Book picks similar to
Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm, Crimson Alliance, The Jade Lord by James A. Hunter
fantasy
litrpg
q-sourced
progression-fantasy
Challenge
Edward Castle - 2016
Calling himself Jack Thorn, he chooses an undead race, Deathlord.A mage by choice, and a swordsman by necessity, he soon finds out that he’ll need to use much more than magic and steel to survive; strategy, creativity, and carefully chosen words can often accomplish what simple attacks can’t.As the game becomes too real and touches a part of him that he’d rather leave buried, he is faced with two questions:Who is he, really?And who should he become?
Rebirth Online
Michael James Ploof - 2018
Unable to afford the state of the art surgery needed to repair his spinal cord, Sam has lost all hope. But when the first fully immersive virtual reality game goes live, Sam is given a second chance at life. Rebirth Online offers players action, adventure, and a chance at real world riches. If Sam can rise through the ranks and claim his kingdom, he just might be able to earn enough money to afford the surgery he so badly needs. Sam enters Rebirth Online excited to begin his adventure, but within fifteen minutes of spawning in the game, he is robbed, beaten, and left for dead. He wakes to find himself in the care of Anna, a beautiful elf healer. Together they discover that he has an unbelievable special ability, one that allows him to instantly level. To use it, he must grind - literally - with the girls in his guild. The only problem - A twelve hour cool down. As Sam’s guild grows, he and Anna are joined by a beautiful human warrior, a feisty drow assassin, and a flighty female Furry. But when a run-in with a high level player named Kincaid ends with Anna’s kidnapping, Sam and his girls must pull all the punches to get their guild mate back. In the process, they uncover a secret with the potential to bring the entire game crashing down. ***Content Warning*** Rebirth Online is a litRPG Harem fantasy adventure with adult themes. Not intended for children.
Opening Moves
Cosimo Yap - 2016
The alien invasion brought social upheaval, advanced technology, and an armada of peacekeeping robots. But Alan, a college student pursuing a now-useless degree, cares little about all of this. He has only one thing on his mind: the Game. A fully immersive virtual reality, the Game appears to be a major part of the invading civilization. Alan can't wait to play, recklessly diving into the digital universe. Soon though, Alan realizes the Game is anything but simple, and the stakes are higher than he ever imagined.
Beginner Quest
Nephilim Night - 2021
Pitied by one of the Gods, he was given the chance to participate in the next round of bets between the gods. It was an eternally violent game known as Towers and Rifts.The world he found himself in was nothing like the one he’d spent centuries cultivating and becoming stronger. He was right back at the bottom along with everyone else but for the knowledge he retained.The day the tower spawned, everyone was given access to a strange and game-like system he only knew about from memories of the body he inherited. The first order of the day: to heal from the horrible wounds that came along with the new body and to tackle the ‘Beginner’s Quest’ everyone was given.Viktor was at the top before he died the first time so he knew what it was like to be powerful, in control, and a warrior without an equal. Nothing would stop him from getting to the top using this second chance he'd been given.Experience the start of an epic LitRPG Cultivation Fantasy Series perfect for fans of authors like Tao Wong, C.M. Carney, and M.H. Johnson. Towers & Rifts is filled with cultivation, measurable power progression, crunchy stats, loot, immortal gods, intriguing characters, and everything lovers of all progression fantasy, GameLit/LitRPG, xianxia, and xuanhuan expect.
Rule of Cool: A LitRPG Novel
Matthew Siege - 2021
It means that she’s a Non-Participating Citizen, someone who can’t see her stats or make opposed rolls against Heroes. It’s why her life’s worth less than the vendor trash she doles out.The old-timers swear it didn’t used to be like this—that their issues only began once RNGesus went AFK a thousand years ago, leaving the questionably-blessed Heroes to conquer everything without consequence. Fortunately, Raze is not about to let something as trivial as a millennium of injustice cramp her style. She’s got a crush on a frustratingly optimistic dreamer, and when he talks her into using the Konami Code as a map to scale the conveniently located and suitably forbidden fortress, everything changes when they reach the top.[UP UP, DOWN DOWN, LEFT RIGHT, LEFT RIGHT. B. A. START]What follows is Raze and her mismatched crew doing their damndest to burn the new ‘old’ ways down to the ground, squaring off against thousands of noob Heroes in epic, crunchy, badass, mechanized carnage!Rule of Cool is a screaming love letter to LitRPG and the possibilities the genre embraces. Hilarious, action-packed, and filled with unforgettable characters, it's perfect for fans of Ryan Rimmel, Dakota Krout, and Shemer Kuznits.
