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Monster's Mercy cover art

Monster's Mercy

Written by: William D. Arand
Narrated by: Andrea Parsneau
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Publisher's Summary

An existence spent being forced to kill others to satiate a Monster.

Where the only thing to look forward to was the blessed, if brief, period of time between paying that bribe.

Except that very same Monster is and isn’t Rene.

It just happened to live inside his own mind and force him to do what it wanted. Rather than being an actual Monster.

That was Rene’s entire life until a fateful day changed that.

A day that the career as a hitman for hire built on the Monster’s needs will end. Where Rene will be forced to atone for his actions. To be held accountable and judged.

Except the verdict is already long since passed and needs no deliberation.

His sentence was being sent hundreds of years into the past, into a different world even, where he must live a life for the betterment of others. Every action judged as it happens and weighed out against him.

But even this new idyllic life he’s been living in for 18 years is about to go off the rails and Rene will be forced back into a life lived in the underworld.

Armed with a few gifts granted to him by the one who judged him, gifts better suited to a fantasy about living in a video game, Rene has to maneuver his way back to his new life while using all the things he’d learned in his old one.

Except using those skills is a double-edged sword. If he’s not careful, he’ll end up right back where he started.

Dead and on his way to hell.

Warning and minor spoiler: This novel contains graphic violence, undefined relationships/harem, unconventional opinions/beliefs, and a hero who is as tactful as a dog at a cat show. Listen at your own risk.

©2019 William D. Arand (P)2020 William D. Arand

What listeners say about Monster's Mercy

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Ken
  • 2020-05-20

Story review

Loved the story. Andrea was a brilliant pick for the narrator. The bloopers are hilarious.

I hope William writes a sequel.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing story

I enjoyed every bit of this from the dark humour of the watcher to the kid like behaviour of Rene's "friend".
Andrea did a fantastic job of making all the voices believable, including all of Rene's different public characters.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

greatness it was

this is a great journey. a dark an interesting main character. powers and questions of right and wrong. anyone would enjoy this. also wonderful voice acting.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good enough but not fantastic

I didn't like the high pitched voice of the narrator when she does the ladies characters but it's still worth listening. However, the bloopers at the end was a blast.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Lui
  • 2020-05-18

Great Story

His books never seems to disappoint me and is always a fun read. This is a very good starting book for a trilogy and excited for more. Andrea Parsneau is a national treasure and needs to be protected at all cost!!!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

those bloopers though! Love'm!

Good book, looking forward to the next in the series and how it connects to the prior installments in the multiverse...

Review is more to say thank you for the bloopers at the end those were great!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

kind of RPGlit

Renee is a hit-man with a monster living in his head that makes him murder things. during an unfortunate accident. he ends up dying and a god picks him up and puts him in another world where he gets to live a relatively normal life. but he's told the monster will come back if is needed. Renee is kidnapped and the monster comes back. Renee must live a good life because if his karma bar goes into the red, he will be destroyed and "skull fucked" by the god.

The device of the monster as Renee's subconscious kind of works, but it is sort of clunky. I said this is kind of RPG lit because every time Renee either learns a new skill or gets better at it, wants to see how much health he has, or find out what shape his Karma is in, he is given a video game style reading and explanation. Some of his skills like Analyse seem to know no bounds of power.

Overall the narration is competent. A lot of the characters speak with the same voice so it is difficult to tell them apart, but they die soon so it does't matter.

I liked the characters and the world. I will get other books in the series,

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

I'm torn.

Enjoyed the story. Enjoyed the monster... Hated the weird-love-harem aspect to the story. It was cringy.

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Andrea Parsneau for the save!!

the only thing good is Mme. Parsneau's performance,
the rest well, some stuff is interesthing but it goes nowhere. If your a fan of the performer you could get this book, And for me the story ends here.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Couldn't get past the Crudity

The premise behind this story is actually fairly clever. A sociopathic hitman (Rene) - in constant dialogue with an internal "monster" - is transported into an RPG-like reality.. one that requires him to show empathy and heroic attributes in order to succeed. William D. Arand's story has the typical gain experience/grind skills/level up aspects of these books, but concentrates on Alignment. Admirably, he avoids focussing on character sheets and inventory screens - 'Monster's Mercy' works better in the audiobook format than many LitRPG offerings. Additionally, the plot is fairly sinuous, the dialogue is realistic, and the characters are intriguing. Less fortunately, Arand spends an inordinate amount of time on potty-humor and incel fantasy 'harem' nonsense - this book ends up being disappointingly puerile. It's clearly aimed at 13-year-old boys.

Andrea Parsneau's reading compounds the weaker aspects of the audiobook. Her tone/timbre/cadence and diction are creditable, but she reads too slowly (setting playback speed at 1.15X improved the narration) and her voice-acting is straight-up *brutal*: She cartoonishly growls some dialogue, chuckles nasally prior to every stupid monster rhyme, reads female voices with grating falsettos, and gives Rene a nonsensical British accent. I'm aware she has worked with Arand before, but he should have hired someone else for the project.

I'm admittedly not a huge fan of this genre, but have consumed enough GameLit to recognize quality and garbage. This 1.5 star out of 10 offering shows some promise.. later books could build on some genuine strengths if the author assembles a series.. but it's inferior. I bought the book on sale - and it was an okay purchase for the $6.25 CDN I paid for it - but unless you're already a fan of Mr. Arand, try something else.

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