I literally laughed out loud several times in this book and because of some depression stuff that is not something I do every day, or week, or month Thank you to the author and the terrific narrator nailed it!! I love everything about this series. Also, the narrator is amazing.
I'm sad I'm done now! Absolutely astounding addition to the series. When I read the book before the Audible release, it's with the voices from Jonathon Sleep in my head. I knew the audio book would be incredible but even my imagination could not do this performance justice.
Not only does Jonathon Sleep host an incredibly rich array of distinct characters but Saturn Studios goes so far as to add sound effects. When the narration mentions a spring coming loose, you'll hear the groan and release of a spring.
When a Bard sings, the crowd sings along in chorus. Too many story lines and separate adventures has really diluted the main story. This felt more like a d6 book than the series. Critical Failures is that guilty pleasure series and volume 8 of it is no exception.
First off, Johnathan Sleep is a masterful narrator and does a fantastic job at giving each character a very unique feel and distinct voice. For this alone I recommend the audiobook. Now explaining Bevan's world and style is another matter.
As the volumes progress it seems that the dick and fart jokes only get bolder and more frequent, which do start to become too much. It seems every third line there's an attempt at base humor which just makes it overall less funny as a reader. Still, the combination of a group of random assholes trying to navigate from literally within the world of a Dungeons and Dragons equivalent, and the endless and frequently clever and hilarious solutions one can come up with in such a world just never gets old.
This book, and it's series, really satisfies that geek itch and leaves you wanting more. I would have thought a story this long would have gone somewhere. I was wrong. A couple of small twists and a wide open ending make the book fall flat.
I'm ok with some unresolved issues but no resolution makes it feel like the author is singing me along just to sell another book. As always the narrator was great. This one was a very good addition to the current series, but not the best.
New characters seemed forced, and this book felt more like the first half of a book. I think it was one of the shortest too. The only problem I had with this book is the problem I've had since book 4, let our heroes be heroes! Aside from RazzmaChaz, no one really did much in the way of heroics.
Good listen, and I'll definitely be back for more. And another awesome job by Johnathan! As always in this series, an excellent listen. I want Jonathan Sleep to narrate my life, Stranger than fiction style, in the voice of Captain Longfellow. I'm loving this series! Awesome and funny series. The story built very quickly.
It was exciting for people who have never role played and quite easy to follow. Would definitely recommend for the fantasy lovers. Add to Cart failed. Please try again later.
Add to Wish List failed. Remove from wishlist failed. Adding to library failed. Please try again. Follow podcast failed. Unfollow podcast failed. Stream or download thousands of included titles. Critical Failures By: Robert Bevan. Narrated by: Jonathan Sleep. No default payment method selected. Add payment method.
Switch payment method. We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method. Pay using card ending in. Taxes where applicable. Listeners also enjoyed Publisher's Summary Tim and his friends find out the hard way that you shouldn't question the game master, and you shouldn't make fun of his cape. Humorous Epic. Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
Amazon Reviews. Sort by:. Most Helpful Most Recent. Filter by:. All stars 5 star only 4 star only 3 star only 2 star only 1 star only. M Audible Studio More Please! Sugarpucker Very Entertaining I thought this book was very entertaining. Chris Such a hard review to write Jessica I wish I could get these hours back. Brent Fun, but Austin Voicing and Pacing Disclaimer: I have only gotten a few chapters in so far. TnA Top 10 What was one of the most memorable moments of Critical Failures?
Incredible range of voices that are never annoying 13 people found this helpful. Amanda Bought the second book 30 sec after finishing this one Yup. Crude story, average performance, but potential is there I picked this book up on a whim, despite mixed reviews, and now that it's over I don't know how to feel about it. Show More. Occasionally funny and very uneventful The humor consisted mostly of "your mom" jokes and profanity.
Amazon Customer Unpleasant banter, interesting situations 'Gay' repeatedly used as an insult reduced the joy I got from reading this book. D20 Propper laugh out loud stuff. Need the other books in the series Come on audible get them 4 people found this helpful. Upgrade Interesting start to a series I came here from Authors and Dragons.
ScallN20 Good start but was missing something I enjoyed this but feels like the first half of a book. Slug James Hannam Oliver Tosh Bad jokes, poorly written and terribly unsatisfying conclusion.
Kerri Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. The h This book is good for what it is: a fun, easy, entertaining read.
The humor, for the most part, is crude and juvenile, but I'll admit that I did laugh out loud a few times. The action scenes and the dialogue were surprisingly well-written, and I liked the characters Ravenus, Julian, and Chaz are my favorites.
