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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
New monsters, new powers, new traps and levels. Still not keen on Dale but Cal I dig more for his experimentation. I would play this book as an RPG.
This one focuses more on Dale, but benefits from less need to set up the magical system... thus more goodness overall.
Not without its flaws, but a lot of fun to read.
Vollun-told is my new favorite word.
Vollun-told is my new favorite word.
Really disliked this book.
Full of irrelevancies and inconsistencies. The main character dude does things at random with no sense of an overarching theme. For example, he has a city planning meeting and discusses sewers and taxes. It's all so random that I can't find it in myself to care.
Full of irrelevancies and inconsistencies. The main character dude does things at random with no sense of an overarching theme. For example, he has a city planning meeting and discusses sewers and taxes. It's all so random that I can't find it in myself to care.
A great follow-up to Dungeon Born! I personally LOVE Dakota Krout and find it hard to say anything bad about him or his writing. (Except for Bibliomancer, that book was utter garbage). I'm excited to get the next book in this series and find out what happens next for Dale and Cal
Both an improvement and sharp step down from the first book.
The continued progress of both protagonists is really satisfying; however, the character dynamics became more annoying (Cal is more of an asshole than ever, Hans’s innuendo’s suck, and Dale is a pretty inconsistent character). For me, Cal really crossed the line into an actively unsympathetic protagonist with his complete disregard for human life and complete inability to have an authentic relationship with anyone but Dani. Dale rapidly oscillates from naive adventurer to asshole landowner who is (ineffectually) laying down the law. I get he’s having a maturation arc, but its out of nowhere, he’s an ass, people’s responses are not realistic, and it often involves him telling off woman in a way that is really sexist. Additionally, the ending mishandled tone severely, with needlessly catastrophic events portrayed as deeply seriously and then blithely humorous back to back. Characters who are supposedly hundreds of years old and very capable make extremely stupid decisions and power levels are all over the place. Overall, a sequel that certainly did not build on the first’s strengths, although it was still enjoyable.
adventurous
medium-paced
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Better than the First!!
Disclaimer: In the interest of full disclosure: I personally know the author, and I received access to a temporary pre-release copy in exchange for editing services. A review was never discussed, but I enjoyed the book and feel it is deserving of a review. Please note, I did pay for permanent access to the final copy of the book. Also, my personal relationship with the author has had no impact on the following review, unless said impact was grading aspects a bit more harshly.
Quick Look: Dungeon Madness is the second book in the Divine Dungeon series and is a fantastic follow up to the first book. The concept is the same in that the main character is a dungeon, but the scenarios play out quite a bit differently than in the first book. Again, this book is a LitRPG novel with hints of the Wuxia genre, meaning that what the reader gets is a book that could be ripped straight out of a video game with some awesome fight descriptions.
Recommended For: Readers of the first book. Seriously, this book is difficult to read as a stand alone novel because it isn’t one. It takes place immediately after the events of the first book and ends in a way which just begs for a third. That being said, the first book and this one are relatively inexpensive and quite long, so if you’re interested, I’d recommend picking both of them up. That being said, I’d recommend this series to anyone who really likes video games, anyone who likes dungeon-crawler fantasy, and anyone who likes seeing something new. There are a few dungeon-style novels out there, but very few and the concept is still fresh.
--SPOILERS AHEAD--
Pros: This book improved upon almost every aspect of the previous book. The mechanics of the writing took a major upswing: writing quality is much better, the editing is better, and the consistency is better. This isn’t to say the previous book was seriously hurting in these regards, but there is a significant difference. I attribute these to the author and his team being a bit more experienced. After the mechanical issues, the pros start being even better. The magic system gets even more fleshed out while still staying simple enough where I didn’t get confused. The balance of the limitations on things like runes, enchantments, and inscriptions while being accessible to all with the limitless nature of mana while being accessible to a very select few was a brilliant touch. The creatures created in the dungeon show even more creativity on the part of the author, with the floating jellyfish being my favorite. The humor is taken up a notch, and I loved it. Also, while the ending is definitely a cliffhanger, the ending felt less rushed and more minor loose ends were tied up than in the last book. We certainly have a major loose end to deal with in the next book, but I feel like this was a much better ending arc than the first book.
The author also improved on a handful of the ‘mixed bag’ issues from the last book. Due to the increasing size of the dungeon and the amount of time the story takes place outside of said dungeon, the book doesn’t physically stagnate from being told in the same place. There is enough variance throughout the different floors and the surface (and the balance of time spent in each is improved) that there is never the feeling like the reader is trapped. On the topic of exposition or world building, as I call it, we see that the author has refined his ability to show us the world. He lowered the overall amount of exposition and built the world through characters’ actions. Even with less exposition, the world kept growing and expanding in my imagination while reading the book, which isn’t surprising as the author’s biggest strength is world building.
Mixed Bag: The author uses a bit more meta-humor in this book. He refers to himself once or twice in a humorous fashion. He also refers to a few of his fellow LitRPG authors’ books. Now, I loved this, and many people seem to love this style of humor. That being said, a few people may take some issue with it. It does disrupt the flow and immersion a little bit, as meta humor is intended to do, but I found that it wasn’t enough to get me to even pause, let alone completely stop reading for any length of time. The author also still does rely a bit on exposition through dialogue, but has definitely improved on reducing the amount of such dialogue, especially between Cal and Dani, and replaced it with character building dialogue. Also, we still see rapid character development, especially as we watch Cal begin to become more ‘dungeon’ and less ‘former human’, but again, it fits with the vast amount of power the characters gain due to the uniqueness of Cal. I don’t see a major problem with any of these mixed-bag aspects, but I decided to put them here because they are the most likely aspects to irk people, at least in my opinion.
