Quick Specs
What I Like
What I Don't
Book two, and the one that locked it in
I read book one and decided somewhere around chapter four that I was reading the whole series. Book two is where that decision stopped feeling like enthusiasm and started feeling correct. I loved it.
Book one has the job of selling you the premise, and it is a strange premise. Book two does not have to do that any more, so it gets on with it. The scope widens, the floor gets bigger, and the show around the dungeon — the sponsors, the audience, the production of it — comes further forward. That is the part of this series that has stuck with me most: it is a book about violence as entertainment, wearing a very silly hat.
Still audio, still Jeff Hays
Same narrator across the whole series, and by book two you have the voices in your head and you do not want to lose them. This is the point where switching to print would cost you something real, which is worth knowing if you are reading along with someone else in a different format.
I am on book three now.
Who should skip it
If book one did not land, this will not change your mind — it is more of the same thing, done better. And if the profanity or the brutality was the problem rather than the premise, that does not let up either.
Audiobook or print
Audio, same as book one. The paperbacks are nice to own and the audiobook is the experience. Both links are below.
After Action Report
The floor where the game stops pretending it is a comedy. Jeff Hays narrates the whole series, which is the argument for staying on audio.
MIKE MANNING
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