A Dark Path (Grimdark LitRPG)

Forsaken Talents, Book 1

By: Stuart Thaman

Narrated by: J. Scott Bennett

From International Best-Selling Author Stuart Thaman:

The Seven Portals to Wonder changed the world. The most advanced AI ever created powered the worlds, bringing infinite possibilities and endless adventure to everyone across the globe. War on Earth practically ceased as most of the planet's population became addicted to the game.

Ben Hales was no different. He spent a few years saving enough money to buy lifetime passes for himself and his daughter, Ingrid. Now he has the cash, and Ingrid just turned 16, the minimum age required to play.

Not everything - or everyone - in Wonder is quite as it seems. Evil lurks both inside and outside the game, and that evil finds Ben all too soon.

Ravaged by loss and consumed by hatred, Ben awakens an ancient necromancer and a host of long-forgotten classes. Now he's building his citadel of darkness and raising an army of the dead with a singular goal: revenge.

If it means the death of everyone inside Wonder...so be it.

Check out Stuart Thaman's other epic fantasy and LitRPG novels!

©2019 Stuart Thaman (P)2019 Stuart Thaman

Narrator

Narrator breaths heavy into the microphone after every few words, it distracts from the story. It's like a great picture with a finger in the corner of it.

BRING FORTH THE CORPSES! Finally A Dark Hero!

So if you are looking to get out of the Happy Friendlier Side of LITRPG this book is for you. Our Hero has been beat upon and had to much taken from him. Its time to BURN THE WORLD! Excellent read and really nice to see some Dark Hero Books. Time to bring out the sacrifices and continue this SERIES! Book structure was good and the LITRPG elements were not overwhelming. We didnt get that all to amusing Sarcastic System Notices but I still loved how the book was done. Highly recommend for anyone who loves LITRPG and wants to see a Darker Side

Loved it!

I really enjoyed this book! I'm not a huge fan of the narrator's voice but that's just personal preference. That said, Bennett does an excellent job narrating. I love the angle this book takes, the good guys don't always win, and sometimes the bad guys aren't all that bad. Ruthless murderers, yes, but still good people. Thank you for writing this book.

overall I loved it

slow start but once it gets going it's dark and good full of evil Carnage

Good not great

Nothing wrong with the story as far as I could tell but it didn’t capture me like a REALLY good book should. But I don’t regret getting it and the book ends on a really good cliffhanger so I might get the second one not sure

Lots of Evil

I can enjoy a good villain. The MC can definitely be classified as evil. The main supporting characters are also evil. The writing of all of the evil acts is well done, fleshed out, and provokes emotions regardless of how numb to it all you might be at that point.

My main problem with the story is the reasoning.

During the beginning there is too much setup. I understand you want us to become attached to his daughter so we can feel the loss. However, when you have over an hour and a half of exposition, it slows your story and I imagine it might even turn people off from the book entirely. On top of that, the change in the MC's reasoning doesn't gradually or immediately shift. It is like a heart monitor rather than a steady graph upwards. His personality is all over the place.

When his daughter dies, he doesn't suffer from a complete psychotic break and go on a rampage. He doesn't make a well thought out plan of revenge either (Although the author tries to portray this, it fails.) I can clearly tell the MC has no idea what he is doing. He only reacts, never planning until the enemy is on his doorstep. ALSO, he is basically handed a cheat in the very beginning in the form of sword and armor. He is a noob with a nuke throwing a temper tantrum.

The MC isn't simply unstable. He jumps from being a grizzly dictator lopping off heads, to a grieving father, to a widow, and says "It is all for you Ingrid, it is all for you." She didn't ask for this. His reasoning is completely unfounded based on nothing. You might say that this makes a nice deranged MC. You are likely right. But I can't get behind him. The reasoning seems so forced. Like the author was trying too hard to give him a reason to be evil. Just let him be evil.

OVERALL: I think the attempt is nice. The story was slightly enjoyable. The exposition was too long. The Litrpgs elements are limited. The MC was given a cheat. The development of the evil characters and supporting characters were extremely well written. The author is able to successfully keep the reader on their toes. Thus, I am conflicted and give this book a 3/5.

LitRPG that embraces the Dark Side.

A Dark Path is a LitRPG whose main character really embraces the dark side, so it is quite different from what you might be used to. It follows the main character Ben Hales who is a middle aged man who enters the world of Wonder which is a completely immersive Virtual Reality game that is completely life like and extremely popular on this future version of Earth. It begins with him bringing his young teenage daughter into the game for the first time and showing her the ropes. Things soon go wrong in the game world of Wonder after it is attacked/hacked and people can no longer logout of the game and an in game death means real life death. After a tragedy, Ben Hales vows revenge and turns down "A Dark Path".

Ben becomes a necromancer which is quite different for these types of books as that isn't a very noble calling. Ben seems like a good guy and treats most of his allies quite well but he does not shy away from death and killing and can definitely not be called a hero. The story is fairly interesting and the leveling and skills are also pretty well done. Ben soon becomes quite powerful even though he is at a low level which kind of seems a bit weird and doesn't make his situation seem as dangerous.

The narration by J. Scott Bennett was well done and seemed to fit the character well. If you like LitRPG and wouldn't be turned off by a main character who isn't really a hero or doing the noble things than I think you will enjoy this story. I am interested to read the next book in the series to see how things progress and learn more about who is behind the attack/hacking of Wonder.

"Please note I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Good, could be great

This book was very entertaining but could have been better, the plot wasn’t overly deep and the characters could
Be more
Fleshed out. It was never too slow or uninteresting though and I never thought to put it down before finished. I received this book free in return for an honest review.

medium dark and only a bit grim

A good shell for a villain POV gamelit. The characters are particularly believable in that the main character goes from voice of reason to mass murdering maniacal overlord on what you may think of as a reasonable excuse but on a hair thin time frame. He just goes whelp I guess I'm gonna be evil now, time go murder a bunch of people.

since he's our POV character some level of concious acknowledgement of guilt seems like it should present with how he is portrayed in the beginning. As it happens it seems more like they are two different people with the same name instead of a character that falls to the darkside.

but anyway this book was fun, there wasn't much character development per se but there were exciting and interesting events and it could be fun to see how the story progresses.

For being labeled as grim dark it's pretty reasonable. The main character kills people to get what he wants and leads a town of necromancers eventually he'll have a kingdom and an empire but there is very little in the setting that you would associate with the despair that comes to mind with the term Grim Dark.

There also wasn't any strong body horror or sex abuse or anything like that which can be a concern with "grim dark" settings.

i received a free review copy of this book.

Accent

I read some of the reviews and their feelings on the actors accent. At the same time, the reviews were mostly positive. One of my friends has the same accent so it was interesting. It wasn’t bad and it may have been better because of it.
Story wise, I love it. I have been looking for the dark side of characters forever and didn’t think it would be this good in a LitRPG style book. It is and it was. I feel for the mc and agree with everything he does and his reasoning, even though he gets a bit dark at times even for me. But that just makes it more believable.
Kudos to the author and the voice, J Scott. I just purchased the sequel.