The Fabric of Reality: A LitRPG Adventure

Edge Cases, Book 1

By: Silver Linings

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Four friends work together to break the system and make the world a better place in this cozy, fun-filled fantasy-adventure filled with twists and turns.

In the Prime Kingdoms, the system dominates everything. It dictates one’s strength, skills, and power. It spawns dungeons and guides the actions of their monsters. But every system has its limits, and it’s about to push four oddball adventurers to theirs.

First there’s Derivan, an enchanted suit of armor in the middle of an existential crisis. And then there’s the tanklike half-orc Misa, who loves exploiting the system but misses her family—unlike the anxious-but-lovable Vex, a lizardkin wizard who’s run away from his own. And lastly there’s Sev, a cleric who would rather have tea with his god than worship him. None are prepared when a simple quest goes off the rails, interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious dungeon linked to each of them.

Something is deeply wrong within the Prime Kingdoms. The system is malfunctioning, and the world itself seems to be falling apart. If Derivan, Misa, Vex, and Sev hope to survive—let alone determine the source of the chaos—they must rely on their trust for one another, share their secrets, and perhaps even engage in a bit of healthy communication.

Now if only everyone else would do the same . . .

The first volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with almost two million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 Silver Linings (P)2023 Podium Audio

Far underrated by audible standards.

It’s a bit of a crime that this book has a 4.4 rating when some of the worst LitRPG and GameLit on audible continues to receive similar averages.

While this book isn’t perfect by any means, it is an enjoyable and well written story with solid characters, an original enough premise, an engaging plot, and of course excellent narration by Travis Baldree.

There are only a couple of things I can think of that might contribute to its relatively low rating. I say relatively low because we all know that audible’s 5 point system and people’s inability to adequately scale their ratings has lead to a 0.6 star spread between unlistenable trash and the best audiobooks ever recorded.

But I digress… the two things that I think might be contributing to the low ratings are:

1. The naughty word police: Now I get that people who are looking for audiobooks to listen to with their home-school kids might not want to share in the joys of explicit language with said children. I’ll leave aside my feelings that if you aren’t worried about listening to books that are inherently somewhat focused on violence and in lots of ways normalize it, then it’s a little f—ked up that spicy words which your children are absolutely going to learn before they turn 7 years old (assuming they don’t already know them) are your deal breakers. But like I said I’m leaving that aside…

If bad words are a problem for you then don’t penalize the audiobook’s rating for that. Because to almost everyone else, your negative rating is totally unhelpful and moreover your beef is not with the author, but with Audible for not telling you that the book drops F-bombs. It would be super easy for them to let you know which books are on Mr Roger’s book list and which are not. Then you wouldn’t have to waste your time and credits in the first place.

2. There are two characters that have feelings for each other that are not specifically heterosexual. The fact that this is a non-sexual relationship between a suit of armor with no sex organs and a tiny lizard-wizard who just wants a hug makes the “no-homo” discomfort of some listeners a bit of a head-scratcher to me. I mean it’s kinda like the swearing thing: if the the tamest love affair of all time happening between a non-anatomically correct, magically-animated, inanimate object and a tiny, talking, magical lizardman is ok but the fact that the suit of armor kind-of identifies as male is where you’re drawing the line, then I don’t know what to tell you.

If you like LitRPG/Gamelit, but you aren’t someone who gets real hyped up about the genders of magical creatures who have grade-school level feelings for each other, and your imaginary world doesn’t shatter anytime you hear a word used every day by the majority of the existing human population, then you should consider giving this book a try… Basically, if you liked Legends and Latte’s or Threadbare then this book is right up your alley.

Worth the credit

Great listen!
Good story.
Great job on the narration. Looking forward to the rest of the story

Just amazing

I loved every minute of this book it was amazing. I can’t wait for more from this series!

Awesome Story, Well-Crafted Characters

Silver Linings crushes characterization in Edge Cases volume one. This is a high-quality litRPG well worth listening to, especially with a performance as Stellar as Baldree's.

Great characters in an interesting world, but the pacing is off

One of the better LitRPGs. The characters here are wonderful and it's easy to enjoy listening to their adventures. The world and system are also cool and mysterious, and the plot revolves around exploiting technicalities in the system. However, the pacing is buckwild. LitRPGs are often fairly slow to progress through their plots, but this book feels like an abridged version of 4 books from another series. There is also often not enough time between plot hook setups and resolution. Why is the golden order paladin acting so weird? Don't worry about it because their character arc will be resolved in the next 15 minutes. That sort of thing. It is a little frustrating, but overall the good outshines the odd and this book is still very worthwhile.

great!

i enjoyed this alot! cant wait for book 2. lirrpgs are my favorite. this is the first I've heard be based on a party instead of one monster of a guy. i enjoyed that.

characters with inherent drama and life

Its a pleasure to witness the group work as a problem solving unit. The social dynamic is also very satisfying. It's not every day you read a book with this many competent characters.

Everything I needed!

I've been putting off listening to the series despite a recommendation on reddit a few months ago. I regret that. This had everything I need in a good book: deep lore, found family, and cute gay.

Such a cool story!

I'm usually one who prefers to linger in the early stages of a story, but the fast-paced nature of this one works really well! Each character is interesting, has their own time to develop, and has their respective strengths without being universally, belligerently overpowered (unless the System is involved, which is a cool way to handle it)! Really looking forward to the next one!

I love it.

This book won me over in the first ten minutes. The line that got me was "Did you *lick* my armor?!"