• Survival Quest

  • Way of the Shaman Series # 1
  • By: Vasily Mahanenko
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
  • Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (5,541 ratings)

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Survival Quest

By: Vasily Mahanenko
Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
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Publisher's summary

Barliona: a virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles - and, predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can't get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: You can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard, or a legendary thief. The only rule that attempted to regulate the game demanded that no player be allowed to feel actual pain. But there's an exception to every rule. For a certain bunch of players, Barliona has become their personal hell. They are criminals sent to Barliona to serve their time. They aren't in it for the dragons' gold or the abundant loot. All they want is to survive the virtual inferno. They face the ultimate survival quest.

©2015 V. Mahanenko. English translation copyright 2015 by Natalia Nikitin (P)2016 Tantor

Featured Article: Level up with 25+ awesome litRPGs


LitRPG means Literary Role Playing Game. Simply put, it’s the book version of watching someone play a video game, usually one that’s set up like an MMO (massively multiplayer online) RPG. It’s a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, depending on how it comes to be that our main character ends up living inside a virtual reality. the point of LitRPG is not how we get there, but that we get to be in this virtual reality period, living life as a badass video-game character. Beat the grind and submerse yourself in these addictive LitRPGs.

What listeners say about Survival Quest

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

A Guilty pleasure

I've been on a Litrpg binge lately, Read all of the Play to Live series, Awaken Online, Otherlife, The Land, and now This series.

I have to say it's probably my least favorite of them, not to say it is bad at all I actually really enjoy the premise of it, however I find many of the mechanics of the world hard to believe in. (I know how that sounds) I also think it's a bit simple minded overall and rarely walks it's own path.

I think this book targets the younger of the litrpg fans to be sure.


But if your like me and completely addicted to this Genre of book give it a listen, it's worth a credit and the voice performance from the reader is really well done.

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41 people found this helpful

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

IT'S EASIER TO BARTER WITH A WALL THAN A DWARF

Instruction Manual
I am one of those guys who only reads the directions, when something goes wrong in the putting together. Based on the 4.6 rating of this at this time, there are a lot of people who like reading instruction manuals.

Lots of Telling
The first hour of this book is a lecture on the building of this world. The rest of the book is like AMAZON CUSTOMER FROM SOUTHERN CA. says nothing but a bunch of stats. I loved PLAYER ONE which was exciting, had a plot with twists and did not bog you down with plus ten points for stamina or here is how you level up. I play F.O E. on line and it is lots of fun, but I don't think you want to hear how I level up a Lighthouse from Alexandria.

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33 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • K
  • 06-18-16

Excellent with just one regret...

Loved this book. Anyone who's played RPG will enjoy and relate to this story. While listening to Survival Quest I mentioned it to my son and bought the Kindle version for him. He devoured it. He started reading it at 10PM and finished the book at 5AM in one reading.

My only regret is that there are currently only two books in the series and the second one will go by way too fast. I thoroughly enjoy reading more installments in this story line.

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Narrator, Great book

So this book takes place in the fictional future with a very futuristic video game. The world outside of the game, the real world is not very important. So the majority of the book take place in a MMO VR game, and some of things that are different from the typical fantasy is that the adventure takes place in an MMO and these imitations are embraced. So if you are not much of a gamer this book might not be for you.,

The narrator elevates the story, and its very easy to picture what is going on, and you get the extra context of tone and such from the voice of the narrator. The narrator does an amazing job.

I really enjoyed listening to this novel, so would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Fantasy and Gaming (not necessarily videogames). This series looks to be a champion of the genre of LitRPG.

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19 people found this helpful

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

Liked it alright, but I'm a forgiving guy

If you are a big fan of the mechanics of MMORPGs you will probably like this book. The specifics are well described with lots of "level up" messages and how that effects the character. Basically, if you played WoW or its analogues and loved chasing stats and reading level up messages, you will also love this book. If you do not, or get bored easily with this stuff, you probably aren't even considering this book enough to read this review. Go with that feeling.

The story and characters are ok. It reads a lot like the early levels of a role playing game. So the characters are a bit contrived and not entirely human, but in the situation, it works ok. The reader does a pretty good job of making the individuals distinct. He's not world class, definitely does journeyman work.

All in all, a novel (or genre) like this is self-selecting. Like RPGs? Try it. If you are unfamiliar with them, or have no interest in them, you will be constantly asking yourself, "what am I reading?"

If you came from a similar genre novel like "Ready Player One," don't be fooled, this book is not that. That book could be read by general audiences. This is more for gamers.

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12 people found this helpful

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

Non Stop Stats and no story

If you don't play video games this book will not make any sense to you. I don't rate this negatively for that at all. I made it half way through the book, only because, as a gamer, it started off seeming to be fairly interesting. It didn't take long to realize that the majority of the book is nothing more than reading off stats. When this started it wasn't too bad but the farther I get into the book the worse it gets with the stats. It is exactly like reading your combat log in game. Hours of reading a combat log, but with almost no actual combat, just the stats gained from crafting. I wish this was an over exaggeration but it is not.

The other portion of the book takes the most boring parts of crafting and a tiny amount of questing and tries to make a story out of it. Speaking of stories...half way through the book and the closest thing to a story line is the main character increasing stats and rep to make it to a new zone. Mostly though, the book is nothing more than reading off stats.

The narrator reads this as though he is reading to young children. A kid who was really excited about all things games and just starting to read might find this book fun.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great for fans of RPO

if you are someone who enjoys the game here and there or if you are a hard core gamer, you will love this book. One of mytop 5 books is Ready Player One and this is on the same lines.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

just don't. author destroyed MC in later books

you will hate the MC, the author and your life after book 5. it's not just me. just read other reviews.

so just dont

book 1 is fantastic. 2 is good. 3 is OK. 4 is bad. 5 completely and utterly ruins the hero's life, spits on all he's accomplished takes everything away and has him betrayed by everybody.

it's such a crushing gut punch that I want to spare you the $ and the pain.

then the author does 2 more books because $$$. book 6 you get a few paragraphs of retconning what happened somehow and book 7 is just nonsense retreading and meandering for no reason.

it becomes clear that the author got tired of litrpg during book 3. and he turns the actually clever and resourceful hero into a gullible fool and loser from book 4 onwards.

it almost feels like the author wanted to punish people who liked book 1-3.


read Dan Sugralinov's Disgardium series. it gets better with each book and starts great. 6 books and the last one is my favorite so far.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Love the series 2nd time through

I really like this series. This is what got me to be a lit rpg fan. I was really torn on what to give this book between a 3 and a 4 but the dungeon part was a bit boring. I don’t play wow or games like that so some of the details were just blah. Overall I recommend the series though.

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8 people found this helpful

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

After finishing all six books...

Having now finished all six books, a good 70-80 hours worth of listening, I'm coming back here to review the first one as a warning to new readers. While I enjoyed each of the books, and the story once completed both makes sense and is clever enough, it isn't 80 hours worth of clever or good. While it might not seem obvious at first, all six books are connected. The story doesn't make complete sense until the final 30 minutes of book six, and that is a problem, because the story as a whole is not an 80 hour story. It is not one of those "it's not the destination, it's the journey itself" sort of situations; rather, the destination invalidates the journey in so many ways.

In short, I'm glad I'm done, enjoyed the series at each step, but sincerely wish I had never started it. That might not make sense, but please don't spend the 80 hours required to make it make sense.

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