Shattered Lands
Darren Pillsbury - 2017
Welcome to the Shattered Lands, the first truly immersive video game where you see, hear, touch, taste, and feel the game. In this online fantasy world of dragons, elves, wizards, and magic, two best friends enter at the same time and take very different paths. Daniel desperately wants to break free of his ‘nice-guy’ life in the real world… until his choices end in tragedy. Eric wants unlimited power by any means necessary. Assassin or summoner of demons, it makes no different. Join them on their quest – both inside the game and out – as they navigate the violence, the triumphs, the treachery, and the danger… Of the Shattered Lands. Shattered Lands is the first book in a LitRPG series.
Class-A Threat
Dan Sugralinov - 2019
Noncitizens and individuals of low social standing can only find work in one place – the virtual world of Disgardium. And that might mean mining ore; it could just as well mean cleaning pigsties or washing dishes in a tavern, but that’s about as glamorous as it gets.Fifteen-year-old schoolboy Alex has dreams of working as a space guide. All he can think about is the stars, but life gets in the way and now his only path to achieving that goal is through the game.
Cat's Game
Roman Prokofiev - 2019
This discovery sets off a special event and starts a deadly intercontinental war, all arranged by long-gone developers. Now, Oleg, the man behind Cat, has to collect all the unique weapons left in the game by its creators before the tragic accident claimed their lives and to complete the new challenge that nobody on the new developer team has any idea about, all the while being accused of cheating and hunted by the most dangerous guild in the game world, led by a dark goddess and one of the top PvP players. Once, he was a professional player earning real money in another game. He fell from his pedestal into a debt pit: his account got blocked, his savings got burnt, his friends left him behind, and dangerous people appeared at his doorstep, wanting their money back. To get back on his feet, he decided to enter a new game and find a new source of income. *** Cat’s Game is a highly-rated LitRPG series by Roman Prokofiev. The protagonist is one of a kind: more of a trickster than a classic adventuring hero—even if he has to become the one to finish what the original developers of the game started. The setting is the future, around 2070. The Earth has changed: climate, coastlines, even countries. The Sphere is a game ruled by supercomputers…but not everything inside it is controlled by AI, and Cat, whose only interest is earning money to survive in real life, becomes embroiled in the long-gestating plan that will change the face of the entire in-game world.
Battle Spire
Michael R. Miller - 2019
Now he's fighting for his life. When a mysterious hacker takes control of Hundred Kingdoms, Jack is trapped inside the fantasy VR world along with millions of other players. But Jack is in a worse predicament. He's cornered in the very tower the terrorists have taken as their base; the only free player left within its walls. Even worse, in the real world, his body lies in a sweltering room with no hope of relief. Playing the profession-based Scavenger class, and at a low level, Jack's prospects of fighting his way out are next to impossible. Crafting gear, traps and weapons, allying with a deadly dungeon master and an AI he can't fully trust, Jack is in a race against time to save not just himself but the millions of players held hostage. Battle Spire is a meeting of World of Warcraft and Die Hard, using crunchy LitRPG mechanics with a heavy focus on crafting. Readers can expect to find in depth item and spell descriptions, along with stat tables and profession recipes. Note: strong language is used throughout.
