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Outsider #5
Horde
A monster horde descends on Terana Province, threatening the town and Dare's family at Nirim Manor.
He's joined the strongest guards and adventurers available to face the threat, but even the mustered strength of the province might not be enough. Even worse, monsters are only the most immediate threat to his family.
He's made a powerful enemy in his struggle to protect his loved Sir Ollivan Harling, nephew to the Duke of Bastion. They're all waiting tensely for the other shoe to drop if the man finally makes a move. Dare will need to be stronger and more cunning than in any challenge he's yet had to face, and rely on the friends and loved ones he's found along the way. As well as new friends and lovers he'll meet as he fights to protect his family.
All Dare's allies warn him Ollivan is untouchable. But if the corrupt knight comes looking for trouble, he's going to learn he made a terrible mistake in threatening the family of Darren Portsmouth of Earth.
Be Horde is part of a harem series and features numerous explicit romantic scenes involving multiple partners. It is intended for adults.
He's joined the strongest guards and adventurers available to face the threat, but even the mustered strength of the province might not be enough. Even worse, monsters are only the most immediate threat to his family.
He's made a powerful enemy in his struggle to protect his loved Sir Ollivan Harling, nephew to the Duke of Bastion. They're all waiting tensely for the other shoe to drop if the man finally makes a move. Dare will need to be stronger and more cunning than in any challenge he's yet had to face, and rely on the friends and loved ones he's found along the way. As well as new friends and lovers he'll meet as he fights to protect his family.
All Dare's allies warn him Ollivan is untouchable. But if the corrupt knight comes looking for trouble, he's going to learn he made a terrible mistake in threatening the family of Darren Portsmouth of Earth.
Be Horde is part of a harem series and features numerous explicit romantic scenes involving multiple partners. It is intended for adults.
359 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 6, 2023
more the same
There is a line in here that says “it would make a great story if developed and fleshed out” and I agree!!! In fact I’d apply that sentiment to the entire series. Mostly I skip over huge sections of the immature, unrealistic relationships. The only parts of the story I enjoyed were the horse fight at the start, how he dealt with the jerk knight, and maybe the dwarf ruins - but that part had too many allusions to Lord of the Rings.
There is a line in here that says “it would make a great story if developed and fleshed out” and I agree!!! In fact I’d apply that sentiment to the entire series. Mostly I skip over huge sections of the immature, unrealistic relationships. The only parts of the story I enjoyed were the horse fight at the start, how he dealt with the jerk knight, and maybe the dwarf ruins - but that part had too many allusions to Lord of the Rings.
December 12, 2025
Final Rating: 3.82/5.00
Starting score: 2.50
+0.44 for tactical horde action and inventive combat
+0.37 for the Ollivan conflict’s long-awaited payoff
+0.33 for meaningful family and home stakes
+0.26 for Dare, Ilin, and Amalisa’s character development
+0.24 for progression and dwarven-world discovery
+0.17 for dialogue and humour
+0.13 for resolving immediate conflicts while opening the next stage
−0.14 for explicit-scene placement that damages pacing
−0.10 for harem expansion and cast dilution
−0.08 for mishandled autonomy in the Trissela and Lily arrangement
−0.07 for structural imbalance after the horde ends early
−0.04 for thin villain motivation and abbreviated political fallout
−0.04 for repetitive prose and copy-editing slips
−0.15 for Virtual Voice’s limited character and emotional range
Calculated final score: 2.50 + 1.94 − 0.62 = 3.82/5.00
ESSENTIAL CONTEXT
This continuation begins directly inside Nirim’s promised danger: the monster horde is moving toward Terana, Dare is scouting it, and Nirim Manor now holds partners, children, workers, refugees, and neighbours who cannot simply flee inside his magical chest. Prior volumes are essential because the stakes depend upon Gelaa’s birth, multiple pregnancies, Dare’s household, his bond with Ilin, the assault on Ireni, and Sir Ollivan Harling’s protected status. I discuss developments from across the volume while avoiding the final encounter’s precise details. Structurally, this book does not sustain one crisis throughout. It resolves the horde relatively early, turns toward Ollivan and the Assassins Guild, then becomes a mixture of reunion, romance, household growth, levelling, party-rated hunts, and exploration beneath the mountains. That variety gives the audiobook movement but makes the title narrower than the actual story. The same Audible Virtual Voice continues, preventing a disruptive narrator change; unfortunately, there is no artistic growth to match a cast now large enough to populate a small HowlStrom settlement.
