Tower of Somnus Omnibus, Books 1-3

By: Cale Plamann

Narrated by: Andrea Parsneau

First contact gone wrong. Humanity judged and found wanting. Unlimited power up for grab.

The Galactic Consensus arrived on ships as large as skyscrapers, crafted from glittering alloys that no human scientist could even begin to understand. They followed the trail of century old television transmissions to welcome us into the galactic community… only to recoil in horror at what they found.

They concluded that humans were unfit to be trusted with the advanced technologies that member-states of the Consensus freely traded with each other, installing a relay to warn other ships that we were under embargo, but more importantly, allowing humans entrance into the Tower of Somnus, a multiplayer game of sorts that could be played in one’s sleep. The hope was that humanity would learn proper behavior from playing the game with our more civilized neighbors.

Katherine ‘Kat’ Debs, a hereditary employee of one of the megacorporations that ruled the world, eked out a meager existence in a massive arcology of glittering glass and chrome. She dreamt of one day earning enough money to buy her freedom, and was more than willing to break a law here or there in the process. When she is offered an opportunity to enter the Tower of Somnus free of corporate control, she jumps at the chance. After all, the 'game' was more than just a status symbol, players retained the fantastic powers they earned in the game in the waking world as well.

A perfect opportunity to take control of her destiny, or die trying.

©2022 Cale Plamann (P)2022 Cale Plamann

A refreshing take on the "dream video game"

This was a great listening experience; I enjoyed the story very much. I'm usually very critical of the stories I enjoy (the more I like it, the higher my expectations), but I only noticed a couple of minor points in this one -- mostly about subject/object pronoun use (think "I" vs. "me"). I guess I was also a little concerned about how readily the main character could "eliminate hostiles," and at least one case where she did so unnecessarily (though she seemed to realize it afterwards).
While I say this as a man, I found the narrator's male voices to be more varied and convincing than many of her female voices. It was kind of impressive, honestly.
Also, I would caution against listening to all 3 books in rapid succession. By the time I was wrapping up the third volume in this set, it was starting to affect my thinking. My daughter asked me, "If you have to split an apple between yourself and two friends, but can only make one cut, how would you do it?" I thought about it for a minute, but the only response I could think of was, "Line them up, one in front of the other. Stab through the first, into the second. Walk away and eat the apple."

magical cyberpunk!!

I really don't want to spoil this absolutely great series it's just that good.
for you like cyberpunk and perhaps magic? why not both in a litrpg style? well that's only the start of the good things to come yet, with great world build and dynamic characters everywhere both to be liked or not aswell as great story progress that will leave you wanting for more.
the voice actor did a great job aswell lots of depth and excitement. do you read combat parts of a book faster because it's more exciting? this great voice actor does and it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time!
so in short you need to check this great series out

all in one

I'm really starting to like this author. his books are fun and peppy. the third book in this series doesn't actually start until chapter 28 or thirty. I had to reread them because I missed some good scenes.

TLDR: they are fun.

Bravo 👏

I find it a unique story about a clever young woman Cat as she attempts to survives a soul crushing corporate dystopia, full of villainous gangs, moded out samurai, and wicked CEOs and their web of politics and murder, then add another layer of complexity; As Cat slumbers she can access a dream like interplanentary game where skills are earned by dungeon diving and have the amazing benefits of permanently improving the person/subscriber in reality. Mix in a montley crew and a insioudious alien plot, then you have the iceberg of this book. Great action written throughout complemented by the wide ranging vocal acumen of the voice narrator.

An epic balance of cyberpunk and the dreamscape!

I really enjoyed this omnibus. The story is believable and the characters are fleshed out. Andrea delivers an amazing performance.

Discount Shadowrun Meets Discount Star Trek D&D

For those who like lots of a fights and don't care as much about a strong plot to unit them, this book will probably be a good fit. The magic system seems fairly well built. Unfortunately, after finishing the first two books in the omnibus, I've found that the story never really captured my attention and I'm still not invested in the characters.

While there are some elements that the author can claim for their own, most of the worldbuilding seems to be generic imitations of other creative universes. The "real world" portion very clearly draws from Shadowrun, but seems to lack the depth that makes that franchise unique. The aspect that this story can claim is unique is the fact that the fantasy D&D VR simulation is a dreamworld rather some kind of technology.

Aside from the occasional mention of being unable to sleep, however, this aspect rarely seems important to the story itself. The plot feels rather threadbare. It feels more like the author wanted a vehicle to preach about real world politics than they wanted to tell an interesting story. I always have to mark a story down when they explicitly go out of their way to engage in exposition dialogue to express opinions about the real world. Exposition dialogue can be boring enough as it is when it's necessary to help worldbuild fantastical elements. It's atrocious when just describing reality.

