The Village of Noobtown

So Many Pumas!

Review by: The Audiobook ReviewVillage of Noobtown, written by Ryan Rimmel, picks up immediately from book one, with our hero Jim, the mayor of Noobtown, having just made it through his first real trials of saving the town. Much to his annoyance, though, being mayor of a town isn't all he thought it'd be cracked up to be - a lot of running errands for townsfolk and a lot fewer adventures.

Downtrodden, Jim needs an escape from the daily grind. Of course, it doesn't take long for things to start going wonky. Running the town seemed familiar, like when I used to play SimCity so many years ago. You get one thing going well, and other parts start going wrong.

Jim sets out for the nearest town to open trade negotiations. Rather than travelling through bandit-infested forests, he picks the other way round... a forest that turns out is infested with pumas. So many fecking pumas.

This was a pleasant addition to the world. I did enjoy the first book, but I did mention how long Jim's character sheet was getting, to the point it was putting me off. Fortunately, either through judicious editing or just a change in writing style, there was a lot less of this in book two, so it didn't get bogged down as much.

Narration by Johnathan McClain was good, with a noticeable improvement in quality. Some still obvious re-takes here and there where the tone changed, but otherwise nothing to really worry about.


I'm glad I kept going with this series, and I look forward to the many more books still to come.