Headshot Online

The Complete Series: (A LitRPG Box Set: Books 1-3)

By: Matthew Siege

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

The Headshot Online Box Set is a LitRPG adventure set in a post-apocalyptic virtual world featuring hordes of undead. It's perfect for fans of Daniel Schinhofen, Tao Wong, and C.M. Carney.

Headshot has just gone live, and the whole world's playing the new Artificial Reality blockbuster. Unfortunately, unless you can buy your way onto the Survivor's side, you can only participate as a Zombie. Each week, the forces gather to tear each other down to the bone...until, at week’s end, the Apocalypse is reset.

Ryan's played the Beta for months, but now that his favorite game has launched, he finds it consuming his life - even as he struggles to decipher whether or not there's actually a way to succeed if you're not willing to Pay to Win.

But he’s got bigger problems to deal with. There’s something sinister going on beneath the surface of Headshot, and it looks like he’s wrapped up in it whether he likes it or not.

Narrated by the award-winning Vikas Adam (Divine Dungeon Series, Ritualist).

Books included in the set:
Book One: One in the Gut
Book Two: Two in the Head
Book Three: Three in the Heart

©2020, 2021 Aethon Books (P)2021 Aethon Audio

It was a good start, but….

The first book was supreme in its simplicity and elegance. The second book, however, was lazy and yet pedantic at the same time; it over analyzed every detail of the story and then drops a huge cliffhanger that isn’t needed. I write this review with most of the third book remaining because I simply couldn’t force myself to listen to anymore. The third book is where I hoped the series would be saved, yet it disappointed me in a confusing and nonsensical twist of mind numbing repetition. I recommend that, for the lack of better phraseology, the first book be handled as a standalone and the other two dropped.

phenomenal listen

it was a phenomenal listen, and I am very glad I did so. without any spoilers, there was a hiccup in the plot towards the middle of the third book that I felt was very detached from the rest of the series. having slogged through it, it finished well enough to give an enjoyable closure to a overwhelmingly enjoyable trilogy. the performance was amazing, and the storytelling was captivating.

mediocre

book 1 was awesome, book 2 kinda sucked, book 3 was ok. too much self reflection in book 2 and was difficult to get engaged.

great start with a downward trend

first book was great, second book wasn't as good but still enjoyed it, 3rd book almost made me stop listening to it. It was starting to get hard to follow, a lot of the story started to not make sense, there's a whole chapter or more about killing and engorging on children that was sickening.( I know it was not in his control, blah blah.. but it was extremely distasteful and not to the benefit of the story) and then the ending sounded like a cliffhanger, but then the epilog sounded like it was written like a middleschool book report on the bus to school

Great story plot and original theme I thought.

Book 1 and 2, I thought were well executed with the flow of characters and story. Book 3 kept up with the plot but I would have to say the ending seemed to have been rushed. Maybe it’s me for I listened to the ending chapters a few times to see if I missed something but to me it could have gotten deeper at the end. A great series to listen to.

great storyline

the story was great, and it didn't go the way I thought the author was going to go with and found it once i started i couldn't wait to finish it.

Different Enough to Draw you In

The story does drag. and you will get tried of the whining about the rich vs the poor but the concept of the game the MC is playing is kinda of interesting. because of that you'll stay engage in hopes to learn more. sadly it's not entirely enough....and the RPG part does quite show up.

Fun, Fast and Sometimes Trippy

Headshot Online is an fun and action-packed Zombie LitRPG

One in the Gut is a promising start to the Headshot LitRPG series. The MC is not overpowered and has to actually use his head and the story establishes some intriguing mysteries to be unraveled in later books. The only real negative is the MC's periodic complaints about life being unfair and how the rich don't deserve what they have and that the rich have never contributed to society. While I get that his perspective is colored some by a few particular interactions with rich individuals who did not themselves earn their riches (trust funds, etc), his complaints every time a paid player of the game has an advantage gets old, especially as he admits himself to having been less than diligent in school, ditched school and work regularly and his general lack of motivation outside of game worlds. Still an enjoyable story overall.

Two in the Head (Book 2 of Headshot Online) has a LOT of rising action, character development, growth, and insight. This makes it a slower book than the first one up until about the last quarter of things (fewer intense or prolonged action scenes until the end), but the level of development and growth provided is crucial to setting up for an ending I can care about. The Ryan of the first book was someone I was less than fully sympathetic to, but his growth due to being forced to see and truly feel the perspectives of others and commit to something larger than himself has made him grow on me considerably. Given the cliffhanger ending of the first book, it should come as no surprise that this one also ends in a cliffhanger, but if you are buying this compy, you don't have to wait to find out what happens in Book 3!

Three in the Heart (the final book in Headshot Online) provides a somewhat unexpected, yet very satisfying, ending to the series. The first half of the book is something of a psychedelic trip for the MC as his mind is warped and altered by the antagonists. He ends up going some dark places and through some real virtualized trauma, making him more sympathetic and his fight all the more worthwhile. Many of the allies and enemies he has made along the way come into play again to some degree, which is nice to see.

Highly recommend for LitRPG fans and zombie story fans.

Disclaimer: I was given a review copy for free and have voluntarily left this review.

Great audio books.

I enjoyed the entire series. It was very exciting and entertaining. I look forward to reading more of your work.

A (Book? Writer? Story?) 's decent into madness.

So here's this reader's trope. Anyone who plays RPG games is already a writer who creates a character, uses a preset setting as background to generate a story. Telling this story is still the Iliad, despite the strictures of language. YOU do something in present tense, HE realizes how this furthers the narrative in past tense. He realizes how this will effect the narrative in the future tense. YOU do, or are done to. Both the past and future get redone. But then . . .we have two setting in LITRPG, real fake world and fake fake world. The narrative changes both.

Usually. So I follow the writerly choices, which is just like playing the game the author has invented. I wonder at how often important things are just left behind as the past and future change in different worlds at different speeds.

What I look for is what comes alive to the author. How does he deal with whatever apparition he creates? Most can't kill them. (Do they carry them around for life? Do they get drunk to converse with these beings of their imagination?) I am guessing Mathew here saw this too. He did not surrender but wrote it to a fitting death. (One of the three choices in the title.)

What came alive here? Started off standard story of pushing the edge of tech with the quick tense hopping that is really a more normal perception with observation of whatever fake reality as big transitional periods but he did not just drop the things he made appear. He pulled, shaped and rolled them right along with the story. Man, did he have a ton of stuff by the end. By the middle of the third, all I was about is how does he end this. Would he just drop everything and go HEA? Maybe imagine this steaming pile was worth a sequel? But he was battling all the way. He would not give up now. He ended it all, as I said, fittingly.