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Vainqueur the Dragon

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Vainqueur the Dragon

By: Maxime Durand
Narrated by: Jack Voraces
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About this listen

Vainqueur Knightsbane is your average dragon: A giant, fire-breathing lizard who loves to take naps on his golden hoard, kidnap princesses for fun, and make the life of adventurers miserable. Vainqueur's only pleasure in life is to watch his treasure get bigger, one coin at a time.

So when a would-be thief turned unwilling minion tells him about "classes", "levels", and "quests", Vainqueur wonders if maybe, just maybe, he should consider a career change.

After all, why bother hunting monsters for free when you can get paid for it?

©2019 Maxime Durand (P)2020 Spectrum Audiobooks Classics Fantasy Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Funny Witty Litrpg Comedy
All stars
Most relevant
Highly entertaining!
Different from other LitRpg books.
On a good way.
I hope it'll be more like this.
Cheers!!

This was AWESOME!!

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yes it's was very good. story a bit different,performance strong. can't wait for the next book.

great fun

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This was a really nice, enjoyable book. There was consistent humour throughout and the tone remained light-hearted and fun.

The setting was well done as a sort of fantasy with a game system and the plot, while episodic, was good. Some of the characters were a bit flat but others had a lot of depth and growth so that evened out.

The narration was top notch although there were some long pauses occasionally. Overall I would definitely recommend this book.

This was great fun

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The narrator is fantastic, it’s funny, there’s progression, and the relationship between our human MC and Vainqueur is so wholesome. I would definitely recommend this book to people who like litRPG isekais, or dragons. The only thing I disliked was that the story is very meandering and there was no drive behind the plot. Definitely going to be getting the next one as there was some set up at the end that I want to see pay off.

Great litRPG isekai.

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TLDR
Comedy/satire about a dragon that becomes an adventurer, which actually had be laugh allowed in places.
Background
After foolish human Victor accidentally wakes the read the dragon Vainqueur and makes the mistake of explaining the leveling system. Vainqueur decides he wants in and that adventuring may be...profitable. With his "loyal" (terrified) new minion as a guide, and a dragon invented levelling system (for who other than a great dragon could come up with such an invention) to discover, Vainqueur takes to the world with GREED in his eyes.
Why I liked it.
Let's start with the dragon in the room. Vainqueur (best dragon) is AMAZING, the narration uses special effects to give his voice a rumbling and gravitas that really leads to the character. He is a dragon in the truest sense of the word, not a noble creature (though he will say otherwise) with a long view on the world, he lives for his horde, to gather riches and collect Princesses (for bragging rights, which he would naturally release unharmed to go forth and make more Princesses, such is the cycle of life). Vainqueur is assured highly egotistical (in the most wonderful way) assured, that dragons are infalliable and all other creatures are lesser (though he doesn't hold it against them for not being born dragons). Yet with all of this Vainqueur is written as a character that grows throughout the story, he has his own insecurities and as his world view is challenged, he has parts of genuine character growth.
Likewise in contrast to the immortal dragon, is the rather squishy minion Victor. A mortal from our world, who still wants to go home, but now finds himself as the chief minion and second in the foodchain (an important place to be) to Vainqueur. He is a character in direct juxtaposition and serves to balance and showcase the dragon, at the same time he too begins to learn his place in the world and grow.
The story is a comical/satirical one, which is shown in all aspects of the story, from the interaction fo Vainqueur and his minion to the actual world building, the nature of the Gods, but the comedy is all played straight. Vainqueur is a hypercapitalist, one dark church purchases corpses (under luctrative contracts) with the intention to spark a revolution in the labour force, and while there are absolutely ridicilous moments (which I will leave you to discover) they almost get really easily folded into the story and so get folded into the tapestry of the narative rather than glaringly stand out.
As I mentioned previously Vainqueur is a Dragon and played as a horde loving one and the reason I bring this up again is that what this does is really change his priorities, as he meets other people in the world there is always this glorious clash in ideals and priorities which keeps occuring, as people struggle to fully understand one another. Vainqueur is really written as an alien creature and ultimately this adds to a marvelous read.
Jack Vorhess does an amazing job with the narration, knowing when to ham it up to 11 and when to play things straighter. The voice modulation on Vainqueur really makes him stand apart.
Why you might not like it.
If you are looking for a serious book or epic 10 book fantasy then this isn't for you. As of yet there are 4 books (3 narrated) out so far, but having read only book 1, I don't see how it will go past 5 (and hopefully won't).
For the first half of the story there is little threat to Vainqueur with parts later feeling less tense (because he is a huge freaking dragon) than other stories. This worked really well for me and my current mood, but might not float your boat.
Overall.
I held off starting Defiance of the Fallen as I enjoyed this book so much. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes and highly recommend it for anyone looking for something a bit different or lighter. I really struggled working out whether to write this review as I do my others or in an in-character voice (I may do that at a later stage). Loved it.

Loved it.

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