One big thing I'll give this story over something like Primal Hunter - at least the author or publisher has seemingly hired editors. The writing itself isn't plagued with passive voice, repetitious word use, or awkward phrasing like I've seen in a few other popular litRpg series.

I like the story but...

While I understand that many are drawn to this audiobook for its RPG elements, I found the excessive focus on battle descriptions—many of which did little to advance the plot—to be tedious. The overarching story was far more engaging and could have benefited from a stronger narrative focus.

The narrator’s standard voice was excellent, and her portrayals of male characters were generally fine. However, some of her female character voices were grating, bordering on unbearable. In the third book, two of these characters frequently shared conversations, and their astonishing high-pitched, whiny tones were so harsh that I physically winced while listening. The pitch was unnaturally high—far beyond any normal voice I’ve encountered in real life—and when listening at a comfortable volume for narration, these voices became painfully loud. While the engineering levels may not have changed, the way electronics and the human ear process high frequencies made these characters particularly difficult to endure, forcing me to lower the volume every time they spoke.

Having listened to over 800 audiobooks, I’ve never struggled with discomfort caused by a narrator’s voice as much as I did here. And they were so unnatural, it distracted from immersion in the story.

it's 😕 meh.

It is a Cyberpunk based story with anime iseki flare. A decent story that is seriously diminished by social and political dogma.

Lesbian Boss girl with hate for men, meets furrie and transgender aliens to make a super group to save earth.

it has it's few moments of creativity, but beyond that it's a mashup of video game, anime and movie lore.

The use of pronouns is done better and applies some of the time. Though, could have just used the characters name. the forced usage maked that character feel like a side thought at times.

the voice actor is now type casted to many of the "woke" dogma fantasy stories. making her sinominous

Great Writing, Poorly Thought Out Characters

The book's premise of semi-benevolent aliens bringing high technology to an uncivilized Earth has been done before, and done well, but Tower of Somnus does a good job world building this part of the story. Humanity proves too corrupt for post-scarcity aliens and so are placed on time out while the Tower of Somnus somehow molds our society into something more acceptable.

The first three-quarters of the novel has us following a scrappy up-and-comer protagonist who isn't part of the ruling elite and has to scrounge for every advantage in order not to be ground down by the wheels of the entrenched economic class. A bit of luck and talent has her entering the Tower of Somnus and parlaying her advantages there into satisfying power in the "real" world.

***Spoilers****
However, this solid premise starts to break down near the end when the author suddenly throws out one of the motivating premises of the entire novel. One of the entrenched elites decides NOT to use their power for corruption and self-dealing and instead of abandons their own child in favor of the main character--I guess because they are just SO special--and offers them all the benefits of being an elite in favor of using their power to benefit their own family. The author wants us to believe that the antagonist is just so sociopathic that abandoning their own kid makes perfect sense. Ultimate villains are like leopards and will eat anybody's face after all, so long as it benefits them. Because it's not like rich people use their power to protect their own family over total strangers who are physically attacking them. Unfortunately, this weird plot twist cuts completely against the world building of a corrupt elite. The author is clearly aware this is a stretch and has the villain monologue an ultimatum to the protagonist, where they can be her friend or become a tied up loose end, all in hopes of convincing the reader the hero is just so awesome its worth letting her live just so her amazing skills can be put to work. But it just doesn't make any sense that a supposedly logical villain would leave an obviously disloyal enemy at her back, no matter what the enemy claims, and at the expense of their own family! I don't have an issue with a sociopathic enemy willing to sacrifice their own blood, it just doesn't fit in a corporate oligarchic world where the corporate execs have utter control over how their children are brought up and protected. This entire plot thread cuts against the earlier world building where the corpo kids are given a leg up. The corporate elite are supposed to be a backstabbing class who are at each other's throats. Presumably abandoning your own kid to elevate some nobody would get people's attention...maybe even open you up to some accusations of class disloyalty...

The book is well written, but the author introduces plot twists at the end which don't fit the characters or world they spent the first part of the book building so carefully. Villains act cartoonishly to fit a plot twist the author clearly has trouble accommodating any other way. For anybody even vaguely familiar with corruption and self-dealing, the whole generosity to beaten enemies and bringing them onboard after they've tried to *murder* you and used violence against you is just too insane to believe. I may give the second book a brief look to see if any of these issues are fixed, but I'll likely not read further if the "corporate" villains behave in ways that make the entire world building collapse on itself.

preachy as hell

corpo bad. use pronouns right. men bad. these are the messages im getting from just the first 9 chapters. im tired man. i dont need this preachy bullshit