Age of Stone

Rise of Mankind Series, Book 1

By: Jez Cajiao

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

In all the games Matt has played, dungeons are places to raid, places you dream of conquering, but when the world is stripped of electricity, and the first mana-twisted beasts start to prowl, the games all come to an end....

Matt's just an ordinary guy, but when he's beaten, robbed, and left for dead, bleeding out at the bottom of a gully, it all has to change as he grasps frantically at his only chance for survival, coming as it does in the form of a glowing, dangerously pulsing light.

With his reality forever altered, Matt must quickly find a suitable place to deploy the Dungeon Core, fighting his way through the hundreds of people between him and safety, because if he doesn't do it soon, a Core Detonation will solve all of his problems for him....permanently.

Welcome to the New World.

©2021 RJ Cajiao (P)2021 Tantor

I enjoyed 99.9% of this book

Jez Cajiao is a new author for me and I am again delighted to fall onto another that is gifted at being able to craft a book with interesting characters, a unique plot and with thrilling, humorous and entertaining content. I was so pleased with the plot and the consistent forward movement of the events that I really wanted to give it 5 stars across ratings but couldn't not in good conscience do it due to one drawback. The authors over-use of stat recitals. Listen, I understand the desire of authors to keep to the tenets of the litRPG genre for the leveling up mechanics and for the written book this plentiful use is even a desirable feature. However, for audio listeners such as myself, too much of that ruins the tempo of the sense of forward movement of the story itself. I wish the audio studios would come up with an agreed upon means to allow listeners to easily fast-forward through those stat-recital sections which they may not want to listen to. Oh well, it's not a showstopper distraction and certainly won't stop me for eagerly awaiting for his next book in the series.

Neil Hellegers, never stop being you. Your narration skills are such that, along with a few others, when seeing new author title I will almost always give the audiobook serious consideration for purchasing.

Best modern day Litrpg out there

Thank you, so much. This was definately one of the best litrpgs I've read before, and for sure the best modern day/Apocalypse ones out there. Great characters and character building, interesting progression and premise, the fact that the dungeon is important but not the hog of the entire book... action is awesome as well. Seriously, great, and voice actor- 👏 👌 🙌 nailed it. Thank you both- eagerly awaiting the next one, and grabbing some of your other titles while I wait!

Awesome

I just recently decided to give litrpg books a try and honestly I wish I had sooner, because of books like this I would recommend.

Loving it!!!

Great start to a new series, I wish there were more books already.
Love Neil Hellegers, one of my favorite voice actors!! he does an amazing job.
Not a huge fan of dungeon lit bc most of the time they are stuck in the dungeon but this one isn't anything like that, enjoying how he is building the dungeon but also is out fighting and discovering.
Good humor, nice fighting, and it has Jack.. I really like Jack
Seriously awesome start, can't wait for more!!!

f-ing good book man

I can not wait for the next one this is a good start. loved it

The sexual references are a bit annoying

I don’t like reading about male characters having a hard on in on my lit RPG

Slow start but showing alot of potential

At first I was unsure about this novel, about 1/4 way in it picked up, slowly learning the mechanics of the world, which are a bit different, but not in a bad way. Very fun ride by the end. Not a perfect book, but still a fun ride.

Solid litrpg.

good book, can tell it's the author's first, but it doesn't take anything away from the book, just a couple short lived political convos that were very short lived, I have high hopes for this series, one of those that will only get better with each book and as the author learns and grows. Can tell he put a lot of work into it.

Absolutely Fantastic!

Loved it, can't wait to get in to book 2 and 3. Glad I tried this series out.

Lovely

other reviews I've noticed complained how many dumb mistakes the MC makes despite claiming to be a "smart guy" but I would urge you to disregard them for the most part. (For one, just because he works in IT and knows his way around some of that field doesnt mean he claims to be smart. He claims not to be dumb as a box of rocks, different.) Yes the MC makes quite a few dumb calls but it appears to mostly be because he holds out hope that things will turn back to normal after the world ends and someone literally tries to kill him when things first start happening and then more attempts follow. In the reality he is faced with its more than understandable that he would deny some clear evidence to the new world order about the bad turn his life is about to take but this doesn't last the entire story, as you could imagine. After his first two big adventures he quickly turns into a take no crap mindset and progresses thusly. It's a wonderful listen (if a bit rambling when it comes to the interface read, but that's a narrator thing not story thing) and I plan on getting the rest of the series.