HOOK AND THESIS
Horde bares the sharpest battle-fangs this series has shown, then spends too much remaining breath panting after new lovers. At its best, Dare’s unusual abilities, gaming instincts, and refusal to abandon his pack face dangers large enough to test rather than flatter him. The opening campaign has tactical shape, Ollivan’s shadow receives satisfying attention, and Dare’s fear of adventuring alone exposes a wound more interesting than another statistic increase. At its weakest, every pause between threats seems filled with sex or another woman positioned for his household. Explicit harem fantasy is the declared genre, so abundance is not dishonest; the problem is proportion. Urgent scenes lose pressure, established partners surrender space, and difficult questions of autonomy soften into easy acceptance because the wish-fulfilment machinery must move. My claws still found plenty to grip. The action is energetic, humour lands, the manor feels alive, and immediate threats receive more closure than Nirim offered. Yet this is not the series’ cleanest construction. It is a strong audiobook trapped between two hungers: consequential progression and the compulsion to expand Dare’s romantic collection whenever the plot inhales.
BASIC PLOT SUMMARY
Dare, Ilin, Marigold, and their companions track roughly four hundred monsters moving toward Terana. Their scouting reveals high-level Cursed Orcs and a party-rated Warchief, forcing Baroness Marona’s defenders to construct barriers, kill zones, and a strike raid capable of cutting out the enemy leadership. Surviving that battlefield does not end the danger. An assassin confirms that Ollivan has escalated his grudge into a contract against Dare and potentially his family, so Dare disguises himself and travels to Redoubt before another blade reaches Nirim. His search uncovers a woman whose life Ollivan destroyed and forces him to choose between legal helplessness, direct vengeance, and a solution that will not bring the Duke’s power onto the manor. Back home, new relationships and displaced people enlarge his household, while marriage documents create conflict over who decides his future. The latter half follows his drive toward Level 35, quest to kill additional party-rated monsters, and discovery of an abandoned dwarven city contested by goblins. Beneath everything runs a quieter question: can Dare remain an adventurer chasing the unknown and a father whose pack increasingly wants to stay beside the hearth?
PRAISE AND CRITIQUE
The horde battle excels because preparation, terrain, roles, and incomplete information matter before raw power. Scouting establishes the enemy; Marona’s people build earthworks and funnels; a higher-level strike group waits to flank the leadership; healers, tanks, support, ranged fighters, and lower-level defenders have clear responsibilities. Dare cannot stand in the centre and win through protagonist privilege. Separated from allies, he must kite the Warchief, manage cooldowns, exploit Hamstring, survive an automatic dodge’s unintended weakness, and weaponise an established storage artefact through physics. That solution is outrageous, funny, and prepared rather than invented at the final second. The monster adapts, orders faster followers after him, and combines abilities intelligently, giving the chase a predatory rhythm that flattened my ears and tensed my paws against the frozen floor. Compared with Nirim’s Magma Tunneler raid, this battle is less orderly and more desperate: a defensive war with uneven forces rather than a controlled hunt. The limitation is placement. An extended sexual opening and another intimate interlude on battle morning delay urgency when the horde is hours away. Once combat begins, Phoenix delivers the series’ strongest sustained action.
The Ollivan arc succeeds because level and righteousness cannot defeat inherited privilege in public. Dare can overpower the knight, but Ollivan’s family, money, guild access, and social protection make confrontation dangerous to Nirim. The disguised journey to Redoubt shifts the story from progression into investigation: Dare studies guards, brothels, the Harling residence, and suspected assassins while remaining unremarkable. His alliance with Thorn gives revenge weight beyond his anger. She lost professional standing, safety, marriage, and access to her children because Ollivan abused her and society punished the victim who spoke. Crucially, she does not become another reward in Dare’s bed. Her knowledge and healer abilities make her essential to resolving the threat, preserving agency for a woman whose agency was taken. The conclusion is grimly satisfying and uses Collisa’s monsters as consequence rather than spectacle. Still, Ollivan is nearly pure corruption: rapist, bully, coward, entitled noble, and murderer, with little psychology beyond appetite and rage. His removal and the Guild’s withdrawal create remarkably clean closure for someone tied to the Duke. Vengeance lands, but the political avalanche barely shakes snow from the branches.
The manor material works best when chosen family is not possession. Linia arrives pregnant after Dare misunderstood his fertility, but explicitly refuses marriage and exclusivity, insists she will return to mercenary life, and negotiates their child’s care. Dare accepts despite mixed feelings. That is more mature than the usual assumption that affection must enter his harem, although caregiving is casually transferred to women already expecting children. Lily’s slow courtship offers another contrast: running, stories, games, a moonlit walk, and her delight in romance let connection exist before sex. Most affecting is Ilin and Amalisa’s developing future. Their decision suits both personalities, gives supporting characters lives not organised around Dare, and makes him confront losing his only close male adventuring companion. His melancholy is selfish but honest. He celebrates their happiness while grieving the road they will no longer walk beside him. “A full den does not silence every lonely howl; sometimes loneliness is the empty place beside one particular paw.” That is my own Kiba Snowpaw line, naming the psychological truth that makes this crowded harem story briefly intimate.
