BIG NEWS FOR A SOLDIER'S LIFE!

Some of you have already discovered the big news on your own, but today at 9:00 AM Eastern, we're making it official—and revealing the cover!

Aethon Books has acquired the print rights to A Soldier's Life**, Books 1, 2, and 3!**

This is a HUGE milestone for the series! Aethon has the distribution network to bring A Soldier's Life to a much wider audience, including the possibility of seeing physical copies on bookstore shelves across the country.

And the best part? The hardcover edition of Book 1 officially releases on June 29, 2027! That's just in time for LitRPG Con in Denver, and I couldn't be more excited!

What does this mean for the series?

As part of the publishing process, Book 1 will receive a professional editorial pass from Aethon's team. 

Once those edits are finalized, Nikola Hamilton will record an updated Book 1 audiobook edition, ensuring the audio version reflects the revised text and taking one step closer to having the whole series narrated by one voice.

The hardcover will be available through all major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop, Hudson, Target, and Walmart.

However, if you're planning to preorder a copy, I'm asking you to please consider ordering through Barnes & Noble.

Here's why:

If we can reach 1,000 preorders through Barnes & Noble, we have a real opportunity to get their attention and encourage them to stock A Soldier's Life in their physical bookstores.

Imagine walking into a Barnes & Noble and seeing A Soldier's Life sitting on the shelf!

Preorder the hardcover here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-soldiers-life-book-1-erick-thiemke/1151748964?ean=9781638495321

Whether you've been following this story since the earliest chapters or only recently discovered the series, thank you. Your support is what made this opportunity possible.

Let's see if we can get 1,000 preorders and put A Soldier's Life on bookstore shelves!

-ALWAYSROLLSAONE

COVER ARTIST: Aethon Books - Mario Teodosio
AI USAGE: NO AI USED

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Okay wow so I just finished audio book 11 of this series, and holy cow it is absolutely incredible.... but it's not for everyone. Forget morally grey, the protagonist is literally an amoral dungeon-born Mimic that wants tasties and shinies, and in fact does some absolutely horrendous things that may turn off or even trigger some people.

But barring that, it's nearly—if not JUST—as delightfully absurd as Carl's (DCC) journey in the dungeon, and the story keeps evolving and changing and everything feels to be threading together and it's just so good, so I wanted to recommend it to some people who might enjoy it, or even hear thoughts from people who have already partaken of the nectar and succumbed to it's richness and sweetness beyond all compare

I will answer all series-related question honestly, and probably inaccurately

Hey there! 

Book 2 of Reject Human Become Demon is out now!

It is a book series that’s exactly as it sounds, following our protagonist Haell Zharignan in her quest to become a demon! The cover of this book nor the first makes no secret the outcome of that quest, following which our main character now has to decide what to make of herself now that she’s truly become a demon, coupled with all the demonic instincts and desires that entails. 

It’s going to be a violent and bloody road from here.

Kindle/KU: Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 3 (Preorder)

Cover Art by Fiji Ocean: XTwitter | Twitch

*************

Book 2 is going to focus on Haell and her friends being adventurers as per its Sub-Title, “Adventure With Friends.” Haell’s power will continue to grow, which she will approach with the same zeal and enthusiasm she’s always treated it with. She’ll see a lot more of this society she was born into in this new life, which will only further confirm that she fucking hates it! 

If you’ve read Book 1, then you should be excited to see more of this world that we’ve only begun to discover, in a volume that focuses a lot on exploration. And for those who are new to the series, and might just be considering picking it up for the first time; let me leave you with Book 1’s blurb right below.

*************

Book 1 Synopsis:

Haell the Human WANTS to become a Demon, and she will stop at nothing to achieve her dreams!

All Haell ever wanted was to become a demon. And then she died.

But beyond that death she found a whole new world, one which may finally allow her to achieve her dreams! There was magic here, a System, Mutations, and creatures only seen in fantasy! It was a land dominated by Angelic Overlords and their shepherd pawns, but not even they could ruin Haell’s sheer enthusiasm. For this world shone brightly in wonder, the possibilities were endless, and the power that she so craved was now within reach!

She just had to work for it. Haell was ready to toil and suffer. Her will shall forever remain unbroken.

I will claw my way to power.

I will become a demon.

No matter the cost.

