I enjoy underhyped indie stories so I really hoped I would love this one. I tried this one many times but I failed to get immersed in the story. The worldbuilding particularly just felt so hollow or paper-thin. I wanted to love it but found myself wanting more substance. This is clearly the start of a series but it wasn't interesting enough to keep me reading.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

Exploit, Extract, Exit! is the first book in the Dragon Runner series written by Dustin Tigner, and the audiobook is narrated by Jackie Meloche. This is a collection of six novellas set in the same world with connected characters. There should be two more books coming in this series.

Eighteen-year-old Entin Soroy was supposed to be the cogging best fighter pilot of the Garentin space colony. But after an unthinkable terrorist attack forced the colony to digitize to survive, he finds himself thrust into a world repurposed from a rushed video game: Eternal Fantasy Online. This new reality might be beautiful. It might be full of endless wonder for its new immortal inhabitants. But the developers, in their haste, failed all those who lost their families and were too young to be given starting resources. Now Entin is a market Runner, working for copper chyps delivering packages to earn what little he can for the orphanage. It’s grueling, thankless work. That is, it was until a far more lucrative job found its way to him, revealing a new path forward. But nothing is ever easy. There are risks involved with going into the Wilds, a place of monsters and dangerous mysteries. Is the loot worth it? What price will he have to pay to succeed where others have failed? Full of adventures, puzzles, and unusual paths to success.

Exploit, Extract, Exit! is not quite what I had expected when I started listening, but that is because I read the author's name and not the description. This is not related to the Arachnomancer series- this is a different game world, with different characters and rules. Once I got past my own expectations I was able to get drawn into the story much more. I thought the characters and world building were well done, and I enjoyed getting to know new aspects of the world along side the characters. I thought the dynamics on Entin and his circle of friends and found family were fantastic, and I enjoyed that those relationships grew and changed without making it the focus of the story. I really liked the development of the main character of the alternating stories, and think she shows a great deal of growth in her stories as well. I liked the world building, and while the author admits in the forward and afterward of the book that it comes off as a little disjointed, because of the format the stories were originally written in, I think it still is very much worth the read, and I look forward to reading more to find out how everything comes together.

A terrorist attack has forced Garentin space colony to digitize in order to survive, the people’s minds inserted into the hastily repurposed game, Eternal Fantasy Online. Entin Soroy was two weeks away from turning 18 when they transferred over into a world where the developers forgot to provide starting resources for orphan children, so now he works as a market runner to earn what few Chyps he can to provide for the orphanage. When he receives an offer for a more lucrative job as a Dungeon Runner, Enton explores the Wilds and the dangers and payoffs it provides.

<i>Dungeon Runner 1: Exploit, Extract, Exit</i> contains three episodes of Dungeon Runner plus three side episodes about Eizel, a girl Entin likes.

I’ve heard a lot of hype about the LitRPG genre lately, so I decided to check this book out! Unfortunately, I think this genre is not for me. I missed the control that actually playing a game gives you. I really liked the side story about Eizel and would have been happy if the whole story had been about her. Cogging is used as a curse world (replacement), and I felt it was extremely overused. This book was not for me, but if the premise intrigues you, don’t let my review dissuade you from checking it out.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.

Dungeon runner is an audiobook about world within a computer game. It follows different characters and really keeps with the theme. This is a game where humans were inserted into. Even between chapters it’s was telling you code.

I thought the first part of dungeon runner was quite good and amusing at times. The dry sense of humour came through, but it did lose me at points and it might have been to much detail on the gamer side of it.

Overall I have rated this audio book a 3/5 stars it is amusing but hard to follow at times. I think would be a really great audio book for a gamer who understands that world better.

This novel takes place in a game world, where a society is rescued after a disaster. Members of the society are digitized and live out the rest of their lives inside the game instead of the real world. The main narrator, Entin, is a young man (likely in his late teens) who earns a living through runner jobs - basically, he's a Postmates driver in a fantasy universe. It pays little, the conditions are unfair, and at times the system docks him so many fees that he ends up owing money at the end of a gig.

Entin needs money not only to feed himself inside the game, but also to support kids at his orphanage. So, when he is offered the chance to take a riskier job that offers greater reward, he leaps for it.

The narration is also told from the perspective of a girl who tries to game the system in her favor. And we get extensive excerpts from the rulebook and chats between the game's developers as they created the rules.

Although the novel's premise could have potential, I struggled to hook into the story. I was sad about Entin's shallow motivation - orphanage kids and a crush that he gave up on in the blink of an eye. These motives could potentially hook the reader, but they weren't developed enough to succeed.

Consequently, the book read like the log of actions then in a video game as it's being played for the sake of the mechanics. Considering that the characters had recently come out of a catastrophe, there was surprisingly little emotional connection to latch onto here. The theme of the story that was reiterated over and over was that the game was designed poorly.

I think this novel might be interesting to readers who read the litRPG genre as a way to relive game mechanics from point-based video games. As a human story, I thought this could have more depth.

Dungeon Runner 1 is a litRPG novel that I got to enjoy as an audiobook through Netgalley, for free in exchange for an honest review.

I love Tigner's Arachnomancer series but couldn't get into this one. Seemed like it dropped me in halfway thru the story somehow.