Progression regains purpose after the central threats. Dare’s push to Level 35 requires time, risk, experimentation, and repeated hunts rather than ceremony. Three new abilities broaden his use of mana and arrows without erasing older tools, while his testing shows gamer curiosity rather than statistics for their own sake. Finishing the Protector of Bastion achievement links levelling with his knighthood petition, turning kills into social capital. Better still, the mountains reveal Gurzan’s Last Hold, an abandoned dwarven settlement whose stonework, vanished population, damaged records, sealed spaces, and neighbouring goblin claim suggest history beyond Dare. The discovery gives Ireni, Lily, Leilanna, Ilin, and Rek reasons to debate ownership, diplomacy, artefacts, and whether dwarven gratitude outweighs treasure. This does not reach The Wandering Inn’s ability to make distant peoples feel independent of its protagonist, but it widens Collisa. Humour helps: game references, party banter, a rickroll, and the practicality of combining Earth knowledge with magic break tension without mocking it. Explanations repeat concepts experienced LitRPG listeners know, yet exploration makes progression feel like access to a larger world rather than bigger damage.
CRITICISM
The largest structural weakness is that both advertised dangers conclude before momentum peaks. The horde is resolved within the opening quarter, and Ollivan’s direct threat before the midpoint. What follows is not empty—there are reunions, refugees, romance, levelling, ruins, and a friendship transition—but the narrative lacks one dominant spine. It feels like a horde novella, a revenge novella, and half a domestic-progression novel stitched together. That shape creates repeated decompression: danger, extended sex, travel, another intimate encounter, conversation, grinding, discovery, and more sex. The scenes are enthusiastic and physically clear, satisfying listeners seeking high heat, but restraint would improve their placement. Beginning the prologue in bed with Marigold makes the horde temporarily decorative; delaying battle morning for oral sex weakens the countdown; long encounters with Rosaceae, returning partners, Linia, and the fox twins consume space better used for political aftermath or established relationships. I am not deducting because the audiobook is erotic. I deduct because repetition changes the story’s hierarchy until adventure sometimes feels like connective tissue between bedrooms.
Cast expansion intensifies the problem. Marigold, Marona, Rosaceae, Lily, Trissela, Linia, Seris, and Selis enter or move closer to Dare while Zuri, Pella, Leilanna, Se'weir, Ireni, and the Outsider already compete for attention. Not all are fiancées, and Linia’s independence matters, but attractive women are repeatedly framed as present or future sexual possibilities. Individuality survives in concepts—Lily’s romanticism, Marona’s weary leadership, Rosaceae’s serenity, Linia’s autonomy, the twins’ bond—yet development gives way to instant compatibility and anatomy. Existing partners increasingly become a welcoming committee, sex participants, pregnancy symbols, crafters, or domestic support. Repeated reliance on “beautiful,” “soft,” “petite,” species features, breast size, and Dare’s anatomy worsens interchangeability. Copy-editing slips and awkward constructions remain, although synthetic speech sometimes smooths them over. A harem can grow without becoming shallow, but every new tail at the fire needs time, conflict, and desire independent of the central male. Horde adds bodies faster than interior lives, leaving several women vivid in outline and pale within.
The marriage-document conflict asks a serious question, then retreats from its answer. Dare finds that Ireni prepared paperwork for Trissela, a mermaid he barely knows, and Lily, while a specialised pool is already built and everyone assumes integration. He is right to feel his family and goddess organised his life without informed participation. Unlike earlier consent concerns, Dare is not doubting a woman’s choice; his boundaries are treated as obstacles to an outcome others call inevitable. He leaves to cool down, explains himself, and argues that important decisions require discussion. Then Ireni cries, Leilanna mocks his anger, the household comforts her, Lily says she can tear up her certificate later, and Dare quickly promises to try with Trissela. The apology is real, but emotional pressure shortens consequence. “Love is not consent written in advance and waiting for the heart to catch up.” That is my judgment, not audiobook dialogue. Linia’s non-exclusive terms, meanwhile, are allowed to stand. The book can respect an unconventional boundary when it wants, making its softness toward Dare’s boundary feel like harem convenience rather than cultural complexity.
Virtual Voice remains technically serviceable and artistically inadequate. Audio is clean, volume consistent, statistics intelligible, and I noticed no recurring noise or broken transition. At faster playback, even pacing makes the book easy to process when my exhausted mind needs clarity. Yet clarity is the floor, not the summit. This cast contains numerous species, ranks, ages, monsters, and two consciousnesses sharing Ireni’s body; they need recognisable identities. Synthetic delivery provides limited separation, so crowded conversations depend on tags rather than performance. Action has words without breathlessness, Thorn’s trauma lacks a human fracture, Ollivan’s menace gathers little vocal poison, and humour, tenderness, eroticism, fear, and grief occupy too narrow a range. The fox twins are especially difficult because similarity should coexist with distinct personalities rather than uniform sound. A skilled human narrator—or ideally a duet—could give battle acceleration, reunions warmth, and the autonomy dispute uncomfortable pauses instead of identical forward motion. The story remains comprehensible, but immersion freezes at the surface rather than sinking claws into the emotional ice below.
