• Beginnings

  • Adventures on Terra, Book 1
  • By: R.A. Mejia
  • Narrated by: Jill Smith
  • Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,504 ratings)

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Beginnings  By  cover art

Beginnings

By: R.A. Mejia
Narrated by: Jill Smith
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Publisher's summary

Armon Ellington is 19 year old kid that always felt out of place. He's an orphan, a gamer, and a role playing game geek. When he dies after a 72 hour gaming marathon, instead of going to an afterlife he's transported to a new world governed by rules that are eerily similar to the RPG games he loves. On this new world, Terra, he can be anything he wants, a warrior, mage, or even a crafter. Only, Armon wants more than that, he also wants friends and family.

Join Armon on his journey through this amazing new world where he'll go on adventures, explore dungeons, slay monsters and hopefully find the friends and family he never had on Earth.

©2016 Ramon Mejia (P)2017 Ramon Mejia

What listeners say about Beginnings

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not bad, not good. It's ok.

Story is ok. Some original ideas, others not so much.

Was not a fan of the narrator or the voices she did.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Honestly? It was rough, but I kinda liked it.

The premise is amazing. When I was younger and devoted wayyyy too much time to WoW, I used to imagine the backstory of my characters especially when they first spawn and see daylight for the first time in their lives. BUT this book delves deeper than that. This goes into the xp farming and mind numbing routines of low level characters in mmorpgs. I wanted this book to push on and catch up to the exciting fun stuff, and at times it seemed like it was ready to do just that, but then it regresses back into the mundane every day bull that would make me have to take a break from the game. However, I AM looking forward to the second book in the series as I made it through this one. The narrator grows on you and you start getting invested in the characters. Even though I grew frustrated at times, I still stuck with the story and am wanting more.

I won't be picking up a printed version as I feel this story is best taken in through your ear holes, but if there was a graphic novel, I'd snatch it up.

Give it a try

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Disappointing character development and narration

So, I actually went ahead and purchased all three of the existing books in the series.

Let's start with the positive. The fairy companion and her interaction with the MC are probably the highlight of the series. Somehow the fairy companion lived on earth and is familiar with Earth's pop culture and periodically brings in pop culture references that help stave off some of the more stale segments of the book.

And the negative (very minor spoilers). While all the characters "grow" in terms of stats and abilities, there is very little character development. The MC, who by the way comes to Terra because he died of a heart attack due to playing games for 3 days straight, is 19 years old and has very little personality. He also doesn't really have any interesting powers or abilities. The author gives him all kinds of different powers and abilities but the MC seems to float from one to another without doing anything that stands out very much. In fact he seems kind of clueless when it comes to developing his skills. Now maybe the author is just trying to avoid making him too powerful too quickly, but after 3 books I'm starting to struggle to stay interested. I really wish I cared about the characters more but they all seem so generic. Everybody likes the MC but it's hard to understand why given his lack of personality.

He ends up dating a "butch" girl who also doesn't seem to change or develop much over the three book story arc. Sure she has kind of a sad back story but she's not much different in book 3 than she was when we first met her in book 1. Even worse she's significantly more powerful than the MC, but anytime there's a really important battle she kind of stands in the wings for some weird reason.

Finally there's the narrator. While she tries hard and does have a number of different voices that help differentiate the different characters I think it's probably not a great idea to have a female narrator when your main character is a male.

Anyways, if you love LITRPG you might like this but so far I've been fairly disappointed.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Very juvenile and predictable

This seems like a story someone wrote in high school. The comedy is forced and awkward. The characters are 1 dimensional and the only good people are non humans. All humans are racist and the story ends with humans killing babies. This damaged my brain.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

well..

feel like siri is reading me a book the narator just sounds robotic and drones on :/

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good litrpg

So I heard about this book from the Author's podcast (Litrpg) and I was, shall we say, trepidatious partly because I didn't want to be disappointed by an author I had some sort of connection to (even if tenuously) and by the fact that to my knowledge this is his first book. So it went on my "to read" list and kept on getting pushed back until I found out there would be an audible release which I decided to wait for. The good news it's an actually fun book. I'll be picking up the rest with enthusiasm. It doesn't quite hit the upper echelon of this genre but it's far from just meh and definitely worth my credit.

Starting off there are a few derivative plot points such as the "seed of chaos" idea but there are some other ideas that take things into different directions than some of the books with a similar plot point has. Such as the reincarnation aspect and the adopted family helping him catch up to where he should be at his age. The main character isn't, at least as of right now, overly powerful. Nor is he all that obviously different from those around him beyond some of his attitudes towards the non human races and his point of view about certain social mores. The main thing that gives him a bonus early on is a fairy companion and later his adopted families but again, he started far behind what a native in this world would at his age.

There's also hints at a lot of crafting progression though by the end of the book he's still at the beginning levels there. The narrator did a fantastic job and the only reason I gave a four out of five stars is because I can think of some stand out performances that I've liked even more. If I could have given 4.5 stars I would have. This is a solid start for a series and it managed to pull a few chuckles out of me which is always a big plus. Perhaps later I'll look back and think it's worth 5 stars it really depends on just where the later books take us. I'm looking forward to more Mr Mejia.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

I don't understand how this got published....

This book appears to have been written by a student in middle school after they got an A in their first creative writing class. The only explanation is that publishers are tripping over themselves to jump on the LitRPG wave and are gobbling up anything that claims to be in that genre. If I had any real F's to give, I'd do a word search on 'said'. I'm sure the number is in the thousands. This person said this, then this person said that, then this person said... OMG. And that's only to start, the descriptions are basic and actions are simple. Be prepared for hours of... "a long hallway was in front of him. It ended with a path to the right and a path to the left. He decided to go left." And... "after a hard day, the sat down to a delicious meal and went to bed." If Mejia was aiming for a simplified, poorly written 1980's choose your own adventure story with all the interesting parts removed, NAILED IT!

P.S. I really need to stop choosing my books based on the cover art. This is the second horrible pick in a row.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good Start!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Probably not, not because this book isn't good but because I don't know anyone else who enjoys litRPG books.

Who was your favorite character and why?

MC I don't know I just seem to like the MC most in all books that I read.

Which scene was your favorite?

I don't do spoilers.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Wouldn't make this book a film, I just like audio books and reading much more.

Any additional comments?

I have read a lot of litRPG books lately and I felt that this book was a ray of sunlight in the muddled mess of dumb crap. instead of making a harem story about a sex deprived teenaged boy it seems to focus more on the story! Sure the author needs to work on his writing a bit but this book is definitely a good start to a series that I will be following. If you like the sub-genre of litRPG definitely pick up this title.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

good story

loved the story loved reading it. however the female narrator reading a male mc for so long made it hard to stay connected to the story. I have the same problem with s male narrator reading a female mc for long periods. if a male or female narrator does a different sex voice for short periods im ok with that and it does not create a disconnect. its just if its the entire book in a different genders voice I can't connect to the story

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book

Enjoyed it very much. All the characters in the group were fun to listen too. Will be looking for book two ... I hope very soon... Red hands has some stomping to do. As with the best of books I want book 2,3,4 to come out .. how about few weeks? That is enough time right ? :)

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3 people found this helpful