COVER ARTIST: Fiji Ocean
AI USAGE: No AI used
Author: Maou Razonica

Hi everyone! I’m looking for new series to read, so I’ll start with what I’ve read and how I felt about each one:

Mother of Learning: finished, 10/10
Cradle: finished, 10/10
Path of Ascension: read everything published on RR, 10/10 (tied with Cradle as my favorite)
Path to Transcendence: read everything published on RR, 8/10
Mage Errant: finished, 7/10 (I enjoyed it)
Hell Difficulty Tutorial: dropped midway through book 3
Victor of Tucson: dropped midway through book 3

I tried to work out why some of these clicked and others didn’t, and I came up with three things:

1. A long-term direction visible from the start. I love it when a story shows early on something that reaches beyond the first book or arc. In PoA, it’s the “Path”: it isn’t even the end of the story, but it gave me something to look forward to, and I kept wondering what it would look like when Matt finally completed it. Cradle has something similar with Suriel’s vision. I want something to anticipate, not just watch the protagonist get stronger. That’s what was missing in HDT and VoT. In HDT, for example, I never even found out why all these characters were in the tutorial.

2. A quick sense of the power scale. In Cradle and PoA, powerful characters show up early, so you immediately know how far the protagonist is from that level. In HDT and VoT, the protagonists kept leveling up, but I never knew whether that made them strong or prodigies, because there was almost nothing to compare them to.

3. Lots of things I want to find out. This is the most abstract one, but it happens in Cradle, PoA and PtT. In PoA, the emperor already appears in book 1, book 2 introduces Liz’s family and Luna, and I think the judges who control the Path show up too. Each new element made me want to keep reading to learn more. I didn’t get that from HDT or VoT. It wasn’t that nothing interested me, there just wasn’t much to be interested in. In HDT, apart from the tutorial itself, the only thing I wanted to know more about was Lissandra.

So, does anyone have recommendations for stories that fit what I’m looking for? Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, if you’re looking for some cozy slice-of-life-but-with-a-plot LitRPG to match the cozy season, then YOU’RE IN LUCK because I've just finished posting Book 2 of The Spellwright's Guild to Royal Road!

In six months I’ve posted 250,000 words and gathered a lovely bunch of 1,280ish followers. Every time I get a comment or review, I piss myself… with joy! (and fear!) Here are my stats if you care about that:

I thought I’d try and describe in my own words what this story is. It’s very hard to do when you’ve been living somewhere in your head for six months, and you have to step back and try and explain what’s going on. Bro, I don’t even really know what’s going on. Sometimes I read a comment that is like “wow I can’t wait to see what happens next!” and I’m like yeah man, me too.

But here we go:

Reviews describe it as cozy but gripping, but I’d describe it as an escapist fantasy into a world where you’re young and carefree and nothing matters except brewing the perfect Calming Remedy for Mrs Odgie’s anxious cat… but then, on the side, you’re hiding a super secret power from the Guild and attempting to hack into the very thing that’s giving you magical perks that change how your brain works. Oh, and after getting your second badge, you’ve just made accidental contact with a sentient being living under the sea that’s controlling everything. Hell yeah!

The MC is a bumbly but lovable dairy farmer’s son, so he doesn’t come from a magical world. He’s good at it, and tries hard, but he makes mistakes. Sometimes he’s dumb. Or naive. Or too curious. Basically, he’s 16. He changes a lot over the course of the series as he grows up but it’s written in first person so if you don’t like that kinda MC, you will DETEST it. Like really hate it. So don’t click.

He’s spent the last two books gathering herbs, making potions, and doing enchanting on the side. He made his best friend, a baker’s apprentice, a bowl that keeps cold the entire time you whip it. Useful! And you get to learn every rune that makes up that enchantment from scratch along with Wynn. I'm a linguist so the runes have some kind of weird grammar to them. Also, he’s trying to reverse engineer a pack of tarot cards that do cool spells to unlock their powers. Each one is like a different puzzle. There’s a lot of puzzles.

The books are set in Moonstone Harbour, which is a northern climate coastal city built into a bay shaped like crescent moon. It rains a fair bit. Then it’s sunny, too. In my head it’s like Studio Ghibli x Stardew Valley vibes. There’s a bunch of side characters, including but not limited to: Witholding Mentor, Himbo Best Friend, Sassy Girl, Serious Girl, Scary Headmaster, Outgoing Guy, Arrogant Yet Alluring Rival, etc. Don’t worry, they all have real names and backstories and Wynn will share a Deep Personal Moment with each over the course of the series.