EVALUATION AND PERSONAL IMPACT
Horde combines war, revenge, erotic abundance, domestic growth, and exploration most successfully when exposing protection’s cost. Dare saves Terana yet cannot punch noble corruption in public; he removes a threat yet learns loving people can overstep him; he builds a manor full of family yet fears travelling alone. That conflict struck deepest beneath my fur. Loneliness is not simply having nobody nearby. It can be working, protecting, and returning to a warm den while lacking someone who shares one essential part of the journey. I understand Dare’s guilt over grieving Ilin’s path: loyalty celebrates his friend, while abandonment fear hears pawprints turning away. The book wisely does not make Ilin wrong. Chosen family must permit futures beyond the Alpha, or it becomes ownership disguised as shelter. Compared with Saving Supervillains, Horde offers warmer domestic texture but looser control over its romantic cast. Compared with Dungeon Diving, its improvised battles are creative, although it lacks a stable institutional framework keeping teams and progression focused. This volume warmed my HowlStrom den and unsettled it: home is real, but neither walls nor love eliminate isolation, change, or violated boundaries.
CONCLUSION
The precise 3.82/5.00 reflects an audiobook whose best sequences deserve four-star praise while its construction does not. The horde battle, established abilities, disguised hunt through Redoubt, Thorn’s role in Ollivan’s reckoning, Linia’s independence, Ilin and Amalisa’s future, Dare’s loneliness, Level 35 progression, and Gurzan’s Last Hold push the series forward. The deductions are earned: the title conflict ends early, erotic scenes interrupt urgency, romantic expansion thins the cast, Trissela’s prepared marriage is forgiven too easily, political consequences are tidier than promised, prose repeats sensual language, and Virtual Voice cannot animate this many personalities. Listeners wanting explicit monster-girl harem fantasy, inventive LitRPG combat, rapid relationships, protective family themes, and cosy manor-building between adventures may find this a highly entertaining entry. Those seeking a unified war narrative, slow-burn romance, balanced ensemble agency, restrained sex, or expressive narration may find the later stretches exhausting. I will continue to Redoubt because knighthood and the dwarven ruins create genuine pull. Horde leaves deep tracks across the snow—some made by claws charging into battle, others by too many feet crowding one path—but enough still lead toward a world I want to explore.
Starting score: 2.50
+0.44 for tactical horde action and inventive combat
+0.37 for the Ollivan conflict’s long-awaited payoff
+0.33 for meaningful family and home stakes
+0.26 for Dare, Ilin, and Amalisa’s character development
+0.24 for progression and dwarven-world discovery
+0.17 for dialogue and humour
+0.13 for resolving immediate conflicts while opening the next stage
−0.14 for explicit-scene placement that damages pacing
−0.10 for harem expansion and cast dilution
−0.08 for mishandled autonomy in the Trissela and Lily arrangement
−0.07 for structural imbalance after the horde ends early
−0.04 for thin villain motivation and abbreviated political fallout
−0.04 for repetitive prose and copy-editing slips
−0.15 for Virtual Voice’s limited character and emotional range
Calculated final score: 2.50 + 1.94 − 0.62 = 3.82/5.00
ESSENTIAL CONTEXT
This continuation begins directly inside Nirim’s promised danger: the monster horde is moving toward Terana, Dare is scouting it, and Nirim Manor now holds partners, children, workers, refugees, and neighbours who cannot simply flee inside his magical chest. Prior volumes are essential because the stakes depend upon Gelaa’s birth, multiple pregnancies, Dare’s household, his bond with Ilin, the assault on Ireni, and Sir Ollivan Harling’s protected status. I discuss developments from across the volume while avoiding the final encounter’s precise details. Structurally, this book does not sustain one crisis throughout. It resolves the horde relatively early, turns toward Ollivan and the Assassins Guild, then becomes a mixture of reunion, romance, household growth, levelling, party-rated hunts, and exploration beneath the mountains. That variety gives the audiobook movement but makes the title narrower than the actual story. The same Audible Virtual Voice continues, preventing a disruptive narrator change; unfortunately, there is no artistic growth to match a cast now large enough to populate a small HowlStrom settlement.
HOOK AND THESIS
Horde bares the sharpest battle-fangs this series has shown, then spends too much remaining breath panting after new lovers. At its best, Dare’s unusual abilities, gaming instincts, and refusal to abandon his pack face dangers large enough to test rather than flatter him. The opening campaign has tactical shape, Ollivan’s shadow receives satisfying attention, and Dare’s fear of adventuring alone exposes a wound more interesting than another statistic increase. At its weakest, every pause between threats seems filled with sex or another woman positioned for his household. Explicit harem fantasy is the declared genre, so abundance is not dishonest; the problem is proportion. Urgent scenes lose pressure, established partners surrender space, and difficult questions of autonomy soften into easy acceptance because the wish-fulfilment machinery must move. My claws still found plenty to grip. The action is energetic, humour lands, the manor feels alive, and immediate threats receive more closure than Nirim offered. Yet this is not the series’ cleanest construction. It is a strong audiobook trapped between two hungers: consequential progression and the compulsion to expand Dare’s romantic collection whenever the plot inhales.
