Book picks similar to
The Crystal Sphere by Andrei Livadny
litrpg
fantasy
lit-rpg
audiobooks
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?
Party Hard
David Petrie - 2018
Now, instead of lying in bed dreaming about showing up late to class in their underwear, players step into a breathtaking world of fantasy and adventure. For most users, this is a dream come true. For players like MaxDamage24 and his sidekick Kirabell, it is about to become something else. After being fired, one of Noctem’s creators sets into motion a plan to bring the system crashing down. To stop the collapse, Max and Kira will have to gather their most trusted friends and embark on a quest that will push them to their absolute limits. Together they’ll face creepy dungeons, impossible bosses, and their own nightmares, all while doing their best to stay alive. With a mission this big, none of them will be the same after. The real question is… how much will they be forced to change? Only one thing is certain - if they want to survive, they’re gonna have to Party Hard.
World-Tree Online
E.A. Hooper - 2018
In 2056, the world’s most powerful AI System, ARKUS, comes online. Created to extend human lifespans, it quickly designs new kinds of nanomachine therapies, in addition to making world-changing discoveries in health science. It also develops an advanced VR headset that uses consumable nanomachines to allow users to experience time faster in virtual worlds. Two years later, ARKUS releases World-Tree Online. The game’s time-dilation makes it so that one hour of playtime feels like one month to those in-game, allowing humans to live extended, virtual lives that feel real. However, shortly after an old gamer named Vincent joins World-Tree Online, an update begins that stretches the time-dilation to one year for every five seconds. Players are unable to exit the game during the update—with an estimated wait time of three hundred sixty years. While trapped in the game, Vincent discovers an exploit in the physics that might take him higher up the World-Tree than he ever expected. Unfortunately, he crosses paths with the last moderator in the game, a young man named Lucas that uses his mod abilities to torture and subjugate other players. Lucas is willing to abuse his power to conquer the World-Tree, but Vincent’s exploit might just be the key to stopping him.
True Smithing
Jared Mandani - 2020
Unfortunately, after one accident too many that leaves the old blacksmith completely disabled, it would seem he has no other choice but to hang up his hammer.However, that would be underestimating the stubbornness of the self-made man. Fearing he’s not going to stop until he ends up dead in his forge, Angus’ children offer him a virtual rig that connects to Imperium Games’ many universes.After choosing a fantasy-based world called Alterwelt, Angus—now known as Hephaestus—quickly learns that he can make use of his lifetime of experience by disabling the Auto function and playing on Manual. His skills allow him to create unique items that beat everything sold on the market. But Hephaestus has a long way to go before he can afford his own in-game forge. Moreover, he only ever learned to work with steel while here he has access to metals as strange and exotic as azuraneum, veridium, orichalcum…Still, that might be the least of his problems. After he’s made a few sales and starts to get some recognition, Hephaestus realizes that there’s a reason the market is oversaturated with crappy items. As it turns out, a greedy guild enforces a monopoly on the crafting and they’re ready to do anything to keep anyone—lest of all a lone blacksmith—from digging into their profits…
Bunker Core
Andrew Seiple - 2018
It's hard to say. Now he's a bunker core, a nanomachine controller responsible for an entire complex. Of course, the place is a bit wrecked. And the world outside is ruins. And he's pretty sure that whoever put him here is going to come looking for him at some point. And then there's the raiders... Dungeon Core, Post-apocalyptic style. Come for the mutants, stay for the dystopian adventure!
Game Start
Justin Miller - 2016
The age of Virtual Reality came long ago, opening up new fields for people to enjoy and seek employment. There were even those that chose to sacrifice their physical bodies, becoming digital existences that lived within internet communities. But with the age of VR, everyone still dreamed of that next step, the next level of adventure. And after a hundred years, it has finally arrived. The first consoles, known as Seeds, mass distributed among the people, with such realism that they no longer qualified as a Virtual Reality, but as an Artificial Reality. But what happens when things become too real?
He Who Fights with Monsters
Shirtaloon - 2021
At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil.He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.After cementing itself as one of the best-rated serial novels on Royal Road with an astonishing 13 million views, He Who Fights with Monsters is now available on Kindle.About the series: Experience an isekai culture clash as a laid-back Australian finds himself in a very serious world. See him gain suspiciously evil powers through a unique progression system combining cultivation and traditional LitRPG elements. Enjoy a weak-to-strong story with a main character who earns his power without overshadowing everyone around him, with plenty of loot, adventurers, gods and magic. Rich characters and world-building offer humor, political intrigue and slice-of-life elements alongside lots of monster fighting and adventure.
