Category: Dungeon Born

Chapter 1 (cont.)

The ratio between words in the book I’m reading to words in the commentary I’m writing should favor the former as much as possible. If I’m writing lots of commentary, it’s usually because something has gone wrong and I’ve noticed. When things go right, I sink into the story and it can be several pages before I notice that my readers need an update on what’s going on or my readthrough will get hopelessly confused. So it’s a bad sign that I had to go for a mid-chapter break like this because I hit my wordcount in the middle of chapter 1, far from a chapter break.

As my puddle finally overflowed, more rocks appeared to me, but the water also sloshed over moss.

Long story short, moss is worth way more magic food points than any kind of rock that Jimmy Protagonist has encountered so far. Also, it’s green, and the addition of this color to Jimmy’s monochrome world blows his mind.

It’s not without side effects, though:

I looked back at the moss and was horrifically shocked at what I saw. It was no longer vibrant and living. It was crumbling before my eyes, turning to dust.

Continue reading “Dungeon Born: Tutorial” →

Today we’re reading Dungeon Born. Pretty much all I know about this book is that it is in the “dungeon heart” sub-genre where the main character runs a dungeon instead of storming them, and that it gets pretty good ratings on Amazon.

Prologue

This is a bad sign.

They laughed when they murdered me. Laughed! Their squeals of delight were sickening as they reveled in the blood pouring from the jagged knife wounds spread across my chest. These disgusting people – I use the term people with trepidation – were obviously disdainful of all living beings. They killed me just for. . . for . . . ? Odd. This was strange – I couldn’t remember why they killed me. Who were ‘they’? Matter of fact, everything was starting to become . . . hard to . . . remember . . . ? I . . .

And the first paragraph of actual story is only making things worse. An amnesia setup. Spectacular.

“Oh no, you don’t!” The nasal, phlegmy voice of one of the assailants shattered the silence. He loomed over the broken, tortured body I was fleeing. “Dying won’t let you off the hook! Hee hee hee! Stealing from me was the worst decision you ever made! Now you will serve me, beg me!” he screamed, spittle flying. His mood shifted abruptly, as madmen’s are prone to do. “to free you, because of your own stupidity! Ha-ha-ha!”

And it keeps getting better: An antagonist motivated by ambiguous “insanity” used to explain their “random” behaviors and contradictory motivations whose purpose is clearly to facilitate the plot.

Continue reading “Dungeon Born: Rocky Start” →