Pangea Online: Death and Axes: A LitRPG Novel
S.L. Rowland - 2021
Pangea Online is no different. Esil has spent the past year toiling in the mines of Pangea while the more wealthy traverse its myriad of gameworlds. His luck changes forever when he stumbles upon a legendary Developer's Chest, containing an invaluable Worldpass, which grants him unlimited travel to all gameworlds. Now, Esil isn’t just stuck watching as others explore Pangea. He can finally level up. But his in-game actions have real world consequences and failure online threatens everything he holds dear.
Oblivion's Blade
M.H. Johnson - 2018
Barely able to walk and drugged to the gills for pain, he thought his killing days were finally behind him. He couldn't have been more wrong. Endless Online, a hyper futuristic game where players could truly live another life. Val loved the idea of starting over in virtual reality. But when someone he cares about turns up missing after chasing that same dream, Val quickly learns that Endless is no simple game. And if Val can't figure out the dark secrets behind this realm of wizards, warriors, and intergalactic conquest, then it's game over. For everyone.
The Curse
Phoenix Grey - 2018
Will refused to admit to the HR lady at Radical Interactive that he’d never played their debut virtual reality MMORPG The Realm. From what he’d seen in videos and heard from reviewers, the game sucked. With the company’s failed attempt at entering the gaming industry, they switched their sights to focus on smaller scale educational programs. Being a beta tester for Radical Interactive was not the dream job that Will had envisioned, but he had hoped it would get his foot in the door to one day becoming a graphic designer for the company. As he filled out his new hire paperwork, he never realized that he was literally signing his life away. Now a phenomenally successful company, Radical Interactive was secretly working on something behind closed doors that would change both the medical and gaming industries forever. The Realm was reborn. The only problem was that it wasn’t a game—at least not to those trapped inside. Dumped into a fantasy world filled with nightmarish monsters, awe-inspiring magic, and way more walking than Will thought he was physically capable of as a nerdy desk jockey, he has to navigate the perils of The Realm and unravel the mystery of how he came to be here and how to get out. Fantasy meets real-life consequences in a game that could mean the difference between life and death. But first, Will must get over being a noob…
Reboot
Domino Finn - 2017
On the bright side, his game development career is the only non-crappy thing he has going for him, so life isn't all bad. At least until he dies. Now Tad finds himself uploaded to a beta test of Haven, an unannounced hyper-immersive MMO where the dead have a second chance at life. It's not virtual reality, it's digital reality. A true afterlife online. Except Haven isn't exactly blissful paradise. Tad bumbles into a pagan blood feud, crosses paths with fallen angels, and gets lied to by saints. His only allies? A frat boy with a penchant for dying and a pixie who won't give him the time of day. Second chances be damned. All Tad wants is to return to his old life, and he'll do anything for the opportunity. Even make a deal with the devil.
Dragonsbane
Jun Prince - 2018
By day, she creates monsters for the world, by night she's raiding dungeons. Most importantly, it's her one connection to her dead brother whose buffs still linger within the game. When his virtual shrine is threatened by an update Justine reforges his guild to complete the Dragonsbane quest in his honor. As an experienced tank, she's no stranger to the bandit attacks, PvP combat, and dragons Freehaven will throw at her. Little does she know, a hacker organization known as Archangel tampers with the update, leaving thousands of players, including Justine, stranded in full immersion virtual reality. As if that weren't strange enough, NPCs are getting smarter, and some marooned players don't want to escape. They're ready to jump at the chance for virtual immortality. Justine must temper the fervent emotions stirring in her guild and unite them to complete the quest. If she doesn't, friends will break from sanity, and others will die in real life.
Dominion of Blades
Matt Dinniman - 2017
Any gamer with an immersion rig can enter the world of sword and sorcery, of goblins and dragons, and they can hack and slash their way to glory. But the game is too real for some, and after an epidemic of real-life fatalities, public use of the immersion technology has been banned, causing the game to be shut down. Jonah wakes to find himself in-game, level one, with no memory of how he arrived and no way to eject. With only two companions, trapped in a world that once hosted millions, Jonah must battle his way across a treacherous landscape, fighting virtual monsters, all-too-real pain, and a very human enemy in a desperate bid to survive.