The Beginning After the End: Publisher's Pack

My favorite book to date, I won't give anything away but if you're looking for a new fantasy book give this book a shot!

In the beginning it honestly took me a while to actually start and get into the story, but once I started I could not put it down. From start to finish every twist and turn of Art(Note's) journey I was in awe. I am more of a dark romance and romantasy reader. However this story captured and held all of my attention. From the first time you meet Arthur as King, to his infant stage, his 4yr stage and so on. Each stage of his life he took in strides and made sure he either taught himself or was taught all he could about what he could do. I throughly enjoyed Sylvie and all her stages too. Lastly the narration. Though this is a narrator I have never listened to before I honestly can say as I move forward into the storyline I could not imagine anyone else as the voice of Art other then Travis Baldree he did an absolute fabulous job.

Not a bad one, I enjoyed seeing him grow up, the MC is definitely overpowered, but I enjoy that. If you want a character that is always struggling for every win, then this is not for you.

I’m going to begin by saying, I read this on the Tapas app where the author updates the story weekly. This is one of my favorites there.Next when coming into this book series you need to understand a few things. This is what is termed a light novel. It’s meant to be an enjoyable easy read, something to pass the time. These are extremely common in Asia and are becoming popular everywhere. If your not into anime or Asian culture these may be a little odd to you or even not enjoyable to read.This story pulls from a typical prompt for these light novels of if someone died and got reincarnated into another world. The thing I like about this novel is our main character is from one fictional world (More militaristic sci-fi) and gets reincarnated into another fictional world (Pure Fantasy with all the bells and whistles). Also know that in this genre it is common for the MC to be overpowered. While that is the case in this one our MC does work very hard to get overpowered for his age.If your still with me then good. This likely is a story for you. There isn’t tons of description just enough to give you an idea and for your imagination to fill in the rest. What’s important in this story is the adventure. I’m not going to spoil the plot just know that I really enjoy this story and it’s progression. If reading a novel isn’t for you head over to the tapas app to read the webcomic that is also there. It’s just as good and you get a much better idea of what the characters and world looks like. But honestly many of the reviews here do not give this story the credit is deserves because it doesn’t follow the norm of what is considered a book. It is good and fun to read and that’s what matters.

BLUF: As individual books they're good, but too short. The 2 book publisher pack is perfect for taking the story to a good point, without felling cheated on content.The idea of being reborn with your previous life's knowledge isn't new. However, the author does a good job of illustrating that it's not easy. Being born knowing how to walk, talk or fight is not the same as having a body ready to do all of those things [memory is not the same as muscle memory to a body without muscle]. The MC does get to be a little OP, but is balanced by his youth and less than developed [age] body. Enjoyably the MC doesn't have the traditional antagonistic arrogance that a lot of similar OP characters would have in the same situation. Arthur/Art (MC) is confident, cautious, courteous and kind.The World(s) the author builds are fully developed, with small mysteries & elements being hinted and released throughout the series. The MC's original world is/was closer to a utopia than our current reality with wars fought by Kings [possibly Queens] in single combat. These individuals would use "qi/ki" to strengthen their body or have minor magical effects. The new world our MC finds himself in is full of magic and less technology. While knowledge of his previous life is a major help, he has to start over learning about how this new world's magic works.As for the over all story it's a good mix of seemingly Herculean labours for a child [with the mind of a king], and a literal literary example of growing up in a world with magic and adventure. Enjoy the read or Audible listen!

When I was about 16, I got really into Light Novels. I bounced around a lot, I went from Japanese to Chinese to Korean (Korean tended to captivate me the most). However, upon stumbling onto, TBATE (The Beginning After The End) I was amazed. Since it was written in English, there are no translation errors, and the Audiobooks are phenomenal (The narrator did an excellent job) The characters are very relatable and it obviously appeals to a younger audience (15-25 years of age (also, mostly males)) The excellent world building mixed with the magic system along with the spectacular twists and turns of the plot make this the best read of my life. I hope someone finds this helpful.

The manga is great too, and it's almost 1 to 1 with the book. I got up to partway through volume 3 in the manga (up to date as of this post) and couldn't stand to wait years for the manga to update so I got the audiobooks. About finished the first of two books, in audiobook format, and it's wonderful. My GF loves anime/manga and this is how I'm getting her into the series, since she listens to audiobooks too.Anytime we're listening to it and I have to pause the story for an extended period she's begging me to resume the story. It's very good.

Not really sure how the author sold the original books as complete books. There more along the lines of part 1 and part 2 in a series. Hoping the pace picks up a bit. The narrator, Travis Baldree, is, as always, great.