The Curse of Hurlig Ridge: 1st Dive cover art

The Curse of Hurlig Ridge: 1st Dive

World Tree Online, Book 1

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The Curse of Hurlig Ridge: 1st Dive

By: M. A. Carlson
Narrated by: Anneliese Rennie
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About this listen

In the future, androids have taken over most jobs, leaving humans with little to do and even less to motivate them. Enter the World Tree Online, a fully immersive virtual reality experience.

Join Byron in his first 30 days of a non-stop fantasy adventure in the cursed province of Hurlig Ridge, a land filled with monsters, mysteries, murderers, and treasure. The people of the province have been tormented for centuries by a pack of voracious wolves. Now, with the arrival of the adventurers, dark forces have begun to stir, accelerating their dark plans. Can Byron unravel the mystery of this curse before it’s too late?

Adventure and excitement await anyone brave enough to join the World Tree. Will you be one of them?

©2018 MA Carlson (P)2018 Spectrum Audiobooks Classics Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Adventure Mystery LitRPG

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The Curse of Hurlig Ridge: World Tree Online Book One

M.A. Carlson- author

Anneliese Rennie- narrator

The world of fantasy fiction and LITRPG is one full of cliches and a single-minded determination to become the most powerful being in the cosmos. A being who stands seven feet tall. Who shoots fireballs from his eyes and lightning bolts from his arse! Funny enough, The Curse of Hurlig Ridge gives its readers this overpowering trope in a whole new light.

Studying as a warrior-priest 'secret class' our Hero Bye-Bye delivers justice to the wanton PKers and otherwise dastardly online entities in a swift fashion. This is thanks to his divinely-given traits passed on by an otherwise aloof albeit scrupulous diety. Brandishing his mighty spear and shield combo, our intrepid hero quickly becomes a skilled novice in the ways of combat and survival.

Along the way Bye-Bye is joined with a full cast of characters: from a berserk-raged tank and fairy healer sister team, a thief whose true ambitions lay in a direction geared more for entertainment, and the two most lovable pair of miners you will have the pleasure of being introduced to.

This cast of characters and impactful story is all told by the new, yet highly respected Annelise Rennie. An enormous amount of talent lays just beneath the surface of this story in our narrator. As like any other new narrator to a new series there are some stumbles in voice acting. Honestly, for having such a variety of characters to play I think Annelise has done a rather good job. The heartfelt emotions relayed by Ms. Rennie during some of the key moments to the story really brought the message home for me.

As someone who has spent countless hours and paychecks on this particular hobby, I for one can tell you this book is a diamond in the rough. An amazing tale told by two varied and equally talented voices. This one, is worth the credit.


*This review is completely unbiased and is given freely by the critic*

The Curse of Hurlig Ridge

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I enjoyed the story, had me chuckling at points.
The narrator drove me insane though. I found it hard to differentiate the characters, and the supposed British players accents were deplorable. Then there was the bard pretending to have a British accent and being told off by the others for the bad impersonation. Her accents were attricious, the worst British accents I've heard for a long while.
Will I listen to the second book. I want to but I may wait until I have time to read it! :(

Enjoyable storyline

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One downside to most litrpg games is that they immediately have to find some way to make the main character into the 'chosen one' and despite being a newbie in that game they end up being overpowered right from the start, that happens in this book too with the main character finding a little edge during character selection and almost immediately gaining a special class upon joining the game itself. However, the author makes this necessary evil work well in this case with the new class also having downsides and also being more about giving Byron (aka Bye-Bye ingame) an equal chance against other players rather than making him too overpowered in general.

Besides Bye-Bye, the main cast of player characters is an entertaining mix of classes, races and personalities, building quite naturally into a group able to take on more than just the basic quests Bye-Bye might be able to manage without them. The book also does a good job of giving the NPCs interesting personalities too and it will be a bit of a shame if the party doesn't find a reason to return to that starting area in later books.

The narrator does a very good job with this narration, her performance enhances the book and helps to bring these characters fully to life and a pleasant tone helps with the obligatory stats parts of this genre too.

Overall, a very enjoyable book and I was slightly disappointed that the next book isn't yet available on audible as I went to go and buy it after finishing this one.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

Great first book in the series

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I loved the exploration of the lore and the NPC's that felt both like people and video game characters at times. The narrator manages to give every character a unique voice that at points I forgot that every character was voiced by the same person. There is a growing cast of characters that are introduced gradually and naturally and I liked them all. Like all game lit it has a propblem with the stats at the start it has humourous titles but eventually the author just lists the more relevent stats. The exploration of the world was fun but slow to get going but that really only added to the book.
The only thing I was disappointed by was that there wasn't already a sequel.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

I wish every game came with a book like this.

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one of the best books in a long time.

it had a lot of meat with 20+ hours, and I didn't want it to end

hopefully the next one will be out soon!

great litrpg

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I usually enjoy slow starts as long as it picks up a bit half way. That never really happened.
The MC is a spineless idiot most of the time. He also has strange incoherent moral values. On top he lets any women bully him just like a desperate teenager hoping he'll get female attention that way. If he was my younger brother I'd have to sit him down to put some sense into him.

slow pace and a spineless MC

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Honestly, I found her voice infuriating. It just droned on using basically the same tone for every character. It’s a shame, I wanted to listen to it but I got maybe 15 minutes in before she gave a headache and I had to stop listening. As I said I only got a little way in so I can’t comment on the story.

The narrator have me a headache.

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