Book picks similar to
Grayhold by Troy Osgood
litrpg
fantasy
sci-fi
lit-rpg
Menacing Misfits
Robyn Wideman - 2019
When Jack Vance's grandfather is murdered, his dying words are to get Jack to promise to attend Darkthorn Academy. Jack doesn't like it, but he'll do what is necessary to honor the man who raised him. Surviving Darkthorn Academy won't be easy. Jack will have to make alliances, learn to harness magic and face dangerous enemies, both alive and dead. If he's lucky he might just make it to second year. A coming of age, sword and sorcery fantasy adventure with gamelit aspects, including a slightly overpowered MC, a dragon companion, and a team of adventurers. Inspired by games like Skyrim and Diablo 2 and Fallout.
The Crystal Sphere
Andrei Livadny - 2017
An office rat during daytime, he spends sleepless nights playing his favorite MMO game: a familiar, predictable world which is about to collapse. A new virtual universe arrives to replace it, aggressively devouring all others: the Crystal Sphere.Alex gets involved in testing new technologies which promise to revolutionize gaming. Fitted out with a neuroimplant which provides a 100% authenticity of experience, he has to survive in the Crystal Sphere against all odds. What is he turning into? Will he become yet another expendable test subject - or the first player to transcend reality?
You're Not Allowed to Die
Kip Terrington - 2017
In order to make his last weeks of life more palatable, he goes into full digital immersion. This new process will allow him to play in a virtual environment with a fake, but healthy and strong virtual body. As soon as he steps into this new environment he meets his virtual assistant, an Evolving Intelligence (E.I.), who takes the form of someone close to him and goes by the name, Spooky. After explaining how the game will function, she gives him his first items. Before Joe and Spooky can begin playing the game, they are both summoned to a reality where magic is real. Due to the coincidental timing of this event, Joe believes this is all just part of the digital immersion. He is unaware that the summoning has healed his real body, making him now truly young and powerful. As he still believes that he's dying, he lives every moment to the fullest, unaware that he is now a near immortal. What will happen to his assistant, the E.I., once placed in this new reality? Will they survive their new environment or will the myriad of dangers swallow them up?
Soulkeeper
Brian Simons - 2017
At all costs.Coral joined the immersive MMORPG Travail Online because her waitressing job, like so many other jobs, was automated by a growing robot workforce. She starts the role-playing video game as a Seamstress, hoping to craft useful clothing in-game to sell for real life cash. The game, however, has other ideas. What starts off as job replacement quickly launches an adventure of epic proportions through a virtual reality world filled with magic, intrigue, and betrayal.Daniel has played for longer, but the game changes him to a new class that doesn’t actually seem to exist. How can he maximize his skills when his class is completely uncharted? How can he avoid dying at the hands of a madman and losing all of his inventory and gold? Can he, Coral, and their friends stop the murderous NPC before Travail comes crashing down, taking the world economy with it?TRAVAIL ONLINE is a new LitRPG series that follows players and non-player characters through the virtual reality world of Travail Online — complete with elves, magic, and mobs galore. Welcome to Travail, where hard play makes fun work.
Critical Failures
Robert Bevan - 2012
The next minute, they're in a horse-drawn cart surrounded by soldiers pointing crossbows at them. Tim now has the voice and physique of a prepubescent girl. Dave finds that while he lost a foot or two in height, he somehow acquired a suit of armor and a badass beard. Julian's ears have grown ridiculously long and pointy. And Cooper... well Cooper has gotten himself a set of tusks, a pair of clawed hands, and a bad case of the shits. He also finds that he's carrying a bag with a human head in it - a head that he had chopped off when they were still just playing a game.Shit just got real, and if they want to survive, these four friends are going to have to tap into some baser instincts they didn't even know existed in their fast-food and pizza delivery world.It's fight, flight, or try to convince the people who are trying to kill them that they don't really exist.Meanwhile, a sadistic game master sits back in the real world eating their fried chicken.
Battlefield Reclaimer
David North - 2021
They require quests and accomplishments that simply don't exist in the world. Some say the World Law itself is broken and that the world is falling apart.In comes Sam Hastern.His family has been cursed by one of these classes for the last fifty years. No one has ever managed to level it, condemning them to the lowest paying jobs and life in a barren village.The class is called Battlefield Reclaimer.There's one more little problem.Sam's about to have it even worse, when a dungeon exploration leaves him looking distinctly non-human.---*In this work, you'll find leveling, crafting, experience-based progression, rare classes, evolving classes, and strange races.The world runs on mana crystals, beast cores, spirit veins, alchemical pills, and enchantments. The environment is hostile and filled with monsters and elemental storms.