BASIC PLOT SUMMARY
Dare, Ilin, Marigold, and their companions track roughly four hundred monsters moving toward Terana. Their scouting reveals high-level Cursed Orcs and a party-rated Warchief, forcing Baroness Marona’s defenders to construct barriers, kill zones, and a strike raid capable of cutting out the enemy leadership. Surviving that battlefield does not end the danger. An assassin confirms that Ollivan has escalated his grudge into a contract against Dare and potentially his family, so Dare disguises himself and travels to Redoubt before another blade reaches Nirim. His search uncovers a woman whose life Ollivan destroyed and forces him to choose between legal helplessness, direct vengeance, and a solution that will not bring the Duke’s power onto the manor. Back home, new relationships and displaced people enlarge his household, while marriage documents create conflict over who decides his future. The latter half follows his drive toward Level 35, quest to kill additional party-rated monsters, and discovery of an abandoned dwarven city contested by goblins. Beneath everything runs a quieter question: can Dare remain an adventurer chasing the unknown and a father whose pack increasingly wants to stay beside the hearth?
PRAISE AND CRITIQUE
The horde battle excels because preparation, terrain, roles, and incomplete information matter before raw power. Scouting establishes the enemy; Marona’s people build earthworks and funnels; a higher-level strike group waits to flank the leadership; healers, tanks, support, ranged fighters, and lower-level defenders have clear responsibilities. Dare cannot stand in the centre and win through protagonist privilege. Separated from allies, he must kite the Warchief, manage cooldowns, exploit Hamstring, survive an automatic dodge’s unintended weakness, and weaponise an established storage artefact through physics. That solution is outrageous, funny, and prepared rather than invented at the final second. The monster adapts, orders faster followers after him, and combines abilities intelligently, giving the chase a predatory rhythm that flattened my ears and tensed my paws against the frozen floor. Compared with Nirim’s Magma Tunneler raid, this battle is less orderly and more desperate: a defensive war with uneven forces rather than a controlled hunt. The limitation is placement. An extended sexual opening and another intimate interlude on battle morning delay urgency when the horde is hours away. Once combat begins, Phoenix delivers the series’ strongest sustained action.
The Ollivan arc succeeds because level and righteousness cannot defeat inherited privilege in public. Dare can overpower the knight, but Ollivan’s family, money, guild access, and social protection make confrontation dangerous to Nirim. The disguised journey to Redoubt shifts the story from progression into investigation: Dare studies guards, brothels, the Harling residence, and suspected assassins while remaining unremarkable. His alliance with Thorn gives revenge weight beyond his anger. She lost professional standing, safety, marriage, and access to her children because Ollivan abused her and society punished the victim who spoke. Crucially, she does not become another reward in Dare’s bed. Her knowledge and healer abilities make her essential to resolving the threat, preserving agency for a woman whose agency was taken. The conclusion is grimly satisfying and uses Collisa’s monsters as consequence rather than spectacle. Still, Ollivan is nearly pure corruption: rapist, bully, coward, entitled noble, and murderer, with little psychology beyond appetite and rage. His removal and the Guild’s withdrawal create remarkably clean closure for someone tied to the Duke. Vengeance lands, but the political avalanche barely shakes snow from the branches.
The manor material works best when chosen family is not possession. Linia arrives pregnant after Dare misunderstood his fertility, but explicitly refuses marriage and exclusivity, insists she will return to mercenary life, and negotiates their child’s care. Dare accepts despite mixed feelings. That is more mature than the usual assumption that affection must enter his harem, although caregiving is casually transferred to women already expecting children. Lily’s slow courtship offers another contrast: running, stories, games, a moonlit walk, and her delight in romance let connection exist before sex. Most affecting is Ilin and Amalisa’s developing future. Their decision suits both personalities, gives supporting characters lives not organised around Dare, and makes him confront losing his only close male adventuring companion. His melancholy is selfish but honest. He celebrates their happiness while grieving the road they will no longer walk beside him. “A full den does not silence every lonely howl; sometimes loneliness is the empty place beside one particular paw.” That is my own Kiba Snowpaw line, naming the psychological truth that makes this crowded harem story briefly intimate.