Cons: I have the same con with this book as I did with the last one. The last page sucked. Not because of anything that was on the page, but just because there wasn’t another page after it.
Overall:
Concept - 10/10
Writing mechanics - 15/15
Consistency - 5/5
Grammar - 5/5
Dialogue - 5/5
LitRPG mechanics - 8/10
World building - 15/15
Monsters - 5/5
Environment - 5/5
Other - 5/5
Characters - 9/10
Narrative - 19/20
Twist - 5/5
Pacing - 5/5
Humor - 4/5
Other - 5/5
Total - 76/80 = 19/20 = 4.75/5
Disclaimer: In the interest of full disclosure: I personally know the author, and I received access to a temporary pre-release copy in exchange for editing services. A review was never discussed, but I enjoyed the book and feel it is deserving of a review. Please note, I did pay for permanent access to the final copy of the book. Also, my personal relationship with the author has had no impact on the following review, unless said impact was grading aspects a bit more harshly.
Quick Look: Dungeon Madness is the second book in the Divine Dungeon series and is a fantastic follow up to the first book. The concept is the same in that the main character is a dungeon, but the scenarios play out quite a bit differently than in the first book. Again, this book is a LitRPG novel with hints of the Wuxia genre, meaning that what the reader gets is a book that could be ripped straight out of a video game with some awesome fight descriptions.
Recommended For: Readers of the first book. Seriously, this book is difficult to read as a stand alone novel because it isn’t one. It takes place immediately after the events of the first book and ends in a way which just begs for a third. That being said, the first book and this one are relatively inexpensive and quite long, so if you’re interested, I’d recommend picking both of them up. That being said, I’d recommend this series to anyone who really likes video games, anyone who likes dungeon-crawler fantasy, and anyone who likes seeing something new. There are a few dungeon-style novels out there, but very few and the concept is still fresh.
--SPOILERS AHEAD--
Pros: This book improved upon almost every aspect of the previous book. The mechanics of the writing took a major upswing: writing quality is much better, the editing is better, and the consistency is better. This isn’t to say the previous book was seriously hurting in these regards, but there is a significant difference. I attribute these to the author and his team being a bit more experienced. After the mechanical issues, the pros start being even better. The magic system gets even more fleshed out while still staying simple enough where I didn’t get confused. The balance of the limitations on things like runes, enchantments, and inscriptions while being accessible to all with the limitless nature of mana while being accessible to a very select few was a brilliant touch. The creatures created in the dungeon show even more creativity on the part of the author, with the floating jellyfish being my favorite. The humor is taken up a notch, and I loved it. Also, while the ending is definitely a cliffhanger, the ending felt less rushed and more minor loose ends were tied up than in the last book. We certainly have a major loose end to deal with in the next book, but I feel like this was a much better ending arc than the first book.
The author also improved on a handful of the ‘mixed bag’ issues from the last book. Due to the increasing size of the dungeon and the amount of time the story takes place outside of said dungeon, the book doesn’t physically stagnate from being told in the same place. There is enough variance throughout the different floors and the surface (and the balance of time spent in each is improved) that there is never the feeling like the reader is trapped. On the topic of exposition or world building, as I call it, we see that the author has refined his ability to show us the world. He lowered the overall amount of exposition and built the world through characters’ actions. Even with less exposition, the world kept growing and expanding in my imagination while reading the book, which isn’t surprising as the author’s biggest strength is world building.
Mixed Bag: The author uses a bit more meta-humor in this book. He refers to himself once or twice in a humorous fashion. He also refers to a few of his fellow LitRPG authors’ books. Now, I loved this, and many people seem to love this style of humor. That being said, a few people may take some issue with it. It does disrupt the flow and immersion a little bit, as meta humor is intended to do, but I found that it wasn’t enough to get me to even pause, let alone completely stop reading for any length of time. The author also still does rely a bit on exposition through dialogue, but has definitely improved on reducing the amount of such dialogue, especially between Cal and Dani, and replaced it with character building dialogue. Also, we still see rapid character development, especially as we watch Cal begin to become more ‘dungeon’ and less ‘former human’, but again, it fits with the vast amount of power the characters gain due to the uniqueness of Cal. I don’t see a major problem with any of these mixed-bag aspects, but I decided to put them here because they are the most likely aspects to irk people, at least in my opinion.
Cons: I have the same con with this book as I did with the last one. The last page sucked. Not because of anything that was on the page, but just because there wasn’t another page after it.
Overall:
Concept - 10/10
Writing mechanics - 15/15
Consistency - 5/5
Grammar - 5/5
Dialogue - 5/5
LitRPG mechanics - 8/10
World building - 15/15
Monsters - 5/5
Environment - 5/5
Other - 5/5
Characters - 9/10
Narrative - 19/20
Twist - 5/5
Pacing - 5/5
Humor - 4/5
Other - 5/5
Total - 76/80 = 19/20 = 4.75/5
An amazing second installment. I loved how much Cal grew and the chaos that reigns around. It really developed the characters at the same time whilst they are growing even more into the people that they can be. Some of the monsters are just soo cute and yet deadly which is an amazing combination. I love the interaction between Cal and Danni it really makes the book pop. I could not put this down. Am really looking forward to the next set of calamities.