Survival Quest (The Way of the Shaman - Book #1) LitRPG series

Translations were a bit rough at times, and it was littered with minor spelling and grammatical errors, but it didn't take away from the overall originality of the story. I am waiting for the second book now.

First off, this review is conflicted. From one side of the coin, its a good story.

However, the price per book is MUCH too high for the length of the book. I read this in a little over an hour. It is MAYBE 150-200 pages, NOT 400 pages plus as indicated. If I were buying a paperback book of this sort, I would pay $6 dollars. But on a Kindle, this is not a reasonable price, in my opinion for the size of the story. At $3 - $4 each, I would probably continue on and see how the story develops. At $6? Sorry. No. There are too many other great stories out there to explore.

Again, while I think this would be a great story, the price / length issue really ruined it for me.

Good read.. finished in two days...want to read the next book..I thought the story was cool because it was in the role-playing style where when you level up you either get told what you have received or read it on the screen.

Remembering my youth playing D&D is what caught my attention. This book reminded me of why I don't play anymore. Too many stats. The hero in the story is to smart and always seems to be ahead of the curve. Just interesting enough to finish but not good enough to read the next one.

The world where the prison system is now a virtual reality game where if you are a criminal you get kicked around plenty of times. The story is slow paced with no gratifying ending to the book with little explanation to anything. For example, the main protagonist gets sent to prison because he hacked a system for a bet where he was told nothing illegal would happen. Mind you there were witnesses to this bet, and yet at his trial no one comes forward and from what I can tell his defense was useless. Fast forward to the game world and you realize it is slightly messed up in terms of a gamer point of view (If you die you lose all your skill points and almost all your money) there is no possible progression in this game unless you are a player killer. It was a serious task to complete this book due to the fact it was absolutely slow. 5 chapters were literally dedicated to the protagonist looking at his skills and spending day after day of grinding them. It was so boring that I skipped some chapters.

The book was recommended by a friend, so invoiced it up without investigating. The writing style is awkwardly first person. The first couple chapters are poorly edited and meandering. I didn't get farther than that.

The author is Russian. So this wonderful book is a translation of his creativity. The translation was a just a little weak for me in the prologue. It sounded like a Russian telling a story and a Russian (who knows English) translating his words. However, once the actual story begins - the translation is PERFECT. I mean it. In fact, I adore the person or team that is painstakingly translating this amazing Russian creation into an English creation. So the bulk of my gratitude goes to the author for creating a character we care about. But also my sincere thanks goes to the person or team who is re-writing this Russian story as an English story - NOT JUST TRANSLATING! If you like LitRPG into a story told in English.
A real person named Mahan is sentence to 8 years of imprisonment in the game world. His strategy...and possibly a guardian angel...lead to unforeseen adventures. Real creativity combined with real consequences kept me glued to my Kindle. I just love this genre. If you like/love this book - and if you're around 40-50 years old - you gotta ready Ready Player One!

This series is a well written story, revolving around a prisoner and focusing on how he interacts with the game and it's mechanics, as well as the people around him.

The story overall is very well done, it had me going from start to finish of all six books. I binge read them all over the course of a week, and greatly enjoyed every minute.

The writing is fairly well done too. The editing could use a little work (various mis-spellings and grammar mistakes, nothing major, and nothing that distracts from the story). The main writing issue I had throughout the series was at points it felt like it moved VERY quickly. I would get lost in my reading, and feel like I missed something, but upon going back and re-reading, simply found that it wasn't very well written out or described.

*****SPOILERS****** DO NOT READ BELOW BEFORE BOOK 6

The ending of the series felt VERY rushed. It wrapped up some stuff, while leaving others waaaay open. It was satisfying, but when you think more indepth on the book, it didn't close a lot of the circles that it started. It felt rushed. Very rushed.

The author did something very clever.

