The Elder Lands: A Kingdom Building LitRPG

The Elder Lands, Book 1

De: B. Salem

Narrado por: Raphael Corkhill

The cost of ambition is often less flowery than the dreams that gave birth to it.

Lucan is the son of a landed knight in a kingdom that is surrounded by diverse threats. As he comes of age, he must make peace with both the tasteful and distasteful of his responsibilities. Most important of all, he must find a way to either tame or accept his own ambitions.

In a realm where an underground labyrinth births monsters that hunger to climb into the world of man, it's difficult to be a noble and dangerous to be a warrior. Lucan must navigate a maze of mortal peril and political intrigue if he is to survive and, perhaps someday, thrive.

Enjoy this smooth LitRPG taking place in a gritty medieval setting, featuring allies and enemies that fight with the sword, the word, and, sometimes, the arcane. The people of this realm are no strangers to monsters that prowl the night.

©2024 B. Salem (P)2024 Podium Audio

Buy it

Underrated gem in the genre. Low fantasy high plot allows characters to face conflicts and struggle which allows for true character growth

Cant wait for book 2

It’s so hard to find a good kingdom building story, this one is perfectly balanced you can enjoy the world, there is no wild power rush and you actually see how the MC gets to the place he is

Weak writing, but good story

This book is mixed for me.

The paragraph-level writing is weak, with dialogue that doesn't ring true and clunky exposition throughout. This problem is not crippling, but it's occasionally intrusive. That said, the writing in the action scenes is better, with the action easy to follow and believable.

Though there are some passing mentions of more unusual setting elements, the setting is mostly a standard faux-medieval-European world. While there isn't an explicit game world and there is no isekai element, there is explicit mechanical character progression and the occasional character sheet. This "game" element is better integrated in the world than it is in many LitRPG/Progression Fantasy books. (And the character sheets are short.)

The protagonist is the only son of a border lord given his land by the king for his previous service. The protagonist's mother died when he was younger; his only relative is his rather gruff father, who is not especially sympathetic to the boy's desire to spend time studying. Through the course of the book, we get significant character growth from the protagonist caused by his various experiences.

The series is billed as "Kingdom Building", and the plot supports that well. The studious protagonist is being trained by his father to take over his fief, and he is allowed to make decisions about how to advance the fief's economy. In addition to the fief-level story, there are a couple of character quests (very different from each other) that are used for both mechanical and personality character development.

The story is well-paced, the protagonist is sympathetic and interesting, and the world development is well handled. In spite of the flaws in this book, I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Good Book

I enjoyed reading a book where the main character was competent but not infallible. I felt that the author did a nice job of demonstrating some character development and am looking forward to the rest of the books in the series.

Enjoyed the Story

I enjoyed this book and liked the aspect of someone trying to improve upon their lands while juggling other duties. Only thing to me that kind of brought the story down was the interaction with the princesses - from the background of the mc you’d think he wouldn’t fall so easily into the traps and used liked he was… just gave a conflicting character build to me. Still enjoyed the book and am looking forward to what will happen in the second.

bad editing

the storm is good but the random times you would here the narrator cough sniff and russle break the emersion.

Slow but interesting

Not epic fantasy but follows the realistic development of a realistic kingdom. Good narration and interesting problems throughout.

a great start

i could not stop listening wile not the best book it is easly in my top 20 for the year I look forward to the second book

I felt the MC should be smarter given...

I felt the MC should be smarter given that he reads a lot. He comes across as a person who takes in knowledge but can't apply it properly. Then still thinks hes smarter than he is. Doesn't really think things threw fully.

fairly decent will buy book 2

the narrating and story telling got better as the book progressed. the coming of age aspect has me hooked easy 8/9-10