DNF Audiobook Review – Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon by Matt Dinniman, Narrated Joe Hempel (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 20 hours and 9 minutes
Publisher:‎ Tantor Audio
Release Date: April 21, 2020
ASIN: B086N3599J
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Audible.
Rating: 3/5 stars

“A private server. A digital playground. An alliance of the world’s most sadistic, most depraved minds. A place to bring their prey, to hone their skills.

Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon. Survival horror. One of the most brutal, most terrifying full-immersion games ever made. A place where fantasy characters such as elves and dwarves clash with technology, where giant monsters roam the hills, entrusted with protecting the gates of heaven from the demons who would tear it all down.

A game where one plays the last of the battlefield surgeons: a healer tasked with keeping the behemoths alive at all costs.

But on this server, they don’t care about the game. That’s not why they’re here. They’ve come because of the game’s most unique feature: full pain. Realistic anatomy. The ability to bring their victims well beyond the body’s normal breaking point.
And most importantly, the ability to bring them back and do it all over again.

Trapped in a bloody, merciless nightmare, Duke only has one goal: to survive. And in order to survive, he must play the game. He must win the game. And to do that, he must become the most cruel, most ruthless monster of them all.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed audiobook this from Audible.

Thoughts: My husband and I stopped listening to this 50% of the way through to listen to The Inevitable Ruin (Dungeon Crawler Carl, 7) when that was released on audiobook. We started listening to this to tide us over between finishing up DCC6 and the release of DCC7. This was not as good. The characters aren’t as interesting and the story isn’t nearly as compelling. Also, the violence and torture here was a bit too over the top for both of us. I am giving it 3 stars as I do with most of my DNF because who knows maybe it gets way more awesome in the second half.

Duke is hired to do some artwork inside the game Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon only to find himself trapped in the game with a bunch of depraved lunatics. He is trapped in the game with the pain settings turned on and only his in-game skill as a battlefield surgery…for a Kaiju…to help him. What follows is a nightmarish quest full of torture, gore and general grossness.

This seemed promising at the beginning. Although, right away I found all the references to Dominion of Blade frustrating because I didn’t realize this was a sequel to that. However, as we got further and further into the book there were just too many parts that went a bit too far in the grossness and torture aspects for both me and my husband. I think it wasn’t necessarily the fact that these things were in the story, it was just the amount of time and frequency. We listened to this on audiobook, so it wasn’t like we could skim through a 30+ minute torture scene.

Added to the above is the fact that the characters here just aren’t that engaging or interesting. Duke is a pretty generic character; he could be anyone. I think Dinniman tries to make him more lifelike by mentioning his family and background, but we don’t really get to meet his family or see him interact with them, so they remain just a 2D backdrop in the story. This is similar to the other characters we meet, which there aren’t many of. They all seemed very 2-dimensional and were hard to engage with. There is pretty much no humor in here either, at least it never seems that funny given the surroundings.

After a few weeks of not listening to this, I realized I don’t miss it or want to know what happens in the story. Mostly I feel relieved that I haven’t had to watch Duke endure any more torture or general yuckiness. I don’t plan on listening to the rest of it.

The audiobook narration was also just okay. There is occasional confusion between character voice and the narrator isn’t nearly as compelling as Jeff Hays who does the DCC books (Hays is phenomenal). Personally, I would recommend reading this in standard book format if you are interested; that way you can skim the torture scenes if they get to be too much. I would also recommend reading Dominion of Blades first since that is referenced quite a bit in this book.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this wasn’t my favorite and I stopped reading at 50% of the way through. If you are looking for another Matt Dinniman book to read while you wait for the next DCC book….I would recommend re-reading the DCC series instead. This book wasn’t the same and not nearly as fun and engaging. I might still check out Dominion of Blades at some point.