Alpha

Chaos Awakens

By: Aleron Kong

Narrated by: Pavi Proczko

Length: 14 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

The Earth barely survived the Third World War.

It isn’t ready for the War of the Worlds.

A beam of pure Chaos has descended on the Earth connecting it to the Labyrinth Universe.

Monsters will spawn, heroes will level and nations will fall.

Chaos will Awaken!

From the mind of Aleron Kong, the Father of American LitRPG, comes his tenth book!

With over 1,000,000 books sold, a Wall Street Journal Best Seller and the series voted one of the Top 100 of ALL TIME by Audible.com, you can’t go wrong!

Experience a brand new magical system combining LitRPG leveling and Wuxia cultivation in a seamless world that always pushes the characters you love and hate to the edges of the universe and their sanity.

Not everyone will survive when Chaos Awakens!

©2024 Aleron Kong (P)2024 Aleron Kong

Great start for another Labyrinth series story

Aleron knocked it outta the park again after finishing he has me waiting on more!

Glad there is new content

It’s off to a good start. A New World seems interesting with new systems in place. Only real complaints I have is I wish the book was longer as it didn’t seem to get a lot got done. Besides world set up. I wish all audio books were like 25-30 hours long. Look forward Alpha2, book 9 of the Land, and God’s eye2

Good, but Lots of Build Up

As always his writing style is always enjoyable. He has a gift. This being the first in a new series he does alot of ground work, and while I enjoyed it all I will admit it dragged a bit in the middle. I think it was nessisary but it was slow. So I do recommend but just be aware that there will be alot of talk about stats and the narrative itself moves slowly.

Character Development

Binged this fantastic book from start to finish in one day! The characters really came alive. Can’t wait for book two!

long wait for half a story.

So any review of Aleron Kong is going to be contentious. And broadly they fall into a few categories, The first being his ultra fans high on his charisma that don't really care if the book is good or not and will leave a good review before the book even comes out and before they even read it because they like Aleron.  They are also the same people who will downvote any kind of negative review for the same reasons even if the review is honest and not a troll. 

Then there are people who just hate Aleron’s success and will leave a negative review to troll him. They will also leave the review before the book has even come out or after some without even reading / listening to it. 

There is a smaller number that leave more honest reviews and I hope that mine falls into that number. Hard to say because I do like Aleron alot and I have been a fan of his books and still am.  

Ok that is out of the way here is what I took away from the book. To start with overall I think its a decent story. I liked it and it was entertaining. I did not enjoy it as much as The Land even though I think that this book feels like he is now a better writer. 

Some of the things that caused me to not like the book all that much was I felt like he spends way too much time describing systems. A little over half the start of the book felt like it was just one system window after the next and it felt really slow. I am not actually sure it would have bothered me if the book was longer. But knowing like the first six hours of a fourteen hour book were going to be dedicated to systems and the action was not going to start until much later was a struggle. If he had spent six hours on getting you used to the mechanics of the litrpg system but you still had 20 hours of book to look forward too of actual story that would hit a bit different for me. 

The next thing that bugged me specifically is how racist all the bad guys were. It seemed really unnecessary to me. They are already a bunch of criminals and gangsters and this is supposed to be a future alternative earth and yet every single antagonist is also a racist? It felt a bit much, maybe even a bit like a hand wave. 

To me it took me out of the story when all these bad guys kept using racial slurs. First because it seems like an easy way to say “Hey this is a bad guy and when they die you will feel good about them dying because they are clearly a racist so who cares.” It just hurts the story, and I feel like its a bit bland or even lazy.

We waited a good number of years for a new book and it seems like this is book should have been much longer. Just when it gets going its over. 

I do want to end on positives, the book was enjoyable, just too short. The main character is basically just a older more skilled version of the Lands main character. The action was fun and so was the humor. 

The Performance by Pavi was brilliant as always the added sound effects were also nice. 

I look forward to more from the series though Im not sure id recommend it to anyone that is not already a fan. I have a few friends who are fans but want to wait until Aleron releases a few more books before they get back into his stories. With this book only feeling like half a book I wont be talking them out of that decision. 

I hope I don't get trolled for this review and that it helps some people and I hope it helps Aleron because I really do want more from him I just also expect more as well because I know hes capable of more.

Good book

I thought it was a very good book I’ve listened to all of his books and this one in my top five favorites books in the AKU the only thing it was just a little slow for me but still love it

Beautifully written

I actually enjoyed this book more then the first one in the land the problem is that it’s to short for my taste we waited years for another kong book to be released for it to be this short. Spoiler warning I didn’t like the fact that soon as he got out the hospital the book was pretty much done and almost a hour of the book is two chapters of the land the first book. You could of made this a cool 20 hour book would of been wonderful that would of gave me enough going threw the first dungeon that would been a good end point especially since kong hasn’t put anything out for like 5 years that’s the only down side about this book I was thinking it would take me at least a few days to finish but it only took one which doesn’t correlate with how long it took him to release a new book which is the only disappointment I have

Beautifully written and performed

The way Dr Kong has written his stories is top notch. He pulls you in with characters and situations and holds you there with relentless action, humor, and heart. I cannot wait for the next book of this series to release. Crush your enemies. Honor your allies. LIVE!

There is good and bad

I like Aleron Kong. He is why I am into Litrpg. I have listened to all of his books. I will say that this book bears several hallmarks of his writings that are good and can be frustrating at times. The Food of this book is that it gets straight to the point of the plot rather quickly. We are aware of the system and are introduced to the Labyrinth from the start. Chaos plays it's roll early on without going into retread material most already know. I like the fact that the main character is not led by his dick like Rictor. This semi cultivation style is very nice to start with. You can see how Pathfinder influenced The Land and Modern Wuxia influences this book.

The Bad is there but it is not over powering. The first problem is that all his main characteas have medical experience. I understand he used to be a doctor, but come on. I was hoping for something new for him. The doctor knowledge can take you out of the book and ask why am I hearing this. Some of the internal dialogue is a bit to pop culture based and makes the books not age well. Lastly I don't like how there is no plot line resolution and a bad places cliffhanger.

The voice work was fine. But the MC goes from southern black man to just some dude voice that Pavi does. The deep voice is inconsistent and it is not a major problem but it is minor at times

Good book overall.

Why do I feel Let down???

Now, please let me start with I know this is a new series and a story that shouldn't be compared to Aleron's other books but it's hard not to.

This book starts in a fun and exciting way but quickly slows down and drags on a bit. I was expecting a lot more combat and conflict from the book's start—that may be my mistake in assuming. It's a new style of storytelling and I did enjoy it once I realized what type of book this was.

Things I DID like. The characters. Each was fun and entertaining to learn about. I like the cultivation style of power growth mixed with standard magical growth.

Things I DIDN'T like. The constant race bashing and name calling. I'm not one to be butt hurt by stuff like that—but I do think it was a little over the top. I think the pacing could have been a bit faster as well.

Overall I enjoyed the book and will be looking forward to the next in the series. Thank you Alaron for writing a new and exciting story for us to enjoy!

GNOMES RULE!