The ending was a bit abrupt, so if you want any sort of closure you'll have to read the next book or 6 in the series. View 2 comments. Nov 18, Laura of Lurking rated it it was amazing. I was on the unlucky end of dungeons and dragons, I started secondary school a year after they closed the group, but I have always had a fascination and played computer games when I can get m hands on them.
This took me into the world and let me explore. Funny and light hearted, yet it made me feel for the characters even the rather… shall I say animalistic Cooper! I would recommend this to anyone with a good sense of humour and either experience of these types of games or a desire to play. May 20, Leviathan Libraries rated it really liked it. Critical Failures is full of crude and rude and downright disgusting.
The way the author, Robert Bevan, handles it is perfect. Yes, he could have tried to turn it into a serious adventure, but instead what you get is an adventure sure to delight every geek — at least that has a sense of humor — in existence. The Cavern Master that starts all of this is the stereotypical never-got-laid, physically unattractive, with the thinnest skin around kid that we all knew in high school. Makes it much easier to hate him with a passion. Like my review style?
Aug 28, Bram rated it liked it Shelves: made-me-rofl , , audiobook-english , ebook-english , fantasy. Is this a masterpiece of human literature? Definitely not. Is it hillarious from start to finish and will I continue devouring the sequels? I admit, this is not for everyone, it's not deep or complicated, there's a simple plot, and apart from the main characters, there isn't anyone worth mentioning.
Jun 17, Colby rated it it was amazing. This book is a guilty pleasure kind of read. Fellow nerds, please read this one. You'll laugh at least once, out loud, while reading this. I promise.
Aug 06, Maria Kramer rated it liked it Shelves: adult , humor , fantasy. This book is great For what it is. It's not groundbreaking. It's not going to win any Pulitzers. But if you want a fun, quick, vulgar, extremely nerdy title, this is the book for you. Also, it broke me out of a reading slump, so there's that going for it.
Feb 10, Gary Butler rated it it was amazing Shelves: fantasy. Number out of on my all time book list. Shelves: fiction , pulp , fantasy , series , comedy. If the other books I've reviewed are polite visitors, then Robert Bevan's "Critical Failures" is the guy in the GWAR T-shirt that cussed out a neighbor, drank all the vodka, and passed out in the bathroom.
This book spends a lot of time in said bathroom. Bevan answers the truly burning questions in the fantasy genre, such as "How badly does an orc's feculence stink? Tim, Julian, Dave and Cooper are four friends that seek to assuage their day of boredom working at a local chicken restaurant with a game of "Caverns and Creatures", the book's stand-in for the pen-and-paper RPG we all know and love.
Said game will be run by a "Cavern Master" named Mordred, who has a fragile ego, only a loose connection to reality, and a bag of magical dice. Having him meet the exceedingly-caustic Cooper creates a situation as stable as a Soviet nuclear reactor. So of course the DM melts down. Our heroes are thrown into the gaming world itself. It isn't a soft landing, either--no sooner have they arrived than they find themselves pursued by local authorities, because Cooper took it upon himself to have his previously paper-only character lop off the head of a likewise paper-only guard.
Tim in this world a halfling rogue is promptly captured, and our heroes are under pressure to concoct a rescue plan while also grappling with the fact that failure in this very real environment can lead to their very real deaths. This setup produces some snags. In striving to balance comedy, action, and suspense, the book sometimes missteps over its own tone.
Long tracts are devoted to the characters springing themselves from very dangerous situations, and often these don't have a trace of mirth in them, so it's easy to forget what you're reading is--I think--intended to be light-hearted. Then you're suddenly in a scene where the characters are laughing out loud at the most banal of events. I found that somewhat disjointed.
Being stuck in a fantasy world should be much more damaging and depressing for our protagonists, and yet the book needs them to shake much of it off and produce humor, and so they do. Then in the next moment it's imploring us to believe that everything is at stake, that the heroes are completely, deadly serious due to some emergency, and we should be too. It's a bit of a seesaw effect on our nerves, and I wasn't always a fan of it.
I'm not saying the book isn't a delightful read--it very much is. But the effect is a bit like if Ash in the Army of Darkness stumbled across a recently-slain child, then in the next scene was back to his regular antics.
Wouldn't that be a bit of a buzz kill? The combat scenes suffer a bit from this disjointedness, but the worst symptoms of this malady involve Mordred. What that psychopath has done to these guys isn't a laughing matter. He's deprived them of all the rest of their years, and consigned them to existence in a world of absolute, unending danger. Nothing will ever be the same, and Bevan doesn't spend enough time explaining how our characters can just write that off and walk away.