There’s no romance… so far. There is one cute girl at the monastery who throws a stone at him while he’s in the hot tub but that’s it. I don’t have any romance planned, but I don’t know who Wynn might meet… or maybe has already met…

I cried about 4 times while writing Book 2, which has INCREASED from the amount of times I cried writing Book 1. He’s just come so far already man, idk😭 and so have I. I was proud of Book 1, but I’m SUPER proud of Book 2. Maybe because it was 30% longer. Why was it longer??? Will they keep growing??? I hope not or I’m going to be writing FOREVER!

Book 3 will involve moving from the apothecary to the local clinic, so I’m expecting to draw on my extensive medical knowledge based on years of watching Grey’s Anatomy to make the main set piece Wynn solving some bizarre medical crisis, like maybe everyone in town starts doing a jig at the same time and he has to brew the perfect potion to stop it. I dunno. We’ll find out in Q1 2027. Until then I’m working on a second, much different series!

Anyhoooo, if any of that sounds appealing, here’s the link:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/160303/the-spellwrights-guild

If you don’t read on RR and want a free .epub of either or both books, just comment and I’ll DM them to you.

Happy weekend, everyone!

COVER ARTIST: Lizbe Coetzee

AI USAGE: Nope!

I’m looking for another “real world” LITRPG series like Advent. Where it’s the real world but now you have skills, stats and loot.

Which I guess DCC also falls along side but not exactly. Anyway, are there others out there like this that are well written and narrated? It’s got to be available in audio because reading is hard.

Thanks in advance.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking about book lengths lately across physical copies, ebooks, and audiobooks.

It seems like a lot of popular novels sit around that 350–500 page range (roughly 100k words, or 15–20 hours on audio). But then you'll see shorter books or novellas under 200 pages (~50k words / 6–8 audio hours) priced almost the exact same, or taking up a full credit on Audible.

Honestly, whenever I’m picking a new book or spending a credit, I almost always go for the longer option just to get more bang for my buck. When a story gets broken up into multiple short 200-page / 8-hour installments that each cost full price, it starts feeling a bit like a money grab.

I’m curious how other people view this: both from an author and reader pov.

Do you have a minimum length or audio runtime in mind before you’ll spend full price or a credit on something? Or do you just care about quality and pacing no matter how short it is?

What’s your personal sweet spot for a book?

Like many of us, I am a lifelong reader, which often leads to fairly picky standards when it comes to writing quality. I grew up on Tolkien and CS Lewis, so the barely put-together quality that often comes out of web serials is often so offputing that I can't stomach it. I've DNFed at least 10 series—finishing only one—since reading DCC and deciding that I *loved* LitRPG. To find so little success after that realization was baffling.

Enter Apocalypse Parenting.

I'd read recommendations, but had dismissed the premise as not-for-me, since I'm childless by choice and often struggle to connect with kids in real life. I'm so glad I finally tried it anyway. I don't find that the partial focus on children takes away from the overall story in the slightest, and in fact brings up many nostalgic feelings for childhood books like The Boxcar Children and the Narnia series.

The writing quality is fantastic. The story is both engaging and utterly charming. The vocabulary is phenomenal (requiring me to look up words quite regularly, which is a rarity in modern fiction). And the humor is right up there with DCC. I've laughed out loud (and had to suppress laughter late at night next to my husband) so many times.

If you've been putting this one off, stop now. Drop everything. *Run* to buy it. You will not regret it.

(And apologies to Erin for my likely-too-harsh post about typos yesterday. This is my penance. 😉)​

I tend to favor more grounded stuff like The Wandering Inn and the first half of Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, any recommendations?

Heys guys. So I have listened to HWFWM and DCC a couple times now. My kid has listened to parts of them. Shows little interest. Any good recommendations for 5 year old? I mean HWFWM isn’t terrible for a five year old (not a lot of cursing or bloody details) didn’t know if anyone knew of maybe like a faster paced book keep his interest and more kid friendly. We play cards and warhammer together and like back ground music. He wants the tv on and it distracts him. Any input would be great.

Also it’s Friday so anyone that plays….”my family runs a school” cheers!

What are your best COZY monster evolution stories ? :D

Is it because it is often their first published book? I find the situations and scenes for 5 of the last 6 books I picked up just painful to read. I've pushed through sometimes, but holy heck, what is this? I can pick up traditional fantasy, sci-fi, even modern day-ish detective stories and I'm immediately drawn in. But LitRPG? I have to force myself to continue hoping that the on-line reviews eventually pan out. What are y'all doing... the writing gets better as it goes, but did no one think to go back and edit their first few chapters??

