Amanecida

Artorian's Archives, Book 15

By: Dennis Vanderkerken, Dakota Krout

Narrated by: John Pirhalla

Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Mighty Strahlung. Brilliant behemoths. Satisfying solutions.

Victory seems within Artorian’s grasp when a deep dive becomes deep fried. Armed with beam weaponry against unreasonable rats, he’s making impressive progress on the Eternia Beta Run. Thanks in part to the Dwarves and their relentless cheers to "Push...the...button!" There are a few final challenges that loom large on his path to triumph: the frozen continental storm, Fuyu No Arashi; the Matchless Gaston, and the final boss...Pag!

Artorian will overcome these obstacles with style! First, he must strike a pose, transforming into a muscle-grandpa of epic proportions—a Swole-torian, a Gains-torian, Sir Lift-orian, the Beefcake, Mr. Tough Love! Second, he must don his most wicked grin, his finest armor, and play the part of the villain with gusto.

Welcome to the dawn of the Glorious Overkill, and the advent of Dreadshine, the Nightmare Fuel.

©2023 Dakota Krout (P)2023 Dakota Krout

Low Stakes, High Fun

I received an ARC from Mountaindale Press.

Performance:
John Pirhalla keeps getting better. He is sprinkling in sound effects that make the experience more immersive. Definitely has grown on me in this series since taking it over. He puts a lot of effort into his recording and it shows.

Story:
If you are here, you likely are already 14 books deep in the series and know what you are in for. This is the beach episode of any anime. Artorian and his gang of friends just being wacky as they sew up loose ends. The series is rocketing from pre-Completionist Chronicles toward Post-Leyline Earth. I can't wait for the new outside world after the CC Go-Live.

Is this the end

I love this series and especially how it is tiring all three of the Dakota series together. I wonder if it has happened. Maybe one more?

Madness You Say

Characters really use the word madness to describe their actions a lot in this one. Especially Artorian.

Story is slow, but by this point don’t kid yourself, you’re invested.

Narration is getting better, but weird obtrusive sound effects are on the increase.

Solid continuation. We got like 8 more to go before the end (maybe?)!

Great fun

The author always puts so much fun into these books, and this one is no different. It's a fun ride for any who have made it this far.

there's no advancement with sunny

the earlier books were outstanding. great story. great fun. and even great lessons but now at book 15 I feel just long winded. now I'm asking where's the end.

There's something to be said for an author-

who is willing to call out their fans for not understanding the concept. Love it. The entire series has been a very obvious exploration into someone who cares too much, and is drawn to help everyone to the point of getting distracted by "side quests". I love this concept, and that's why I still listen, every time a new book releases.

good

starting to get a little cheesy and repetitive on the base story for each book.

Audio experimentation distracted from the story.

They started experimenting with additional sound effects and layering of audio, but the layered audio makes it hard to keep track of what is happening and distracts from the story. Also, the voices of some of the secondary characters got all mixed up. The books starts with the last few paragraphs of the epilogue from the last book, where Tim is talking, however he now has Cal’s voice instead of his voice, and continues to speak in what used to be Cal’s voice for the rest of the book. Then Dev shows up and has Tim’s old voice. I think Zephyr’s voice has also changed from the previous entries as well. I can get over relearning voices when they change voice actors occasionally as the series goes on, but it is really hard to keep focused on the story and understand who is speaking when characters suddenly have each other’s voices and accents even though it is the same person doing the voice acting from previous books.

No more narrator

I'm going to start with my issues first, then get to my positive feedback. FIRST, that synopsis was terrible. It had me dreading this entry. First impressions are important. SECOND, I have given the narrator the benefit of the doubt for the last several books, but no more. It is a constant break of immersion when he can't keep his voices straight. This happened at the very first line of the book, where he mixed up Tim's line for Dawn's voice, then started talking like CAL instead for all of Tim's lines. That kind of lack of care is irritating to a long-time listener, especially when it happens to multiple characters. I appreciate the soundboard, but I am not willing to listen to him anymore, so I will be getting physical copies from now on. OK, that's the bad stuff. Now, for my actual opinion. I enjoyed this story far more than the last two books. Plenty happened that actually felt important to the literal world building of Eternia, and Artorian actually has some semblance of control and feels like himself again. The jokes and references are back, but I've come to accept them for the chuckles they give me, though it feels like he is daring people to sue him sometimes. Overall, I enjoyed this entry more than I thought I would and look forward to the next. I will be getting the physical copies of all the books narrated by Pirhalla in this series and will only listen to the Baldree books next time I reread the series. Toodles!

A bit stat heavy at first but good nonetheless.

Another good entry in the series. However, it seemed at times a little too much emphasis was placed on describing game mechanics via pop-ups.