I’m crazy because this book needs a rewrite and a different narrator just to be listenable…

Or you might be like me and you’ve listened to every LitRPG and GameLit audiobook on Audible that is worth listening to and more than a few that aren’t and so you’re looking for books that don’t totally suck and will be entertaining while you wait for the next installment of the 35 other series that you will snatch up and devour as soon as they are released. If that’s you too, then give this one a try and you probably won’t regret it.

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4 people found this helpful

Excellent audiobook that should have ten times the reviews that it has right now.

Reviewed: 09-02-24

It took me a while to pick up this audiobook because it only had a few reviews. Even though the ratings were all positive, I’ve been burned before by this situation; you never know if 5 positive reviews just means that the author’s immediate family and friends decided to help them out.

I’m glad to say that regardless of their origins, the positive reviews for Speaker of Tongues are wholly deserved… there are many things that set this book apart from many of the others in the genre. The one I appreciate the most is the gradual and more meaningful progression of the MC’s accrual of power.

Instead of racing through the first several fights and rapidly powering up the MC, the author has actually made the power-progression follow along with the character’s emotional and intellectual development.

The result of this is that our protagonist’s personal power doesn’t overtake the pace of the plot and therefore leaves a ton of room for the character to continue to grow going forward.

I feel like the vast majority of LitRPGs end up having to nerf their MC’s with every new installment just to keep them from being godlike and invincible after the second book. The slightly better authors only have to completely redefine the plot and setting with every new book, just to keep up with the MC’s meteoric rise in power that paints the author into a corner with the original world they built.

Chris Tullbane manages to keep the runaway power progression fully in check while still advancing the characters and plot enough to keep the pages turning and hold your interest through to the last sentence of the book.

If you like the GameLit, Isekai, Fantasy, or even Adventure genre’s then this book is definitely for you.

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2 people found this helpful

Far underrated by audible standards.

Reviewed: 08-12-24

It’s a bit of a crime that this book has a 4.4 rating when some of the worst LitRPG and GameLit on audible continues to receive similar averages.

While this book isn’t perfect by any means, it is an enjoyable and well written story with solid characters, an original enough premise, an engaging plot, and of course excellent narration by Travis Baldree.

There are only a couple of things I can think of that might contribute to its relatively low rating. I say relatively low because we all know that audible’s 5 point system and people’s inability to adequately scale their ratings has lead to a 0.6 star spread between unlistenable trash and the best audiobooks ever recorded.

But I digress… the two things that I think might be contributing to the low ratings are:

1. The naughty word police: Now I get that people who are looking for audiobooks to listen to with their home-school kids might not want to share in the joys of explicit language with said children. I’ll leave aside my feelings that if you aren’t worried about listening to books that are inherently somewhat focused on violence and in lots of ways normalize it, then it’s a little f—ked up that spicy words which your children are absolutely going to learn before they turn 7 years old (assuming they don’t already know them) are your deal breakers. But like I said I’m leaving that aside…

If bad words are a problem for you then don’t penalize the audiobook’s rating for that. Because to almost everyone else, your negative rating is totally unhelpful and moreover your beef is not with the author, but with Audible for not telling you that the book drops F-bombs. It would be super easy for them to let you know which books are on Mr Roger’s book list and which are not. Then you wouldn’t have to waste your time and credits in the first place.

2. There are two characters that have feelings for each other that are not specifically heterosexual. The fact that this is a non-sexual relationship between a suit of armor with no sex organs and a tiny lizard-wizard who just wants a hug makes the “no-homo” discomfort of some listeners a bit of a head-scratcher to me. I mean it’s kinda like the swearing thing: if the the tamest love affair of all time happening between a non-anatomically correct, magically-animated, inanimate object and a tiny, talking, magical lizardman is ok but the fact that the suit of armor kind-of identifies as male is where you’re drawing the line, then I don’t know what to tell you.

If you like LitRPG/Gamelit, but you aren’t someone who gets real hyped up about the genders of magical creatures who have grade-school level feelings for each other, and your imaginary world doesn’t shatter anytime you hear a word used every day by the majority of the existing human population, then you should consider giving this book a try… Basically, if you liked Legends and Latte’s or Threadbare then this book is right up your alley.

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4 people found this helpful

Great LitRPG from a new author.

Reviewed: 06-29-24

It wasn’t perfect. There were a few points where I wished the author had done a better job of justifying the MC’s behavior, but these moments didn’t happen frequently enough to spoil the book.

However, for a new author and in light of how terrible the majority of audiobooks in this genre are, I decided to give it five stars. If this was from an established author I would have leaned closer to 4 stars. I went with 5 because I believe that anyone who manages to push back the blight of haremRPGs, and the practically-unedited dross that Audible is constantly recommending to me, deserves encouragement and appreciation.

I will definitely grab the next book in this series.

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1 person found this helpful