If you were ripped away from everyone and everything you loved, how would you process that? Would you find yourself having an almost casual conversation with the person that did that to you? Where Bevan hits better notes, I think, are when Critical Failures relishes in its bread and butter contemporary fableau strongpoints, and doesn't try to be more than the enjoyable tongue-in-cheek romp that it is.
Cooper is every bit suited to life as a half-orc barbarian, full of insults and brash decisions, and the characters' slow discovery of their latent abilities is handled with an amused eye for the idiosyncrasies of the "game's" rules and the quirky tendencies of its most strident players.
How does one speak in Elven, for example? Adopt an English accent. Being a gifted musician and troubadour? Here, it's a fate worse than death. No one is safe from sarcasm, and that includes animal familiars, local peasants, and even the fantasy-staple critters that populate the text.
Those creatures, by the way, are realized in vibrant fashion by Bevan. As much as I sometimes took issue with the scenes taking place involving multiple strangers or interior environments I couldn't always understand exactly what was going on , Bevan writes creepy crawlies with an absolute eye for how they would function in a fantasy world's ecosystem.
Every dangerous beast that he brings within weapons range of our heroes is described with an almost naturalist's eye for realistic behavior, and this ramps up the sense of urgency and dread I experienced when reading about them. I had some additional, minor points of complaint. One is the inconsistent setting--the village waxes from a medieval-like setting to almost pan-Victorian. Further, the bulk of the book's action basically takes place in two areas: the woods, and the prison, and that's it.
I get that Bevan is setting things up for further adventures, but it would have been nice to see more of this world in this first book. Grammarians take note--I'm raising the red flag on editing. It's probably something Mr. Bevan will address in a later revision, but this book really needs a pro-level editor. The mistakes never kept me from wanting to read the rest of the story I was enjoying it , but they were there.
I'm very forgiving of this sort of thing, but many readers won't be. It's worth noting that at the time I picked up Critical Failures , it was free on the Amazon storefront in Kindle format. There were more than a few times that I almost lost control of myself in a public venue reading it.
Though the book isn't for everyone, if you have any background at all with fantasy RPG's--particularly the variety that take place over beer and pretzels at ten o'clock on a Friday night--then this book is an absolute no-brainer.
Don't let my feedback to the author stop you, just go get your copy. And for goodness sake, never roll giant black D20's. Oct 20, Gilbert Stack rated it it was amazing. The basic plot is fairly typical—a group of role-playing gamers get transported into their role-playing universe and have to learn to survive as their characters. But the differences are what makes this story great.
And to be fair, they were being really irritating—ribbing each other and him and other forms of goofing off. This is where the second great distinguishing characteristic comes to play. At times this seems crazy, but it really makes the whole book a lot of fun and strangely more realistic.
Add in that two of the people have no experience with the game, two of the players have chosen races that normally hate each other, and that Mordred keeps interfering in their game, messing with them, and sometimes communicating with them, and the enjoyment keeps going up. Even better, at times Mordred helps at least one of them, making it unclear for a while if he is actually a total villain.
Finally, the ending was a complete surprise to me. If you liked this review, you can find more at www. Dec 28, Amber rated it really liked it Shelves: audio , male-authors , fiction , fantasy , action-adventure , made-me-lol , , testosterone-poisoning , dude-lit. Highbrow literature, it ain't. It's not particularly well-written, nobody here is particularly likable, and it's an enormous farce. But it was entertaining enough that I wanted to pick up the second book right away when the first one ended.
There are a lot of angry gamers out there complaining that it's insulting to gamers — they hate it for all the same reasons they hate Big Bang Theory. But the entire point of the story is that these are NOT typical gamers — these characters are such a bunch of jerkwads that the Cavern Master, who BTW is also a total and unredeemable jerkwad himself, can't take more than an hour of them and punishes their bad behavior by magicking them into the game. Also, I remember a certain little TV comedy called Seinfeld, in which all the characters were repellent assholes who richly deserved each other, and they were an insult to human beings If even a couple of them were halfway normal, decent people, there would simply be no story because they wouldn't get into any of these situations.
And it's the same with these dillholes. If they were polite and respectful to each other and everyone around them, it not only wouldn't be funny, it would never have happened and there would be no story. It's almost like the exact opposite of the The Fionavar Tapestry , which a lot of sword-and-sorcery types adore — those characters traveled to an alternate world voluntarily, and once they got there, they just skipped all difficulties adjusting even though they knew nothing about this world before going there , and there was absolutely no humor anywhere in it.
Does it pass the Bechdel test?
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