Dungeon Lord
Hugo Huesca - 2017
...and Edward has chosen to make them regret it. When Edward is swept into the world of Ivalis as a Dungeon Lord, the Dark's most powerful servant, he has no servitude in mind. He'll oppose the evil plans of the Dark god Murmur, whatever it takes. Through only his wits and his guts to help him survive a weakened arrival, Edward must rise to power if he is to earn the right to live another day. But in the battle between Dark and Light, what can Edward choose if both sides are cruel, uncaring monsters? Cold gods laugh in the distant world of Ivalis. Heroes chase after power and experience, while Kings send their armies to their deaths in the name of the Dark and the Light. But no one expects the rise of the Dungeon Lord... And in the world of Ivalis, maybe a single man can forge his own path.
Grayhold
Troy Osgood - 2019
Forced back to level 1. What's next, permadeath?
Sky Realms Online is the largest and most popular Virtual Reality MMORPG ever made. Set amongst the mystical, floating islands of Hankarth, it's played and enjoyed by millions every hour. Until something goes wrong. Unable to log out, players find themselves reduced to level one, and in the starting zones. They receive a cryptic message from the developers stating that for unknown reasons, they are trapped in the game and may have to live out their lives within the virtual world. Hall is one of the those trapped in the game. He’s been playing Sky Realms Online as a spear-wielding Skirmisher ever since the beta. And instead of panicking as many do, he decides to make the most of it; to play the game and live his new life, all while quietly hoping the developers will find a fix. It doesn’t take Hall long to find out that, while some aspects of the game are the same, the difficulty level is beyond anything he's ever experienced. Together, with a new party of trapped players and NPCs with canned answers, Hall will find out just how different Sky Realms Online has become, and how playing a game is different from living the game... Experience the start of this unforgettable Fantasy LitRPG Adventure today! It's perfect for fans of J.A. Hunter, Dakota Krout and Edward Brody. Also available on Audible, performed by Pavi Proczko, narrator of Eden's Gate and Continue Online.
Mythian
John L. Monk - 2019
Immortality means adventure. Life begins at seventy.Running on the world's fastest quantum computer is a very special game: one where retirees leave their flesh-and-blood lives in search of endless adventure. Weapons, spells, gold, experience points… These are the marks by which life is now measured.Ethan Crane wants none of it. In fact, he never wanted to retire at all, let alone play a game for all eternity. But now he's on a mission to find his wife—a wife he just discovered is still alive and inside the game.Nothing will stop him from reaching her. Not even himself.
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.
Blood of Fate
Dan Sugralinov - 2019
This is the ninety ninth world for this traveler who has spent an entire life in each of his previous worlds. And now he is out of lives, his previous misdeeds leaving him with a negative balance of points and preventing him from reincarnating anew. Once he realizes that he must spend his final life in a poverty-stricken family in a backward world, he awakens the consciousness of the deceased Luca and ends his own physical existence, leaving all his abilities to his heir.One such ability is the use of the Wheel. Every traveler can spend points to spin the Wheel and gain a special talent, a superpower, or... a deadly illness. Luca spins the Wheel and gains the superpower of metamorphosis. Now he can regenerate, recover from deadly wounds and even take on the shape of other beings. The young man takes on the form of the Emperor: to avoid death, help his family and, finally, to bring order to the Empire!
Sufficiently Advanced Magic
Andrew Rowe - 2017
Those who survive the spire’s trials return home with an attunement: a mark granting the bearer magical powers. According to legend, those few who reach the top of the tower will be granted a boon by the spire’s goddess. He never returned. Now, it’s Corin’s turn. He’s headed to the top floor, on a mission to meet the goddess. If he can survive the trials, Corin will earn an attunement, but that won’t be sufficient to survive the dangers on the upper levels. For that, he’s going to need training, allies, and a lot of ingenuity. The journey won’t be easy, but Corin won’t stop until he gets his brother back.
The Dragon's Path
Daniel Abraham - 2011
He knows too well that even the smallest war still means somebody's death. When his men are impressed into a doomed army, staying out of a battle he wants no part of requires some unorthodox steps.Cithrin is an orphan, ward of a banking house. Her job is to smuggle a nation's wealth across a war zone, hiding the gold from both sides. She knows the secret life of commerce like a second language, but the strategies of trade will not defend her from swords.Geder, sole scion of a noble house, has more interest in philosophy than in swordplay. A poor excuse for a soldier, he is a pawn in these games. No one can predict what he will become.Falling pebbles can start a landslide. A spat between the Free Cities and the Severed Throne is spiraling out of control. A new player rises from the depths of history, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon's Path-the path to war.
Unsouled
Will Wight - 2016
Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must defy his family's rules...and forge his own Path.