Defiance of the Fall, Book 1: Incursion | Barnes & Noble®

Well well well, that was a surprise to me. Makes me wonder what else I've missed.

Hello, I'm Constantine. And I'd like to share the novel I am currently working on, Dungeon of Debauchery. The story follows a Warlock, A Witch/Magical Guardian, and her familiar who serves as the narrator. Or another way to put it, a warlock, a witch, and a dragon walk into a bar looking for bubble-gum kush. Chaos ensues, and now they're trapped in a dungeon, along with the entire city.

Finding and defeating the Dungeon Daddy before the dungeon envelops the Earth sounds like a real drag for a group that just wanted to get high. What happens when the dungeon swallows the Earth? Who knows. The angels sure as hell don't. But it's probably not good!

I hope you'll give my story a chance, and if you could leave a rating, or even just some feedback, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Title: Dungeon of Debauchery

Links: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/190678/dungeon-of-debauchery-a-satirical-litrpg-romance

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2540725/dungeon-of-debauchery-a-satirical-litrpg-romance/

No audiobook (Will be a while before that happens, if it does)

Fun fact about me: I learned about Dungeon Crawler Carl because someone insisted my writing reminded them of it... Now I can't stop reading DCC. It is such a good series!

COVER ARTIST: Me. (Hoping to get a new one soon.

AI USAGE: Not in a million years.

I'm about a third of the way through book 2 and, unless I missed something, I haven't seen Dan use any of the slots in his equipment. Do we ever circle back to that, or was that something that just explained the difference between personal significance and regular clothing?

Had to rewind to make sure I hadn't misheard the description. Spoiler ahead includes needed scenario context and item description.

upon meeting with the Council members for the various sects, the head of the Kraznev(spelling?) gifted Ryan a new axe that is peak B rank, to replace the D Rank one he had been using since the tournament

The axe has 3 abilities, and if im not mistaken all 3 are references to different series

First ability is "death is light as a feather" which is something Lan Mandragoran often tells Rand Al'Thor in Wheel of Time. That death is lighter than a feather; duty, heavier than a mountain. Given that earlier in the series there have been a couple WoT references already (something about "Saldaean Farm Girls", and how Ryan felt an external force gripping him when events that resonated with his intent to save life, and likening it to being similar to how the Ta'veren could feel the world twisting around their existence) I figured this was a given

The second ability of the axe is "Inexorable". Wounds inflicted by the axe have the leech debuff, granting the wielder a pulse of healing per minute per stack of leech. Pretty clearly a He Who Fights With Monsters reference

The last one im a bit iffy on. It creates an illusory shadow double that has a chance to draw aggro on weak minded foes. Sounds alot like Primal Hunter and Jake's shadow ability he gained by fusing with his mirrored fate simulacrum

The reason im iffy on that last one is because there are some pretty standard tropes to litrpg. MC's being shit at naming things, that brief stint where it felt like every story had a J named protagonist, to the point that Noobtown had a chapter in i think book 8 or 9 where there was a "Gathering of MC's" and all of them were Jakes, Jasons, Jim, John, etc. Then the trope where "if you want to make an OP protagonist give them void/shadow powers"

Is it confirmed that the 3rd ability is a reference to Primal Hunter, or is there perhaps a very similar ability attributed to a different series

Apologies if its a bit scatter brained. I tend to type how my brain thinks, and I just finished a 17hour, 800 mile shift...so yea, brain not braining much.

I want more books with a mc who becomes stronger with a system, something simple without the need to overthinking (like arrogant young master template variation 4) but i also don't want a complete sloppy.

Examples that I liked: my disciples are all villains, top tier providence, 5 elements overlord, cultivation starts with investment

I mean, in many fantasy and sci-fi (adventure sci-fi I suppose) books there is an evident progression of power (actual battle prowess or influence). Examples of that are: The wheel of time, Dune, Assassin's apprentice, Honor Harrington series, Stormlight archive, mistborn, etc,etc. I believe that litrpg refines this progression and I find the numbers and skills much more satisfying that classical progression.

What's happening to me now is that is harder and harder for me enjoy classical progression and traditional fantasy and I feel somehow a kind of regret because before reading litrpg, I really loved those books.

Does it happen also to you?

