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The Bystander
- The Game at Carousel, Book 1
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
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The Bystander
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Summary
In a town where horror movie tropes come to life, one’s only chance to survive is to play their role, in the first book of a spine-tingling gamelit series.
When horror-obsessed Riley Lawrence and his group of college friends arrive in the small town of Carousel for their Centennial Celebration, the few decrepit cars parked in the street don’t scare them. But when they enter a locked building, an animatronic usher hands them each a ticket, and the lights dim, Riley realizes they’ve entered the inescapable patchwork of a horror movie set. And they’ve each been assigned an archetype—Scholar, Athlete, Eye Candy, Final Girl—to play out as the curtains rise.
Assigned the Film Buff archetype, Riley’s doomed to repeat a pattern: knowing exactly who the killer is but never surviving the attacks himself. After all, film buffs may know what’s coming, but they’re always the first to be hunted down. Until, that is, Riley learns he can avoid a death or two by exploiting the Oblivious Bystander trope. It seems monsters and killers won’t harm him as long as he can convincingly pretend he hasn’t noticed them.
To make it through this deadly game, Riley and his friends will need to leverage their tropes effectively to determine what’s trapping them there in the first place. But as the rounds continue and escape seems farther and farther out of reach, they’ll be forced to ask themselves: Would they survive in a horror movie?
The first volume of the hit LitRPG horror series—with more than three million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amechatclotho
- 01-11-24
A great read for both horror & litrpg fans!
This feels a bit like a cross between 'Cabin in the Woods' and the 80's/90's YA horror books by Point Horror, with elements of game theory and litrpg thrown in.
A little slow on the start, once this book gets going, you will be ordering the next in the series. The narrator has great pacing, voice and character transitions, and brings the characters to life as intended with inflections based on their emotions.
The main character becomes trapped in a horror-based world, needing to enter 'story lines' and participate as if they were actually reenacting the movie itself. Progression is made not necessarily from surviving the film, but helping his teammates to survive, and to make the best film as possible. Add to it the character has a rare character type in the game, with the fantastic and addictive world-building with loose LitRPG roots. Great foreshadowing and insight as the main character breaks the 4th wall and talks directly to the listener/reader, dragging the reader into the story right alongside them.
Pros: Great world-building, innovative setting, twist on the conventional 'horror' story where survival isn't guaranteed, insight into enemies in advance and how they behave, giving a 'peek behind the curtain' of film and movie structure, and a real likeable main character.
Cons: The ticket-based trope system sometimes gives just too much information overload, or can be repetitive, slow-burn start, and felt like more time was spent explaining, then actually exploring, ending way too soon - it could have hosted one more movie to make it feel complete.
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