City of Goblins

In the System, Book 1

By: Petr Zhgulyov, Sofia Gutkin - translator

Narrated by: Gabriel Vaughan

Ivan Susanin, a typical guy and unemployed techie, is initiated by the System and transported, together with a thousand other players, to an unknown location beyond Earth. Ivan has an interface, a spear, and basic weapon skills. All he has to do to return to Earth is complete a simple quest and reach the second level. But experience points are only awarded for kills in this game, and the clock is ticking.

The most valuable prey under these conditions are formal allies, i.e. the other players. If a player is capable of killing a fellow human, of course. Even if they aren't planning to go against their own nature by murdering innocents, who said that they will have a choice? It's kill or be killed!

Beyond the local objective is also a global one. In the center of the city stands a temple to a fallen god, and until one of the players captures the Altar, the mission will be repeated again and again.

For the first seven players, who become the Earth Gods, this mission is a chance to rapidly gain power and take charge of a united Pantheon. A chance to escape death and protect our world from invasion. Although there is only one altar and the Gods make others do their work. Ivan must make a choice and decide whose pawn he will become. Or should he take a risk, refuse their patronage, and keep his options open?

©2020 Peter Zhgulyov; English translation copyright 2020 by Sofia Gutkin (P)2021 Tantor

interesting world

The world and plot are interesting, taking 1k ppl every few days and dropping them into the ruins of an ancient fantasy city with the objective to survive a couple days and lvl up a bit for a chance to go back home for a little bit with the main mission of securing the altar of the fantasy worlds diety for 1 o the many Earth Gods that're using human avatars to form groups of the 'player' from around the world.
This throws ppl into a world of death without any warning, where one moment ppl are going to bed, then waking up in a desolate city and hunted by the native goblins and even other humans from their world, because they're trying to reach the minimum lvl in time for the dead line, since those who don't won't get to go home ever again.
It's a scary world that leaves everyone wondering who they can trust not to kill them to keep from being trapped in this nightmare forever at the timers end. So int understandable to be very Paranoid and suspicious, but with how emotionless the narrator is it make the MC sound psychotic. Like a robotic killer computing the possibility of ppls betrayal or secret motives and his probable retaliatory or preemptive action to counteract such attacks. Yes, the MC can overthink the dangers of a situation too much but he goes on to admit to himself that those possibilities are overboard and would be jokingly bad options for ppl to take against him.
Definitely worth checking out but will admit narration is painful and can hurt the way situations sound in the story.

Different take then most light novels

It was a slow start at first but picked up quickly and I couldn’t stop listening

it's pretty OK. 3.5 stars. not horrible. not good.

the worst part is that the MC/ 'hero', isn't a hero at all. he's a sociopath of middling IQ who thinks he's smart and 'logical' -- I.e. a total asshole who is also a bit of a dumbass.

it's still like this in book 2.. haven't read 3 yet.

the world is kinda interesting, but overall, it is a big disappointment.
usually the Russian authors are excellent, but for whatever reason, this one is not.

I really dislike the system he conjured up for the world. it's just frustrating and as bad as the MC.

it feels like with very few changes, this (including book two), could be a pretty good novel, but the author made so many poor choices with system and the MC's sociopathic, wholly unlikeable nature.

what is good however is a complete lack of politics or idiotic hyper progressive moralizing prevailing most newer books.

the Disgardium series, M. Atamanov's Reality Benders series and the 'Sleepless ones' series by (forgot his name) are great Russian litrpg series I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Western stuff I really like is:
Defiance of the Fall, Paranoid Mage, Blue Core, The Perfect Run -- these are the best series right now.

Mother of Learning is good, but the first book has a few really weak points. book 2 is much better.

unfortunate

like most Russian authors in this genre characters are allways viewing the world through a jaded lens. that's not always a bad thing. Klevansky , Stone ,Kornev all made such characters. They all could be rooted 4. that is not so in this case. the character is not a hero or even an anti-hero. he's psychotic. like Chinese authors MC's this one will do anyting 4 power & survival. for me it makes the story unlistenable as this character is unrelatable. I pulled the plug about halfway through. Gabriel Vaughn is a new narrator for me. he's flat. He does not color the words into a picture.. he did get a little bit better as the book went on. however crisp delivery does not make up for a lack of emotional resonance. I liked the story, mechanics and premise. I won't say that it was inspiring writing , but the author is solid . it just really sucked that the MC was not somebody who's fate I could care about.

Awesome story concept ruined be stereotypes

The author chose to include his racist and stereotypical beliefs other than that great story. Sadly, this is an all too common theme with Russian and Asian authors.

Stat points and skill acquisition

Normally I wait till the end to review a book but I'm extremely frustrated with this book so far. I'm listening as an audiobook and I keep having to replay sections. It is NOT clear how many stat points he gets from levels, System points for skills etc. If you mention a level up and then 3 chapters later, sometimes 1-2 hours of listening, atleast mention 1 sentence about how many stat points you have or where you got them. Just saying "I put all my stat points to X" and nothing else it gets really confusing. I am like 8 hours in and I have no idea how many stat points he gets per level.

Just finished it and it's a wierd mindset. I'd give it a solid B tier for litrpg.

An excellent beginning for this series

Quite an excellent beginning for this series and it looks like it has a lot of potential in the future. The main character is tough and doesn’t shy away from the tough decisions plus he is quite smart in dealing with this new environment. Despite all that he hasn’t allowed it to make him into a psychopath. Series like this tend to fall into two main categories the first is the main character becomes tough as nails and ends up becoming more or less a psychopath or he (or she) ends up being too wimpy and has to have the other characters around them take up the slack for them not making the tough decisions. It’s nice to see that this story falls outside of that trend (so far). The only reason I gave this book four stars out of five, over all was because of the way the book ended. It just felt like it cut off in the middle of the story.

Excellent LitRPG

The main character acts intelligently and isn't whiney. The story primarily focuses on the main characters perspective. This is in my top 3 LitRPG series. Definitely recommend.

Do you also hate Goblins?

I like the system that is in play; the mechanics and reasoning of the world. I wish book two was available, but only the kindle version is up for preorder. I feel like there is alot of potential left untapped in the story, which is a great thing and hopefully book 2 won't trample on my anticipation. Things at current feels balanced, the MC is getting stronger but so are his "temporary" allies. what distinguishes him from others is the help of his high intuition level that has played a crucial role in his decision making and risk taking. Thus far we have not seen typical Magic as a major shaker in the game, although a vast array of abilities could be considered magic. The world is quite interesting.
...Oh and underestimate the goblins and your in for a bad day.

Meh.

Interesting world and way to bring people into the system, but it seems pretty broken too in the way people get experience. The main character kills probably a hundred goblins that he never gets any points for because he has to use special arrows and then touch the arrow to get the experience. On top of that, anyone that touches his arrow in the killed enemy can gain his experience. As if that isn't enough, the magic in the game is all but useless because it's so weak with a similar flaw of no way to get experience from kills. Then there's the mc... he's a psycho killer. Yes there are some that he kills in the beginning because they went to kill him first. But from then on he is constantly thinking of how he could just kill his allies or thinking of how they will kill him. There's no real banter. He's basically antisocial. And any people that he stays around are only there because they can somehow be of use to him. I won't pick up the next books. Good thing it was free when I read it.