This is this week’s Soundbooth Spotlight, and man was it fun. Practically 22 hours of goblin goodness to gnaw on. Orin, the MC who is trapped in the game world, is a goblin Dread Totem who is running a goblinish village. The book plays out a lot like the original world of Warcraft orcs vs humans game. He creates new peons who do jobs assigned to them, builds and upgrades vital facilities for the advancement of the tribe, and fights off invaders with his limited militia. I enjoy this aspect more than anything. Granted, I like watching Orin level up and get new powers, but I really love to hear how he adds a new building or upgrades one. Like I say, Tamer by MSE has my attention because the characters are building a fort. The book really deals with a ton of things happening to Orin and his village after the events of the first book. It seems that no matter what Orin does nothing is going to prepare him for the trials to come.
Orin is in deep trouble as his ex-guild members are looking for him, and he has limited time to prepare for their arrival. To top it off new monster players have begun showing up, and it seems that one of them is a traitor. Somebody is going around ganking hapless goblin workers, and stealing vital potion supplies. The urgency of the need to expand, gain experience, and leveling his troops is palpable. To top it off, Orin now struggles to retain his identity as a player. He is sinking more and more into his role as the Dread Totem and losing bits of himself in the process. One of my favorite bits that got added this time around is the mandibled brain eating seneschal that made me envision a hobgobliny Predator. He was a fun character, and Kuznits uses him quite effectively to demonstrate the importance and dangers of reputation in a very slick way.
Another impressive thing is the way that SBT handled this book. Last go around, Jeff Hays did the whole thing himself, now he’s added some of the Sound Booth ladies into the mix, but quite wisely keeps himself on the voices that he did the last time. Annie and Laurie both bring their A game and the sisters of Soundbooth supercharge the story with their sublime storytelling. Jeff is the man, handling more characters than a juggling guillotine operator during the French revolution, I just don’t know how he does it but he has impeccable pacing and knows how to wrap a chapter or add life into a battle scene. He definitely infuses a sense of urgency into everything that Orin does, and lets his smugness play out oh so very well that you cringe when Orin says something so snide that you know whatever it is is going to come back and bite him on the rump. One thing that sort of surprised me was that Jeff didn’t figure out a way to sound fx to the shadow magic. I would have loved to have heard a light wind to a full breeze blowing when Orin used his shadow powers, but that is really just my own personal desires, SBT really nailed the book down and provided some top notch high quality narration.
My final score on this book is 8.3 stars. I like that Kuznits doesn’t spit out shorter books, and that he knows the proper thing to do is to put his MC through the wringer as often as possible. The narration is on a nuclear level, and the overall story is a fun fast paced ride of leveling, struggling to become stronger, and preparing for a point when PC’s will invade the village. This is slick and smooth, and will sucker you in for more hours than you realize. Get this book and enjoy it.
Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. Getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.
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