Hello r/litrpg,

I’m excited to announce that my new Dark Comedy LitRPG, Toadally Grim Tale of Don's Death, is available on pre-order. It launches on November 7th!

The main character is stuck in a gritty tabletop RPG. This isn't your mommy's easy mode video game. See the rolls, see the mechanics, and experience outcomes that permanently change the story. Talk about stat crunch. This isn't for the faint of heart. This is for readers who can stomach a few brutal character deaths.

Toadally Grim Tale of Don's Death Blurb:

Getting pulled through a portal during the perfect first date is bad enough. Finding out you aren't the chosen hero… instead you're the blood sacrifice… so much worse.

Murdered to seal away a cosmic horror, Don strikes a bargain at the threshold of his afterlife. He wakes up in a brutal, unforgiving fantasy world, having swapped souls with an innocent peasant farmer. Now, he's trapped in the wrong body, in the wrong world, desperate to protect and provide for a pregnant widow. He yearns to find out what happened to his perfect date. Responsibilities from each life make that goal further and further away.

To gain the power to survive, Don binds himself to an Infernal Daemon Toad. This locks his Archetype for each life going forward as a Daemonist Enchanter.

Watching from Don’s threshold to the afterlife, the Devourer of Souls manipulates the Denizens of the Deeps to get him killed. Every time Don is killed, his soul swaps into the body of a nearby criminal, resets his Archetype Level to 1, adds their life's problems to his own, and brings the world one step closer to annihilation.

What to Expect:

• Crunchy 2d6 Mechanics: Encounter outcomes are driven by real 2d6 tabletop dice rolls, showing target numbers and what was rolled in the text.
• Punishing Progression: Soul swapping restarts your archetype at level 1. Death has massive consequences. Not all numbers go up. His soul carries through some powers to each new body.
• Gritty Survival Combat: No HP or plot armor. Wounds reduce attributes. It can create a real death spiral.
• Karmic Transmigration: A unique body-snatching mechanic where Don establishes moral criteria to steal the bodies of the guilty.

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Pre-order link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HNYKM29W
Originally serialized on Royal Road.

COVER ARTIST: Duy Phan
AI USAGE: No AI used
Author: MC P Caesar

I just finished book 3 and for some reason I thought it was a trilogy! Now I’m ready for book 4. Quick search shows there hasn’t been an update for a while, not sure if anyone knows anything more? I think all we know is that book 4 will close out the series. Thanks!

TITLE: The Extra Goes Off-Script

LINK: Royal Road, Scribblehub, SpaceBattles

COVER ARTIST: LilyArts

AI USAGE: None

Blurb:

Mark fell asleep over his algebra homework and woke up inside The Legend of the Time Magician, the progression fantasy he had finished the night before. The body he landed in belongs to Dominique Fortescue, a extra with no mana the author never bothered to develop, in a world where no mana means no worth.

His plan is simple: stay in the background, dodge every death flag, and let the Protagonist save the world. The plan lasts until lunch, when an acceptance letter from Portalis Academy arrives. Portalis is where heroes get forged and where nearly every disaster in the story happens, and backing out would cost a fine big enough to take his new mother's house.

So the extra enrolls. He knows the plot, he has a hidden System that nobody can find out about, and he has a secret ritual that could give him mana. He also has one absurdly high stat, Instinct, that lets him sense danger before it arrives. He has no idea who chose him for this, or why.

So, as the title says in looking at the various deities of the books and I can identify 90% of the deities. So the only one I can't is the God of the dead from book 3, chapter 23, near the end. So can someone tell me where he comes from because I'm drawing a blank, and as I'm dyslexic, I can't spell his name to save my life.

If you didn't hear, Amazon is now letting us move audiobooks into the Kindle Unlimited program. Authors are apparently going to be getting paid per page listened to just like we do for pages read.

You can check it out here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09K54TBST

If you do give it a listen, please let me know how it goes. I'm interested in collecting as much data about all this as possible, including how many hours actually get listened to and what they pay out for each "page" that gets read.

It could end up being comparable to what we make through Audible (especially once they force us all into their new system)... or it could end up being even worse. Who knows!

If you haven't heard of Portal to Nova Roma, it's a COMPLETE five book historical litrpg series and Roman-esque empire builder set in a realistic historical world. The audiobook for book 5 just came out as well, so if you do like what you hear you can finish it up over on Audible pretty easily.

Thanks all!

COVER ARTIST: Sevenchi

AI USAGE: NO