Everything around the book sounds like a great mix of sci-fi, tech, and fantasy. Seeing the title of the book referring to a "shaman", I have also read enough urban fantasy to not get my hopes up -- the vast majority of urban fantasies I've read leaves me cold. The authors writing it were not connected with themselves, seemed to be writing things to just make a buck. They don't understand magic, or spirit, or consciousness. Given that the book centered around an MMO, I figured the author will treat the shaman's class as just another game mechanic. But that's ok, it looks like great fun anyways.

And while the vast majority of the book involved just that, a protagonist that finds clever exploits to move him through the system, it's not what the book is grounded into. Even from the beginning, the main protagonist was being guided. And so the ending is awesome :-)

But there are also larger questions this story surfaces up. Within the first chapter, the author laid out some ideas on where our "real" society is headed to: we have seen advances in AIs which may well threaten the way we make a living as humans and immersive VR technologies capable of inducing existential crises. What's missing from this book is a pervasive sense of malaise many of us feel here, probably because the protagonist was able to level up quickly enough.

This story is a spiritual journey disguised as a sci-fi. That's what makes it awesome. That disconnection with spirit is something many of the modern day medicine men and women have discussed, something accelerated by technology. Yet somehow, this story weaves that in, as the protagonist discovers deeper aspects of himself.

One of my friends initiated in the ways of the Dagara likes to speak of the Keepers, the Breakers and the Menders. The Keepers are the ancients with a pre-modern view. The Breakers are most of us, with modernist and post-modernist views. We like to separate the Good, the Beautiful, and the True into little pieces until the wonder has been sucked dry. Then we search around, wading through our malaise and existential misery wondering how things can have gone so wrong. The Menders are those of us who, even now, seeking ways beyond the Breakers, beyond modernity, while honoring the ancient ways.

And you can see that in this story.

I'm looking forward to the next book in this series. I hope to see deepening of the story. Well, maybe it will turn into a spy thriller. Who knows?

Okay definitely LitRPG.

Our main character is an okay guy. Bit of a bragert, but good natured.

We're set in the near future. After a mistake causes a disruption and our main character is it cause. He finds he is sentenced to 8 years hard labor. This means he entered as a indentured servant in the mines with both his race, class, and profession chosen.

Even virtual prisons aren't nice, but he begins his rise up.

This for me is a great book. Somewhat formulaic, but still clever.

This series is a well written story, revolving around a prisoner and focusing on how he interacts with the game and it's mechanics, as well as the people around him.

The story overall is very well done, it had me going from start to finish of all six books. I binge read them all over the course of a week, and greatly enjoyed every minute.

The writing is fairly well done too. The editing could use a little work (various mis-spellings and grammar mistakes, nothing major, and nothing that distracts from the story). The main writing issue I had throughout the series was at points it felt like it moved VERY quickly. I would get lost in my reading, and feel like I missed something, but upon going back and re-reading, simply found that it wasn't very well written out or described.

*****SPOILERS****** DO NOT READ BELOW BEFORE BOOK 6

The ending of the series felt VERY rushed. It wrapped up some stuff, while leaving others waaaay open. It was satisfying, but when you think more indepth on the book, it didn't close a lot of the circles that it started. It felt rushed. Very rushed.

The author did something very clever.

Everything around the book sounds like a great mix of sci-fi, tech, and fantasy. Seeing the title of the book referring to a "shaman", I have also read enough urban fantasy to not get my hopes up -- the vast majority of urban fantasies I've read leaves me cold. The authors writing it were not connected with themselves, seemed to be writing things to just make a buck. They don't understand magic, or spirit, or consciousness. Given that the book centered around an MMO, I figured the author will treat the shaman's class as just another game mechanic. But that's ok, it looks like great fun anyways.

And while the vast majority of the book involved just that, a protagonist that finds clever exploits to move him through the system, it's not what the book is grounded into. Even from the beginning, the main protagonist was being guided. And so the ending is awesome :-)

But there are also larger questions this story surfaces up. Within the first chapter, the author laid out some ideas on where our "real" society is headed to: we have seen advances in AIs which may well threaten the way we make a living as humans and immersive VR technologies capable of inducing existential crises. What's missing from this book is a pervasive sense of malaise many of us feel here, probably because the protagonist was able to level up quickly enough.

