Dungeon Crafting Series Books 1 Through 3

A Dungeon Core Novel

By: Jonathan Brooks

Narrated by: Louise Cooksey

Contains the first three books in the Dungeon Crafting series!

1. The Crafter’s Dungeon
2. The Crafter’s Defense
3. The Crafter’s Dilemma

What happens when a knowledgeable crafter becomes a Dungeon Core?

Sandra had been a merchant traveling through the human lands of Muriel, though that wouldn’t have been her chosen profession. What she would’ve loved to become was a crafter, producing wondrous creations with her own two hands; however, she didn’t want to become a master in just one craft she was interested in them all. Sadly, she was born with a deformity in her hands which hindered her ability to produce crafts, though that didn’t affect her enthusiasm; she sought out the masters of a myriad of different crafts so that she could learn as much about crafting as she could. It was that pursuit of knowledge that ultimately led to her untimely death.

Reborn as a tiny Dungeon Core, Sandra had to learn about the purpose behind dungeons and Cores from an assigned dungeon helper. Through some unique circumstances based on her previous life, she also discovered that she had much more freedom than most other Dungeon Cores throughout the world. Unfortunately, the repercussions of her mere existence would end up being extensive, as she would find, though at first she doesn’t quite realize how much. In fact, the only thing she was concerned about had nothing to do with other Cores, the presence of the different mortal races nearby her location, or even the real purpose behind her being brought back to life as a strange glowing gem.

No, Sandra didn’t care about any of that; all she cared about was that she could finally do some crafting.

These Dungeon Core stories contain LitRPG/GameLit elements such as statistics, leveling, and a heavy crafting emphasis. No profanity and no harems.

©2020 Jonathan Brooks (P)2021 Jonathan Brooks

Fun, but read Dungeonborn instead

Fun book. It's not as captivating as the DungeonBorn Series (similar themes), but still enjoyable. What brings this down a bit is the narration, makes this a difficult listen overall as she does not have much range in her characters.

interesting crafting, lackluster writing

the writing is a bit linear, and everything seems a bit to convenient. challenges will arrive and unerringly there will be a super convenient solution just waiting. the writer spends a bit to much time burping out start blocks rather then developing a universe around the dungeon that will bring it all together.

narrator almost ruined it

Narrator has random background noise in book 3 it puts my teeth on edge. It sounds like a nostril weeze you should really do a proof listen to not let the quality of an audio book be affected by the narrator.

Narrator's vocal upspeak is grating.

Comma's are not question marks, but the narrator has the inclination to constantly turn everything into one.

The story is is fun, but it's really hard to listen to.

Story is.. familiar - and narrator is awkward

Don't know if there's a policy about mentioning other titles in these but the core story of "Person dies in weird way and is reborn as a dungeon with powers to control creatures, build traps, and fight heroes" is not original.

I'm not the type of person to care about a bit of plagiarism but its certainly worth a mention.

I enjoyed the book overall but agree with most other reviews, the narrator is awkward bordering on cringe. Most of the time its OKAY - its kind of like listening to a teenage girl talking with her friends the way she emphasizes words randomly like its meant to be cute or unique but ends up being annoying.
Then when shes tries to do a voice, especially a male voice, she simply drops a couple octaves and pretends shes chewing on rocks to sound more manly.

Again - story overall pretty good but is a total rip off of another series. Won't be buying anymore of the series just because of the narrator.

surprised

surprisingly good, I normally don't like crafting books, but I was surprised it was enjoyable some areas if stat reading got monotonous but still over all it was good
if you enjoy Reincarnation, fantasy and litrpg type books you will enjoy this series.

very well written great story

Loved it.
very well paced. great storyline.
culminating to a great peak with excellent closure. I'm ready for 4 5 and 6. Let's go!

Great Read

I love the LitRPG genre and Brooks is a master of it. I have read the Station Core and Dungeon Core series prior to this. Luckily he writes fast so I won’t run out of reading material for awhile.

With great power comes great.........headaches?

This one takes a somewhat different direction to most of Jonathan Brooks dungeon core series. Arguably Sandra has special advantages that are severely over-powered, unfortunately making use of them to protect the races around her dungeon's location from being wiped out by the other dungeons only makes her job harder. This is also one of the least stat-table heavy series he has made (I haven't made it through all of his series yet, so maybe there is one that is less, but I doubt it). It is a very interesting first-half to the series, with solid progress in both character development and plot development, and it ends with leaving you wondering just how Sandra is going to save herself and the mortal races near her. It definitely left me looking forward to the next volume, though I'm planning on waiting for the second-half collection so I can enjoy it all in one go instead of being left hanging between books. This is definitely looking to be one of his best dungeon core series over all, and the narrator he's using this time is doing a great job with the series.

Worth the cost but subpar.

Honestly the narration kills major parts of the book. The voices done for the characters are hard to listen to and pull away from any emotion they would of had otherwise.

Besides that the normal fairy exposition price seems to either conveniently forget things that would be important or can't inform the core due it it being 'unique'.

Any character that isn't the main group is just hostile unless forced otherwise, no differing options. Tho this makes sense it becomes predictable after the second time.

That along with the 'problems' that pop up all the time makes it hard to focus on the flow of the story. Then the lack of danger makes the problems seem like annoyances instead of something to be solved.

overall the only thing that saves to story is the main character/the core. it's so different from the personality and character that usually is the core it's just naturally interesting.
Sadly that's all the good things I can say about the main core. They are quick to blame themselves even when nothing could of been done, the crafting portion could of been vastly more important if they made armor for the creations/ had creations that used/needed armor, they have no form of solution to non-crafting issues except throw numbers at it or use the unique advancement to gain an advantage.

Tho I think that's ment to be flaws to the character, so maybe it is looked at or they learn in the coming books

TLDR:
if the narrator didn't try to use voices and just talked normally a good portion of the issues would of been solved.
showing different ideas or thoughts for the groups instead or outright rejection could of both increased depth in side characters and widen the lore of the world.
making heavier use of the items crafted instead of hoarding/trading would of shown the impact that just seemed non-existent
due to the main core being 'unique' it seems to remove the need or use of crafting.

spoilers:

Some issues are solved in the end of the third book but if this wasn't a three book buy there would be no way I could of held interest long enough to get there.