Progression regains purpose after the central threats. Dare’s push to Level 35 requires time, risk, experimentation, and repeated hunts rather than ceremony. Three new abilities broaden his use of mana and arrows without erasing older tools, while his testing shows gamer curiosity rather than statistics for their own sake. Finishing the Protector of Bastion achievement links levelling with his knighthood petition, turning kills into social capital. Better still, the mountains reveal Gurzan’s Last Hold, an abandoned dwarven settlement whose stonework, vanished population, damaged records, sealed spaces, and neighbouring goblin claim suggest history beyond Dare. The discovery gives Ireni, Lily, Leilanna, Ilin, and Rek reasons to debate ownership, diplomacy, artefacts, and whether dwarven gratitude outweighs treasure. This does not reach The Wandering Inn’s ability to make distant peoples feel independent of its protagonist, but it widens Collisa. Humour helps: game references, party banter, a rickroll, and the practicality of combining Earth knowledge with magic break tension without mocking it. Explanations repeat concepts experienced LitRPG listeners know, yet exploration makes progression feel like access to a larger world rather than bigger damage.
CRITICISM
The largest structural weakness is that both advertised dangers conclude before momentum peaks. The horde is resolved within the opening quarter, and Ollivan’s direct threat before the midpoint. What follows is not empty—there are reunions, refugees, romance, levelling, ruins, and a friendship transition—but the narrative lacks one dominant spine. It feels like a horde novella, a revenge novella, and half a domestic-progression novel stitched together. That shape creates repeated decompression: danger, extended sex, travel, another intimate encounter, conversation, grinding, discovery, and more sex. The scenes are enthusiastic and physically clear, satisfying listeners seeking high heat, but restraint would improve their placement. Beginning the prologue in bed with Marigold makes the horde temporarily decorative; delaying battle morning for oral sex weakens the countdown; long encounters with Rosaceae, returning partners, Linia, and the fox twins consume space better used for political aftermath or established relationships. I am not deducting because the audiobook is erotic. I deduct because repetition changes the story’s hierarchy until adventure sometimes feels like connective tissue between bedrooms.
Cast expansion intensifies the problem. Marigold, Marona, Rosaceae, Lily, Trissela, Linia, Seris, and Selis enter or move closer to Dare while Zuri, Pella, Leilanna, Se'weir, Ireni, and the Outsider already compete for attention. Not all are fiancées, and Linia’s independence matters, but attractive women are repeatedly framed as present or future sexual possibilities. Individuality survives in concepts—Lily’s romanticism, Marona’s weary leadership, Rosaceae’s serenity, Linia’s autonomy, the twins’ bond—yet development gives way to instant compatibility and anatomy. Existing partners increasingly become a welcoming committee, sex participants, pregnancy symbols, crafters, or domestic support. Repeated reliance on “beautiful,” “soft,” “petite,” species features, breast size, and Dare’s anatomy worsens interchangeability. Copy-editing slips and awkward constructions remain, although synthetic speech sometimes smooths them over. A harem can grow without becoming shallow, but every new tail at the fire needs time, conflict, and desire independent of the central male. Horde adds bodies faster than interior lives, leaving several women vivid in outline and pale within.
The marriage-document conflict asks a serious question, then retreats from its answer. Dare finds that Ireni prepared paperwork for Trissela, a mermaid he barely knows, and Lily, while a specialised pool is already built and everyone assumes integration. He is right to feel his family and goddess organised his life without informed participation. Unlike earlier consent concerns, Dare is not doubting a woman’s choice; his boundaries are treated as obstacles to an outcome others call inevitable. He leaves to cool down, explains himself, and argues that important decisions require discussion. Then Ireni cries, Leilanna mocks his anger, the household comforts her, Lily says she can tear up her certificate later, and Dare quickly promises to try with Trissela. The apology is real, but emotional pressure shortens consequence. “Love is not consent written in advance and waiting for the heart to catch up.” That is my judgment, not audiobook dialogue. Linia’s non-exclusive terms, meanwhile, are allowed to stand. The book can respect an unconventional boundary when it wants, making its softness toward Dare’s boundary feel like harem convenience rather than cultural complexity.
Virtual Voice remains technically serviceable and artistically inadequate. Audio is clean, volume consistent, statistics intelligible, and I noticed no recurring noise or broken transition. At faster playback, even pacing makes the book easy to process when my exhausted mind needs clarity. Yet clarity is the floor, not the summit. This cast contains numerous species, ranks, ages, monsters, and two consciousnesses sharing Ireni’s body; they need recognisable identities. Synthetic delivery provides limited separation, so crowded conversations depend on tags rather than performance. Action has words without breathlessness, Thorn’s trauma lacks a human fracture, Ollivan’s menace gathers little vocal poison, and humour, tenderness, eroticism, fear, and grief occupy too narrow a range. The fox twins are especially difficult because similarity should coexist with distinct personalities rather than uniform sound. A skilled human narrator—or ideally a duet—could give battle acceleration, reunions warmth, and the autonomy dispute uncomfortable pauses instead of identical forward motion. The story remains comprehensible, but immersion freezes at the surface rather than sinking claws into the emotional ice below.
