The First Tower

Tower of Damnation, Book 1

By: Tristan H. Brown

Narrated by: Christopher Boucher

Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Humanity was on the brink of destruction.

Earth had been destroyed by Devils, and as a result, the humans who lived there were transported to Paradise, a new world far vaster than their original planet. Dragons flew across the never-ending skies, roaring toward the heavens. Elves grew trees and tended to the flowers. Dwarves crafted armor and weapons to use for battle. Demons started wars for fun.

It was chaotic, yet it was still a home. Then, when things were just starting to look up, the cataclysm struck. Only one man could face the imminent disaster, but he still failed in the end. Bradley Crowe let down all of those who he loved; everyone who relied on him. Regrets? He had many. As his eyes closed, falling into an eternal slumber, he was given a second chance.

A rebirth.

©2020 Tristan H. Brown (P)2022 Podium Audio

It’s great

Start of a series I’ll definitely follow. It’s not an epic or anything but it’s a great ~8 hour audiobook for those interested in the genre.

Great book, but DO NOT read the others.

This first book is the only one that is good and honestly the only one that makes any sense whatsoever. I have no idea what the author has been doing. The second book was kind of ???, and every book just gets worse and worse. for some reason book 5 starts off where book 3 ends and book four just starts somewhere in between? at least I think?

Regardless whatever you do, do not assume that the rest of the series is good just because you enjoy the first book here. The first one is worth it, but do not pick up the others.

nice story

i liked the book. its my fav sub genre and was a solid start. kinda just ends but I look forward to book 2. i reccomend it

Awesome

Really entertaining story and really good narration but there were some minor inconsistencies like the MC saying one thing but doing the opposite nothing that take out of the story, if you liked master hunter K you are going to like this

Great

Can't wait for the next book in the series . It's one of my most anticipated series.

Fluff

SOOO much exposition. He constantly explains things we know or understand. Or just adds details that are obvious. And in such a dramatic way.

Could Really Use an Experinced Editor.

I'm gonna vent a little be for I get into reviewing this book. I for the life of me don't understand how this book has such a high rating, I mean it has some serious plot, grammar, and even syntax errors; and this isn't even the first book I've got on Audible that I've felt this way about. I've pretty much lost all faith in Audible's ratings to be honest, now with that out of the way lets get into the book.

First let's start with the narrator, mainly because I don't have anything bad to say about him, he preformed well and the only reason I didn't give the performance 5 stars is because I can't bring myself to put a 5 star rating anywhere near this whole thing. As such I have to apologize for my blatant bias in this regard.

Now on to the story itself. First of I don't dislike this story, it's your typical regression power fantasy. Some might not like this type of story, but I myself view it as akin to a bag of potato chips, not the healthiest or most filling, but damn good to snack on from time to time. For the first five hours or so I was doing my best to talk myself into giving this a 4 star rating, the biggest problem I had was with syntax issues. The dialog just didn't flow well, phrasing felt awkward at times, and the grammar was a bit iffy; all of which a decent editor could have fixed. I'm certain the author is VERY inexperienced and am more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt due to that, honestly wouldn't be surprised if the author is in his late teens early twenties. Unfortunately the tail end of this book is where this inexperience begins to truly show. The plot becomes flimsy, in fact it feels like the author is just winging it as he goes and the latter half of the book becomes a bit of a slog. The main character is never really fleshed out and is very 2D, other characters have motivations that come out of nowhere, and rational thought is left far behind. This story really needed an experienced editor to go through it and then send it back with some comments and suggestions on how to tighten the plot up a bit, revision is your friend people. Still, okay for an obvious first effort.

P.S. whats is it with all these shoehorned Chinese web novel phrases that I've seen thrown into books these days. I mean I know they're popular and all, but the majority of the time they come of as very awkward...it's cringe and if you can't do it well don't do it at all, please.

Almost put this down several times

As someone who connects with a book through the protagonist, this was a choir.

Bradley's dialogue reads like it was written by an edgy fourteen year-old who's just seen the Matrix and starts wearing a black trenchcoat because he thinks it makes him look cool.

The times that I was able to stop cringing enough to actually pay attention to what Bradley was saying, I found myself often asking 'why are you saying that?' From weirdly misplaced and thinly veiled exposition masking as dialogue to hilariously blatant observations that scream 'HELLO, I'M A TIME TRAVELLER,' it was truly a barrel of laughs.

Honestly, if you go into this book with the mindset that it's an Airplane!-style parody of a super serious tough-guy, you might enjoy this much more than I did.

I, however, won't be continuing the series.