This story is a spiritual journey disguised as a sci-fi. That's what makes it awesome. That disconnection with spirit is something many of the modern day medicine men and women have discussed, something accelerated by technology. Yet somehow, this story weaves that in, as the protagonist discovers deeper aspects of himself.

One of my friends initiated in the ways of the Dagara likes to speak of the Keepers, the Breakers and the Menders. The Keepers are the ancients with a pre-modern view. The Breakers are most of us, with modernist and post-modernist views. We like to separate the Good, the Beautiful, and the True into little pieces until the wonder has been sucked dry. Then we search around, wading through our malaise and existential misery wondering how things can have gone so wrong. The Menders are those of us who, even now, seeking ways beyond the Breakers, beyond modernity, while honoring the ancient ways.

And you can see that in this story.

I'm looking forward to the next book in this series. I hope to see deepening of the story. Well, maybe it will turn into a spy thriller. Who knows?

Okay definitely LitRPG.

Our main character is an okay guy. Bit of a bragert, but good natured.

We're set in the near future. After a mistake causes a disruption and our main character is it cause. He finds he is sentenced to 8 years hard labor. This means he entered as a indentured servant in the mines with both his race, class, and profession chosen.

Even virtual prisons aren't nice, but he begins his rise up.

This for me is a great book. Somewhat formulaic, but still clever.

As a former RPG gamer, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I think that those who have at least played a great game once will appreciate this interesting take on dystopian futures. I have read a few where virtual reality games are part of the future, but never in this specific way. It definitely made me want to go back and play.
Meanwhile, in the real world, I will absolutely continue this series and recommend it to friends.

After reading D. Rus's Alterworld, I absolutely had to find more LitRPG to read as I found I loved this genre. Unfortunately, I quickly found most LitRPG atm is pretty crappy with a few being good but nowhere near the same level as Alterworld is at. Maybe it's just because the majority of LitRPG seems to come from Korea and Russia while LitRPG for us here in the states is practically brand new. This is the second book in the LitRPG genre that I'm planning on always reading the sequel to. Truth be told, the format is almost identical to Alterworld. The plot is different, but... it wouldn't be too much of a stretch if I suddenly heard that the author was actually D. Rus and this is a spinoff in the same universe but with different characters. It's top notch and a brother to Alterworld.

Bottom line, if you liked Alterworld by D. Rus, I guarantee you'll like this series just as much.

This book was great. The beginning about how he became a prisoner was kinda boring but the explaination of how and why they imprison people in the game is interesting. They explain the breakdown of the penal colony how it functions, why the character got sent to that colony and what leveling up entails when your a convict. The rules are established early on and consistent no matter what. The character isn't OP and doesn't have random plot armor that lets him take over. Instead he makes friends and allies and begins to learn the true power of his character.

I really enjoyed this book. Similar to Play to Live. This one is about a prisoner who is put into VR with the lockouts disabled so that he experiences full pain.

We get to follow as the MC struggles to adapt to his new character and the harsh conditions in the prison VR mine. Skills are leveled up, innovative solutions are found and madness and mayhem soon ensue.

The Deposed King

This novel deserves all 5 stars just based on its story and it's ability to keep you hooked from start to finish. But it has some issues with its wording and a few scrambled sentences but that can be fixed with a edit or two.
I've read quite a few litrpg and this is a fresh and new perspective.
MC isn't your normal game fanatic who could tell you almost anything about the game, noire is a newbie still learning how to crawl. Instead he's somewhere around the middle who's been around the block a few times and knows what he needs to know.
Normally in litrpg's you have a MC who knows everything from past games and utilizes it in New one or a MC who's new and doesn't have a clue and wings it.
Instead this character discovers that the game he thought he knew was nothing compared to what it could be.

Really, Really enjoyed this one.

If you've read and enjoyed Play to Live by D. Rus you're sure to love this series. Mahanenko did a superb job with writing this book. the plot hooks you right away and I enjoyed the way the character turned what was supposed to be an extremely crippled/misunderstood character into a powerhouse that surprises both himself and those around him.

