Paragon of Blood

Paragon, Book 1

De: Luke Chmilenko, Alex Knight

Narrado por: Travis Baldree

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.

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

Good listen

So this new world we are introduced too seems interesting. The MC is a mostly likable if dim witted guy. The battles sometimes seem a bit wordy for me and some points are made with about 15 extra words. That does not detract from the overall story though.
The world building is introduced in an organic way. Some pieces are still missing but I feel like that may be on purpose and being used as a lead up. Over al though wonderful world.

Must Listen!

The story is so unique and new I can't wait for the next in in the series!

great narration

Travis does a great job on this story. it has a great setup and interesting characters, but could use a little more thought given to the situations and character interactions. missed opportunities to use abilities where there's time enough to talk for thirty seconds but not enough time to cleanse things is the type of thing that is prevalent in this book. it's a good story and I hope the next one is given a bit more thought to make what they are setting up here pay off. I'm not entirely sure they can pull it off based on this book, but I hope I'm wrong.

Fun read but drawn out and difficult to follow

So officially im 85% through this book. The first 20% of the book could have been condensed into only about 40% of what it is with far better pacing and would have rocketed the book forward leaps and bounds. Ill agree with another reviewer calling huge plot armor on the MC tho. He gets his powers and barely explores them, by about 60% of the book he practices a single time with his powers and all of the sudden he just becomes a loose cannon with that aforementioned plot armor keeping things going. The world is far better explained with the 20 second blurbs at the beginning of each chapter than the book itself in a few ways. Towards the end it just becomes a woe as me fest and im struggling to finish it. I love travis and he really did make this worth the listen. But the MC's naive views really hurt the plot. You can see how and why he'd been held back and its clear as day but the MC just does not consider it at all. Its quite frustrating that he literally has to have some random guy he's known for 20 minutes explain things to him. Plus half the time the book really rushes parts that should be further fleshed out. Im gonna bite the bullet and hope for a good ending but i honestly expected more from Luke, but who knows, maybe he threw his name on the book as a favor to this alex guy to get it legs. Overall the world is really interesting and the premise is solid. Just needs some really good polishing and some really good edits done to the MC to bring me back for the second book.