Extracted
R.R. Haywood - 2017
But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.Safa Patel is an elite police officer, on duty when Downing Street comes under terrorist attack. As armed men storm through the breach, she dispatches them all.'Mad' Harry Madden is a legend of the Second World War. Not only did he complete an impossible mission—to plant charges on a heavily defended submarine base—but he also escaped with his life.Ben Ryder is just an insurance investigator. But as a young man he witnessed a gang assaulting a woman and her child. He went to their rescue, and killed all five.Can these three heroes, extracted from their timelines at the point of death, save the world?
More Than a Game
Andrey Vasilyev - 2014
Tasked with a new assignment, journalist Harriton is given explicit orders to write a series of articles on the Virtual Gaming World of Fayroll and its developers. Harriton grudgingly accepts the assignment but soon finds himself enthralled by the virtual fantasy world and its amazing quests, unpredictable challenges and nearly endless possibilities. As 'Hagen the Warrior', he skeptically enters the fantasy world where the thirst for success and vanity of high-level players in pursuit of legendary objects spills into the real world. Here, high-stakes bets are made on the success of the virtual characters. Events and decisions that Harriton makes in the virtual space as Hagen now start to affect his own reality. More Than a Game will exceed all expectations of fans of epic fantasy fiction and online gaming. His unpredictable character, perseverance and excitement draw the attention of powerful gamers and influential Moscow elite with a devouring interest in Fayroll's outcome. It is not long before he realizes that this fantastic world conceals many dangers. Will he be able to pass all the tests? Start reading now! ****** Andrey Vasilyev is a prominent and acclaimed author that writes intricately crafted, action-packed heroic fantasy and adult epic adventure. Moreover, he is one of the founding fathers of the relatively new, yet insanely popular, LitRPG and Gamelit genres that blends cyberpunk, classic sci-fi and fantasy. His debut novel More Than a Game was chosen the "Best Book of the Year" in 2014 in Russia, the birthplace of LitRPG!
Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard
Lawrence M. Schoen - 2015
A child who feels no pain and who should not exist sees the future. Between them are truths that will shake worlds.In a distant future, no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. These are the offspring of humanity's genius-animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings. The Fant are one such species: anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets.To break the Fant's control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. Jorl, a Fant Speaker with the dead, is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. In so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever. Meanwhile, his dead friend's son, a physically challenged young Fant named Pizlo, is driven by disturbing visions to take his first unsteady steps toward an uncertain future.
Awakening
Levi Werner - 2021
He can't even use the cutting-edge hardware that would allow him to play in the full-immersion-games that have become so popular. This all changes when he hears from New Universal Frontiers, the company with the best game out there: World of Magic.They offer him the ability to use their hardware despite his injuries, but at a cost... he can never leave the game.Once in the game world, Lox quickly realizes that there is a lot more to this new realm than just a game. Given a class that everyone thinks is useless due its inherent dangers, Lox begins a long and painful series of trials, some of them explosive, almost all of them dangerous as he masters his magical abilities.As Lox explores the depths of this world's magic system, he soon discovers there is a lot more going on here than anyone ever expected.
City of Golden Shadow
Tad Williams - 1996
Kids, including her brother Stephen, have logged into the net, and cannot escape. Clues point to a mysterious golden city called Otherland, but investigators all end up dead.
The Game
Terry Schott - 2012
The best players are celebrities, adored and worshiped by countless fans. Zack is a superstar among players.His final play may change the world, forever...
The Curse of Hurlig Ridge: 1st Dive
M.A. Carlson - 2018
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?
Shade's First Rule
A.F. Kay - 2019
His newly revived body can learn Spells and Abilities for the Class given him by the Goddess Uru, and dying is no longer permanent. Ruwen’s high intelligence makes becoming a Mage inevitable. With his new powers, he will locate his parents and clear their family name. But nothing goes as Ruwen imagined, and when a rival God tries to kill Ruwen shortly after his disastrous Ascension, his focus turns from his future to just surviving. His choices place him in the middle of an ancient war, and he must overcome the limitations of his unexpected Class to reach level five. Only then will he have the tools needed to survive. But dying now comes with a terrible penalty, and failing Uru might not only cost him his life and loved ones but his entire world. It turns out dying on your Ascension Day is the easy part. ***** Hey, LitRPG readers! I've created an FAQ for Shade's First Rule to answer some of the common questions and to help you decide if this book is for you. It can be found at: afkauthor.com/faq
The Wastes of Keldora
Alex Raizman - 2020
Rather than touching the Godcore directly, he let his smartphone absorb it. Now, he's got to figure out how to make the Godcore and his phone work together to help the people who summoned him survive their upcoming annihilation by the mad God of Chains.He's going to have to innovate his way out of his bad luck. Good thing Julian has a plan - he's going to build a factory in a medieval world.