EVALUATION AND PERSONAL IMPACT
Horde combines war, revenge, erotic abundance, domestic growth, and exploration most successfully when exposing protection’s cost. Dare saves Terana yet cannot punch noble corruption in public; he removes a threat yet learns loving people can overstep him; he builds a manor full of family yet fears travelling alone. That conflict struck deepest beneath my fur. Loneliness is not simply having nobody nearby. It can be working, protecting, and returning to a warm den while lacking someone who shares one essential part of the journey. I understand Dare’s guilt over grieving Ilin’s path: loyalty celebrates his friend, while abandonment fear hears pawprints turning away. The book wisely does not make Ilin wrong. Chosen family must permit futures beyond the Alpha, or it becomes ownership disguised as shelter. Compared with Saving Supervillains, Horde offers warmer domestic texture but looser control over its romantic cast. Compared with Dungeon Diving, its improvised battles are creative, although it lacks a stable institutional framework keeping teams and progression focused. This volume warmed my HowlStrom den and unsettled it: home is real, but neither walls nor love eliminate isolation, change, or violated boundaries.
CONCLUSION
The precise 3.82/5.00 reflects an audiobook whose best sequences deserve four-star praise while its construction does not. The horde battle, established abilities, disguised hunt through Redoubt, Thorn’s role in Ollivan’s reckoning, Linia’s independence, Ilin and Amalisa’s future, Dare’s loneliness, Level 35 progression, and Gurzan’s Last Hold push the series forward. The deductions are earned: the title conflict ends early, erotic scenes interrupt urgency, romantic expansion thins the cast, Trissela’s prepared marriage is forgiven too easily, political consequences are tidier than promised, prose repeats sensual language, and Virtual Voice cannot animate this many personalities. Listeners wanting explicit monster-girl harem fantasy, inventive LitRPG combat, rapid relationships, protective family themes, and cosy manor-building between adventures may find this a highly entertaining entry. Those seeking a unified war narrative, slow-burn romance, balanced ensemble agency, restrained sex, or expressive narration may find the later stretches exhausting. I will continue to Redoubt because knighthood and the dwarven ruins create genuine pull. Horde leaves deep tracks across the snow—some made by claws charging into battle, others by too many feet crowding one path—but enough still lead toward a world I want to explore.
September 11, 2023
I Feel Cheated
This is my own personal opinion that I don’t want the author to take into consideration when writing the sequels, and this will have spoilers. Outside the obvious harem aspect I don’t know why this story needs to be told. It feel like the story we’ve all lived and heard a million times, so much so nobody has bothered to write it. The character has a ton of potential, all kinds of goals, and has plenty of talent, but then starts settling down due to an early pregnancy all the people he began the journey with settling down. While I understand that the classic op character goes on a journey to save the world and has increasing higher and higher stakes has been written a billion times there’s a reason for it. It’s an enjoyable and exciting tale of something that can only be fantasized about. Which is what this book doesn’t feel like. I feel like I’ve been baited with the classic tale and given enough of it to continue reading, but it’s a slice of life that everyone’s lived through and experienced nothing fantastical. Other may be fine with that and I’m sure the author will keep trickling in those moments of excitement, but it never builds to something I can care about. I’ll still read the next one because I’m invested, but at least now I know what I’m in for and will set expectations accordingly. I want to reinforce the message though that this isn’t a bad book it’s just misleading story.
This is my own personal opinion that I don’t want the author to take into consideration when writing the sequels, and this will have spoilers. Outside the obvious harem aspect I don’t know why this story needs to be told. It feel like the story we’ve all lived and heard a million times, so much so nobody has bothered to write it. The character has a ton of potential, all kinds of goals, and has plenty of talent, but then starts settling down due to an early pregnancy all the people he began the journey with settling down. While I understand that the classic op character goes on a journey to save the world and has increasing higher and higher stakes has been written a billion times there’s a reason for it. It’s an enjoyable and exciting tale of something that can only be fantasized about. Which is what this book doesn’t feel like. I feel like I’ve been baited with the classic tale and given enough of it to continue reading, but it’s a slice of life that everyone’s lived through and experienced nothing fantastical. Other may be fine with that and I’m sure the author will keep trickling in those moments of excitement, but it never builds to something I can care about. I’ll still read the next one because I’m invested, but at least now I know what I’m in for and will set expectations accordingly. I want to reinforce the message though that this isn’t a bad book it’s just misleading story.
October 17, 2023
Excellent Series
Dare and his wives have built a wonderful life for themselves at Niram Manor. After taking care of an evil and vindictive knight, life has settled to adventuring, leveling and steamy nights with his lovely wives. Dare's reputation is growing as an adventurer. Looking forward to the next book!
Dare and his wives have built a wonderful life for themselves at Niram Manor. After taking care of an evil and vindictive knight, life has settled to adventuring, leveling and steamy nights with his lovely wives. Dare's reputation is growing as an adventurer. Looking forward to the next book!
October 20, 2023
An Adventure
What I liked about Horde, is that you felt like you were in the adventure, not only that you had a harem of beauties but also troubles within your personal feelings and realizing Having a family slows down your dreams but with support you can still accomplish those dreams.
