Warden

Nova Online, Book 1

By: Alex Knight

Narrated by: Todd Boyce

Ready Player One meets Halo

Imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit, Kaiden's only hope of early release is in serving as a Warden in the game world of Nova Online.

Playing as a unique class while surrounded by aliens, pirates and warring guilds, he and his squad are tasked with protecting new players and enforcing the rule of law.

But Kaiden has other ideas; he is intent on proving his innocence. The keys to his freedom lie hidden in the game's seedy underbelly. And as he'll soon discover, the bloody trail that led to his arrest is more twisted than he could have ever imagined.

©2018 Jonathon Atkin (P)2018 Audible, Ltd

YA, Slow, got bored

It is well written, but slow. I couldn’t tell if it was the narrator or the story, but I didn’t get engaged.

Some parts where I expected to have more depth were skimmed over. For example the basic training scene seemed to be over before it even got started.

I didn’t finish it.

Good story for the online part

So 1st off the online part was great though things felt a little rushed. However the real word part felt like the author reading The Hunger games a few to many times while writing this. Good story but well honestly I wished he would of said yes to the Captain. It would of been something different sadly the excellent start petered off near the end.

My three year old love the part he heard because his name is Kyden and we call him Ky so he loved the parts he got to listen to. So I will be getting book two.

YA

Nothing wrong with a book being targeted at a young teen audience, but i do wish they’d label it as such. Not worth your time as an adult listener. Very basic plot and character s.

A Masterpiece in LitRPG Literature

This was hands down the best LitRPG story I have ever listened to. I really appreciated that the vulgarity was kept to a minimum, and the few instances where any did appear it was appropriate to the story. I also liked that there wasn't any sleaze, which unfortunately has become increasingly common for this genre. Most of all, the gaming mechanics were very well developed. I found myself just as intrigued in the gaming mechanics as I was in the story. The plot of the story was also extremely well designed, and I easily found myself caught up inside the storyline. The narrator's performance was also exceptional. Well done! Very impressed. I can't wait to hear the sequel!

Narrator lost this book a star.

It’s not that the narration is unlistenably terrible. It’s just not that great with some annoying aspects and an ear-screwing, constant repetition of mispronounced words.

First the minor thing: the narrator very often forgets to switch voices when two of the main characters are speaking back and forth. Not a deal breaker but it just smacks of a lazy performance.

The really annoying thing is that the author uses a word in almost every paragraph, often multiple times in said paragraphs. The narrator is clearly not familiar with the word or has never watched a tv show or movie that features the navy or a sci-fi spaceship show, specifically any of the Star Treks... clearly Will Wheaton should have been the narrator for this audiobook. Unfortunately, this is not the only word he repeatedly butchers and it does become excruciating after awhile.

That said though the narrator is kind of annoying he doesn’t manage to ruin the book. It’s fairly listenable if you can get past the mispronunciations.

The book itself has good moments but overall it’s just ok. There are multiple places where you want to slap the MC, but it’s really not his fault. It’s one of those situations where the author has the MC forget his own skills in a time of crisis, only to remember it at the last moment and thus does a crappy job at creating suspense. This is a common flaw among new LitRPG writers and I wish someone would teach a clinic to help them avoid these kinds of pitfalls.

In summation, I don’t know if I’ll pick up the second book. Just like when I decided to pick up this book if it happens it will be because nothing in my wishlist is catching my interest and there aren’t any new audiobooks that I’m interested in. If you’re in the same place then this isn’t a bad book to pass the time with, just don’t expect a Chaos Seeds type of experience out of it.

Kaiden not Caden

I enjoyed this audio book. Intermittently the narrator would mispronounce the name of the main character. It was slightly annoying but not enough to ruin the experience.

The story was good and engaging. Some scenes were reminiscent of "Ender's Game".

Not a bad book for those new to Litrpg

This book is alright. It has moments of being beautifully written then others where i have to *sigh* the trouble was the author wanted to create this incredible dynamic team but, he didnt give them enough time together to make that connection believable. They also didnt do anything so jaw dropping amazing to receive the praise they received from higher ups. In fact most of the time they were carried through by higher levels and had no team coordination. That does change in the two final conflicts where you see some sense of team coordination begin to take shape. Overall it was ok, i think the next book in the series will become more of what the author had planned with this one.

The narrator did a good job with the performance overall. He kept my attention throughout.

it's okay

story is good , the problem is the performer . keeps miss pronouncing words .

Typical.

An average book with an average plot. Kaiden is a typical young man with dead parents, an newly independent young adult who is falsely imprisoned. Like so many before the government is the bad guy, corrupt and devious. A game of rebels and conspiracies ensue. The motivations of the books a rather mundane and completely turn me off.

Kaiden's character is plain enough, I am not really surprised he got duped into a murder charge. Titus is a typical big misjudged softie. Zelda bothers me the most though, she just flips on a dime like its nothing.

The entire story seems like it was cookie cut into place. Everything is rather mundane.

The performance was lack luster but acceptable. He could do mildly different voices and the characters distinguished themselves from one another but thats about it. The pacing of the narration along with the poor word choice, multiple reiterations, and poorly developed conversations gave him a little to work with.

On the plus side! Many of the in-game fights and events were rather interesting. I liked the universe created and the concept of the Wardens in the game. They are unique characters who are part solider, part enforcer, part prisoner. They all have loadouts and subclasses which keep things interesting. The beginning is a slog but the last half of the battles are really fun.

That said it is difficult for me to get behind a slow MC who is supported by a cliche cast and less than subpar plot who can't even make the obvious choice of a subclass he should take.

Every decision and event was foreseeable. Maybe one moment was surprising in how it got to the conclusion but thats about it. Overall this book has fun moments but is actually just a repeat

I'd only recommend this for people new to the Litrpg genre and are from a younger audience (teens) with little listening experience. Don't get your hopes too high for this one. RATING : 5/10

Interesting

This book was pretty good, it was slow in spots, but it was still good. I liked the Kai character, wrongfully convicted. I really want to know who The Party is, maybe by the end of the last book.