This is a excellent book but not everyone will like it (duh!). It will appeal to people who enjoy reading about the details and inner-workings of systems, in this case, a Matrix like game system. It has some "action" parts but it's not really about epic battles or tense sword fights.
Imagine a player in a Dungeons and Dragons version of the Matrix. The player has a "Google Glass" like HUD where they can see their status. They get quest, grind professions, everything this is done in a typical MMORPG. This book is basically that player's story. They write about when they level up, they describe the pro and cons of raising one attribute over another, they grind out experience points, they geek out over loot, they make trades with other players, etc. If that sounds interesting to you this book is must read.

Very good book. I like the premise behind story. Main character gets set up and sent to virtual prison. Instead of falling into a deep depression and rise up and break through the boundaries. He has a class frames the weakest by the public shoulder with a profession that is next useless, so he thought. I finish the book in one sitting and cannot wait for the next book.

I liked this series, not my favorite but definitely one of the better ones. I didn't really like the whole him talking to me kinda feel in the beginning, the breaking the 4th dimensions didn't feel right here. All in all I liked the world set up and the skill allocation. I fell it will be better when he actually gets into the real(virtual) world.

If you love spreadsheets, this book is for you. This is a crafting spreadsheet turned into a story (heavy on the spreadsheet, light on story). I was bored the entire way through. I can't believe I read about making a wire ring for like 90 pages. There was one thing about it that annoyed me above all else, however.

We're probably all MMORPG players here, hence the lure of this book. You remember that guy who made a lot of money crafting? You asked him his secret and his chest swelled with pride, his eyes went feverish, he whipped out 34 different non-disclosure agreements and make you sign them all, then leaned down dramatically and whispered in your ear that he was about to change your life. You listened with close attention as he whispered, "buy low, sell high" in your ear, like he was imparting the secrets of creation and the universe itself to you instead of advice every 6 year old with a lemonaid stand knows. Then as he leaned back, all smug and convinced he was the wisest person who ever lived, you disgustedly kicked his chair out from under him and left the room.

This book was written by that guy. It's an entire novel about how nobody ever thought of buying low and selling high before. In fact, the character routinely gets hailed as a genius by everyone else in the book for doing things any moron could have thought of. It's a hallmark of bad writing. You pretend everything your Mary Sue character does is genius by having everyone act like it's genius, rather than actually coming up with anything that's genius.

The premise is fresh, a virtual reality game world is also used as a virtual prison, and the prisoners are put to work grinding for resources. Enter our enterprising protagonist and watch him game the system. Fun, decent writing, plus an RL mystery aspect.

Way better written (or at least translated) than Alterworld. The fact that the author is thus far not blatantly racist and sexist is a bonus. Best of all, it's in Kindle Unlimited, so I don't hate myself for buying each installment. Sadly I don't think I'm going to continue it because only the first book is in Kindle Unlimited.

I just finished the fifth book in the series, and it honestly made me regret ever reading any of these books.

Up to this point I would have rated all of the books a 4 star or better.

But after the 5th book - no. Just no.

I've never been so angry at an author. So, if you want to feel like an idiot for liking any of these characters - keep reading.

There are better stories by better authors - don't invest your time or emotions into this series.

This novel was simply incredible. Read this book and the second one in a day each. Very rarely do I enjoy books to this extent. I have read other litRPGs as well, but this series and author are my favorite, by far. I hope that the next installments in the series are translated soon. There is so much that can be built into this story.

I truly enjoyed this book. I love how the protagonist went from self involved to seeing how his actions affect others, his growth was believable and understandable. I also like how the role playing stats were included. Fun. I'm really looking forward to buying the next book.

Delivers on the core promise of a Game based novel. It has actual, detailed and believable game elements wrapping a story that more than carries its own weight. In a sea of misses and almosts that a lot of the non publisher the store titles turn out to be, it is the rare gem that would have been published with a Darrel K. Sweet cover in the old paperback days. If you know fantasy books you know that is high praise. I was completely satisfied with this very good series starter and eagerly await the sequels. Don't hesitate to get this one.