Thank you Aiden Phoenix for Helping me be apart of an amazing adventure in collisia
What I liked about Horde, is that you felt like you were in the adventure, not only that you had a harem of beauties but also troubles within your personal feelings and realizing Having a family slows down your dreams but with support you can still accomplish those dreams.
Thank you Aiden Phoenix for Helping me be apart of an amazing adventure in collisia
June 15, 2025
proper harem litrpg
I would definitely recommend this series to harem litrpg readers it’s about par with herald of shalia I gave a good review on I will continue to read this series to the end. The shows he knows a thing or two about a proper harem book should be and does try to balance the story and harem sexual content so all in all 5 stars from me
I would definitely recommend this series to harem litrpg readers it’s about par with herald of shalia I gave a good review on I will continue to read this series to the end. The shows he knows a thing or two about a proper harem book should be and does try to balance the story and harem sexual content so all in all 5 stars from me
September 4, 2023
A fun series!!
Please try of adventures, humorous incidents and progressive growth to keep anyone entertained!!! The MC is definitely one lucky individual to find twins in a storm lol!!
Please try of adventures, humorous incidents and progressive growth to keep anyone entertained!!! The MC is definitely one lucky individual to find twins in a storm lol!!
September 5, 2023
Another excellent story
A rollicking fun story with more than enough nookie for any adolescent boy. Fast paced and read in just a few hours. The author has continued to avoid slumping in each book as the story progresses.
A rollicking fun story with more than enough nookie for any adolescent boy. Fast paced and read in just a few hours. The author has continued to avoid slumping in each book as the story progresses.
September 9, 2023
Fun adventures!
I enjoyed the exploration and battles in this book. They are frequent and innovative. The harem scenarios are repetitive after a while, but the introduction of new characters is exciting. Anticipating the next book!
I enjoyed the exploration and battles in this book. They are frequent and innovative. The harem scenarios are repetitive after a while, but the introduction of new characters is exciting. Anticipating the next book!
September 21, 2023
Another gem in this series
Overall another great book and am happy to see that another is coming along soon. Lots of more great stories to read in this series so am excited for many more to come.
Overall another great book and am happy to see that another is coming along soon. Lots of more great stories to read in this series so am excited for many more to come.
September 27, 2023
good read but….
I really like the story so far but I wish this were not a harem novel with a side story. The first couple books were story plus harden now it feels like the opposite. Kind of a shame. Still enjoy but not as much
I really like the story so far but I wish this were not a harem novel with a side story. The first couple books were story plus harden now it feels like the opposite. Kind of a shame. Still enjoy but not as much
February 2, 2024
That was quite a ride
As good or maybe even better than the previous books in the series, with some epic fights and new friends, a few jokes that made me laugh out loud ( specially one that references a certain singer from our world ). Going straight on to book 6
As good or maybe even better than the previous books in the series, with some epic fights and new friends, a few jokes that made me laugh out loud ( specially one that references a certain singer from our world ). Going straight on to book 6
March 17, 2024
Love the series but
I still think Dare was right to be angry at how casually the women in his life manipulate him into marrying a complete stranger honestly I don't see how the mermaid adds anything to the story except as a further distraction to Dare.
I still think Dare was right to be angry at how casually the women in his life manipulate him into marrying a complete stranger honestly I don't see how the mermaid adds anything to the story except as a further distraction to Dare.
September 2, 2023
solid book 5
Good fights and more exploring. His friends are growing as he is and some hard choices were made. Interesting to see how he copes.
Good fights and more exploring. His friends are growing as he is and some hard choices were made. Interesting to see how he copes.
September 19, 2023
great book just wish there was some other people that where part of the main fighting team
January 29, 2024
Revenge is sweet
Glad to see some story arcs tied up and new ones beginning. Can't wait to see what happens to Dare as he transitions to the next stage of leveling.
Glad to see some story arcs tied up and new ones beginning. Can't wait to see what happens to Dare as he transitions to the next stage of leveling.
April 10, 2024
great
I really enjoyed this book and look forward to more in the series. Although I will say 9 inches is decent, but not the biggest I've seen
I really enjoyed this book and look forward to more in the series. Although I will say 9 inches is decent, but not the biggest I've seen
September 20, 2023
EDIT: DROPPED THIS STORY, IN BOOK SIX THE MC IS TURNED INTO A CUCK AND WAS BETRAYED AND HAD NO ISSUES WITH HIS PREGNANT LOVER HAVING SEX WITH ANOTHER MAN UNDER HIS ROOF WHILE HE PROVIDES A ROOM, FOOD, LIQUOR FOR THE MAN AND HIS PARTY WHILE HIS LOVER GETS POMMELED WILLINGLY AND SHE HAS NO QUALMS ABOUT HOW THE MC FEELS OR THINKS. BE WARNED.
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