The Lone Hero 1

Cyber-Initiative, Book 1

By: Damien James

Narrated by: Gabriel Michael, Melody Muzljakovich

High school senior Silas Bruer is at his last licks of patience with his terrible and painfully underwhelming life.

He is pummeled at school, his girlfriend dumps him, and his piss-poor excuse of a father sends him out on an errand late at night that gets him a stalker on his tail.

To make matters worse, the stalker has a vendetta against him, one that leaves Silas mutilated in an alleyway by a dumpster and a half-eaten pizza from Antonio's Pizza Parlor.

Death by a mysterious skull-faced titan was inevitable but only temporary. When he wakes up again, he is isekai'd to a fantasy world filled with humans, orcs, fae, goblins, and dragons. The world system refers to him as a hero chosen to save humanity's fallen nation from slavery, oppression, and total genocide.

In a land of magic and monsters, survival is a difficult task where underground human refugee camps are hidden markers in the dystopian lands of a once flourishing nation. When the crystal core, an entity keeping the world together, is in a critical state and in need of repair, saving the race at the bottom of the food chain becomes an even harder mission.

Level up, loot specialty items, and defeat the dragon princess to save humanity. Luckily for him, Silas has a strong and zany fae wolf girl to show him the ropes and help bulk up his magitek cyber gear.

The Lone Hero is a LitRPG isekai series with a realistic weak-to-strong MC fighting both internal and external conflicts. Follow Silas on his adventure as he dives into a powerful world terrorized by a dragon empire. Expect plenty of action, a sprinkle of comedy, a dash of slow-burn romance, and nail-biting high stakes.

©2024 Damien R. James (P)2024 Podium Audio

Enjoyable, dramatic performance

Decent story. I’m not a big reader / listener so don’t want to critique the writing too much but it did feel inconsistent yet it still kept my interest. I’m looking forward to the next book and was disappointed when it ended. Reminded me of Ready Player One since the main character is essentially inside a video game with his own levels and experience points. This is only the second story I’ve listened to / read like this so don’t know how common the video game setting is.

The performance was really dramatic and the number of different characters and accents was incredible. Very impressed by the range. At times you couldn’t tell it’s the same voice actor. My one gripe is his rendition of female characters. While it’s narrated by both Gabriel Michael and Melody Muze she only narrated maybe two short parts focused on a specific character. Gabriel Michael did the rest, and very well overall. I just didn’t care for his portrayal of the females. At times they sounded catty when it was clear from the dialogue they weren’t. It grew on me, tho. And despite that, I’m still interested in getting book 2!