Sponsored Apocalypse

A LitRPG Adventure

By: Blaise Corvin

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

He’s been preparing for the apocalypse his entire life. Is he ready?

Miles “Shrug” Lindstrom received a quest years ago. He was the only person who could see the window, and in addition to the quest, he could also see a countdown to the end of the world.

Part of him was hoping that he was just insane and had been hallucinating when he first started seeing the window. Then again, if the quest was just his imagination, he was going to be massively in debt with a rental full of useless junk.

But when the countdown finally stops, what happens is nothing like he could have imagined. Miles prepared for almost any scenario, but a world full of monsters wasn’t one of them.

Will finishing his strange quest help him survive the chaos?

©2024 Blaise Corvin (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing

Too much introspection

Feel like half the was an introspection. Took a lot to get thru the book.

Enjoyable, and engaging, although…

This was absolutely worth the credit. I enjoyed listening to it and when it ended I was engrossed enough to be disappointed that it was over.

That said, this isn’t Blaise Corvin’s best work. It’s a decent setup to a new series, and like I said, I thoroughly enjoyed it. However it felt a little more like a talented new author’s first effort at the genre. I say this because it had a very slice-of-life pacing/plot, and there was much more internal monologue than was necessary.

Lastly, here we have another LitRPG book with a main character who is socially awkward and isolated due to his own preferences and hangups. They say, “Write what you know,” so it’s no wonder that so many new author’s in the LitRPG genre have main characters that are nerdy, socially inept, and awkward around women… People who love RPG’s aren’t famous for their outgoing and confident personalities.

Lately though, it seems like 4 out of 5 books in this genre have MC’s who are at the callous end of the spectrum for people with social anxiety and often spend the whole book trying to decide if they even care if everyone around them drops dead. Unsurprisingly, they all (agonizingly slowly) come around to the idea that they do care. It’s getting to the point where finding a decently written book in the GameLit genre that has a main character who isn’t at least mildly sociopathic is a rarity.

Our MC in this book sadly follows this common archetype, and it’s disappointing that an established author like Mr Corvin is following the trend. Not only are these types of MC’s internal conflicts getting old, they’re also not particularly relatable or interesting.

We’ve been stuck reading about sad-sack, dorks with low self-esteem issues in the wider fantasy genre since its inception. So I’m not saying that I expect the characters to act like agent 007. I am saying though that just making an introverted character behave callously in their thoughts while physically acting like (and making the decisions of) a hero anyway, and then agonizing about it during and afterwards isn’t particularly compelling… on top of it being so common now that I think writer’s workshops should add it to their list of universal “Don’ts” in their orientation meetings.

great 👍

This is a great Apocalypse story. I have been waiting for a while for this book to come out and it didn't disappoint me. great job 👏