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Darkworlds #1
Darkworlds London
The end of the world is hiding in a game, and now it’s time to play...
A Mashup of LitRPG gameplay and H P Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu horror mythos.
Adam Harker is a disgruntled employee of a data-mining corporation in a world that is falling apart. Everyday news stories emerge to suggest the end days are coming.
The ground down population of the great cities of the world work like slaves to service the mega rich elite, and in their spare time they forget their troubles in alcohol, drugs and virtual reality games.
But Adam doesn’t enter Darkworlds like everyone else — unlike them, he isn’t fleeing the end of the world by playing a game.
Which is just as well, because the end of the world lurks right there.
Taking up his role as a gun toting misfit priest, Adam begins to level and take on quests in this Lovecraft themed Virtual Reality RPG set in 1927 London.
But then a secretive guild of players contacts him — a group dedicated to fighting the monsters they find in the code.
350 pages, ebook
Published October 14, 2017
27 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2023
Thanks for the free audiobook! (On Spotify)
I originally found this from the podcast (of the same name) on Spotify. It read just like an audiobook, so I decided to see if it was one—lo and behold, here’s the book! Thank you for that.
Podcast/audiobook aside, this was a great book to read. The concept is well-executed, and the dystopian near future was a nice twist. Although there are occasional formatting errors (~4, by my count), they didn’t detract at all from the story.
The character creation section in particular stood out. It instantly drew me into the story. I also quite enjoyed the descriptions of insanity-inducing things, such as,
“I hear it talk, but it's no language I’ve heard outside of a nightmare, words like beetles scuttling over a coffin, a voice like asphyxiation as it gasps and gulps.”
That’s a fun image/sound to picture :)
Like any book, YMMV. For me, however, it was genuinely good. I’d certainly recommend it to my friends.
I originally found this from the podcast (of the same name) on Spotify. It read just like an audiobook, so I decided to see if it was one—lo and behold, here’s the book! Thank you for that.
Podcast/audiobook aside, this was a great book to read. The concept is well-executed, and the dystopian near future was a nice twist. Although there are occasional formatting errors (~4, by my count), they didn’t detract at all from the story.
The character creation section in particular stood out. It instantly drew me into the story. I also quite enjoyed the descriptions of insanity-inducing things, such as,
“I hear it talk, but it's no language I’ve heard outside of a nightmare, words like beetles scuttling over a coffin, a voice like asphyxiation as it gasps and gulps.”
That’s a fun image/sound to picture :)
Like any book, YMMV. For me, however, it was genuinely good. I’d certainly recommend it to my friends.
January 29, 2018
What an impressive story. I made the mistake of reading this book out of order but it was still a fantastic story all on it's own. I had already read Camelot Overthrown and loved it, so when I saw this story, I had to read it. This is, I believe the last series of this story, while Camelot Overthrown was the first.
Needless to say, things are progressing in the gaming world. The game is learning at an alarming rate. The newest game is a total immersion experience. But the game is getting smarter then is maker.
Needless to say, things are progressing in the gaming world. The game is learning at an alarming rate. The newest game is a total immersion experience. But the game is getting smarter then is maker.
July 5, 2018
This was a page turner
I couldn't put this down I have to admit at times it was even spooky lol. Check it'd make a great movie if done right. The rob elements are there mostly in details of skills but I'd say about medium not enough get in the way. What the book really excels at is the story its what kept me reading the book.
I couldn't put this down I have to admit at times it was even spooky lol. Check it'd make a great movie if done right. The rob elements are there mostly in details of skills but I'd say about medium not enough get in the way. What the book really excels at is the story its what kept me reading the book.
March 4, 2021
As I've mentioned in several of my recent reviews, I have been listening to the fantastic Classic Ghost Stories Podcast for the past couple of months, and as a result of that have not only discovered some classic stories and authors I'd not been familiar with before, but I have also now discovered a new author by way of the narrator of the podcast himself - Mr Tony Walker.
Tony has written several novels and collections of stories, as well as a whole bunch under the pseudonym Galen Wolf. He was publicising a reading of this story at the end of one of his podcasts and so I thought why not have a listen as it's online free anyway?
I will admit that while I knew what an RPG was (thanks largely to The Big Bang Theory) I'd never heard of a LitRPG before and wasn't really sure what this was. I googled it and found that it was much as I'd expected, but had no idea how much I would get into this story. I now want to read all of the Darkworlds books, and was sad to discover that this is the only one that has been made audio so far.
Oh well, back to physical books I go.
I would liken this to Ready Player One in the sense that it's main character is a gamer who finds solace from his dystopian future life by disappearing in game into another character and life entirely. The world he inhabits is of course very different to that in Ready Player One because here he disappears into 1920s London, but it was no less enjoyable for the difference of game setting.
The story was an utterly fascinating one and I found myself cheering alongside the protagonist Adam when he was up, and commiserating with him when he was down. The world building that Tony/Galen has done is honestly incredible - both in the "real" world and the game world - and really added to how involved I was in the story.
I really want to know how the next book in the series goes - which I believe is Darkworlds Paris - so I will be heading over to my nearest online bookseller to try and find a copy of that soon. In the mean time I highly recommend delving into Darkworlds London, which you can either listen to online (I listened through Spotify but I imagine you can get it other places too) or in physical book form.
Tony has written several novels and collections of stories, as well as a whole bunch under the pseudonym Galen Wolf. He was publicising a reading of this story at the end of one of his podcasts and so I thought why not have a listen as it's online free anyway?
I will admit that while I knew what an RPG was (thanks largely to The Big Bang Theory) I'd never heard of a LitRPG before and wasn't really sure what this was. I googled it and found that it was much as I'd expected, but had no idea how much I would get into this story. I now want to read all of the Darkworlds books, and was sad to discover that this is the only one that has been made audio so far.
Oh well, back to physical books I go.
I would liken this to Ready Player One in the sense that it's main character is a gamer who finds solace from his dystopian future life by disappearing in game into another character and life entirely. The world he inhabits is of course very different to that in Ready Player One because here he disappears into 1920s London, but it was no less enjoyable for the difference of game setting.
The story was an utterly fascinating one and I found myself cheering alongside the protagonist Adam when he was up, and commiserating with him when he was down. The world building that Tony/Galen has done is honestly incredible - both in the "real" world and the game world - and really added to how involved I was in the story.
I really want to know how the next book in the series goes - which I believe is Darkworlds Paris - so I will be heading over to my nearest online bookseller to try and find a copy of that soon. In the mean time I highly recommend delving into Darkworlds London, which you can either listen to online (I listened through Spotify but I imagine you can get it other places too) or in physical book form.
June 30, 2023
DNF at 70% of the way through the book. I can see how some people may enjoy this, but for my I found the majority of the story boring. I never really got invested in the main character and after a while I really tired of hearing about soma. Yes I understand that this is how drug addiction works, but I didn’t pick up this book looking for inner monologues about needing the drug to stay sane. I will say that the cosmic horror parts of this book were great. The author is wonderful at describing horrific scenes and terrifying, unfathomable beings. I genuinely think this author is very skilled at writing. My issues with this, though, is that at 70% of the way through the book I had wayyyy too little encounters with cosmic horrors for my taste. I mean there were only a handful of meaningful encounters when I stopped reading and I think that’s the main reason I couldn’t will myself to care enough to read the rest of the novel. If you enjoy more slow burn cosmic horror with most of the writing being other plot or world building, I think you’d enjoy this. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews