Narrated by: Jonathan Sleep
Series: Caverns and Creatures, (5 books)
Individual listening times: 8 hrs 3 mins, 6 hrs 35 mins, 7 hrs 32 mins, 10 hrs 33 mins, 9 hrs 33 mins
Total listening time: 42 hrs 16 mins

Upfront Recommendation
This series is pretty good and well worth a listen if you like the fantasy genre.  And even if you don’t you may get a surprise and feel yourself getting into it.

I was never a fan of Lord of the Rings, which is the normal go-to pure fantasy kind of book.  But this?  This I am.
And I think the reason is that it’s funny.  Its massively sarcastic, it includes a much better overall series plot, the characters are absurd, yet they do indeed grow, and the entertainment value is just way higher than anything that would normally fit into the ‘fantasy’ genre.

So what is this book about?

Basic premise of the series
The books follows 4 friends who enjoy playing a role-playing game called Caverns & Creatures (much like Dungeons & Dragons of course), for which certain outcomes are decided upon the rolling of a 20- sided dice.  Whether or not an attack/ manoeuvre is successful or not, or what degree of success it has is dependent on the number achieved.  20 being a perfect role, and 1 being a ‘Critical Failure’ where it obviously just doesn’t work.

After pissing off their new ‘Cavern Master’ (the guy who narrates the game as they go along) who is a purple cape wearing weirdo called Mordred, who takes the game a little too seriously; they are transported into the game.

They now have to survive in this strange world as the characters that they chose in the game with whatever powers or deficiencies those characters may possess, with the aim of eventually getting back to the real world.

Characters
The 4 main / original characters are:
Cooper – the half-Orc barbarian, possessing much of the brute strength for the group but having a ‘low charisma score’ meaning he will always say the wrong thing, and be disgusting even if he doesn’t mean it
Tim – the short little alcoholic gnome & a Rogue, being stealthy and apparently more intelligent,
Dave – the dwarf and cleric with the ability to heal, and
Julian – the Elf wizard and sorcerer with his ability to summon ‘mounts’ ie. horses to ride, but usually ends up summoning them as cannon fodder, sacrificing them instead of being attacked themselves.

Julian is by far my favourite character in this series, just because he has never played the game before, and so everything needs to be explained to him and he still looks at everything through the perspective of the real world.

Main antagonist – Mordred the Cavern Master and supposedly the creator of the game, responsible for transporting them all to the game world with the help of magical dice.

Over the course of the series many different characters are added, all having their character development going along.

Some of the more interesting ones are Katherine – Tim’s sister, who is and isn’t a vampire some of the time. (I won’t explain because I don’t want to spoil, but you just have to listen to it)
Dennis/ Denise a redneck policeman who is all kinds of weird, unprofessional and more than a little racist.
& Randy a reforming paedophile who ends up creating a god.  (again, I don’t want to spoil things… but you have to listen to it.)

Premise of the individual books
Whilst I have written a review for books 1 & 3, I have not for the others.

1 introduces you to the series, and book 3 is a particular stand out one because the main characters do end up coming back to the real world, but not in a way that they’d hoped for.

You can read my individual reviews here Book 1- Caverns & Creatures    Book 3 – A Storm of S-Words.

But I know that some of you are not going to click on those, and want a basic run down here so.

Book 1 – Caverns & Creatures 8 hrs 3 mins

Introduction to the gang, the game, the initial premise as explained above

Book 2 – Fail Harder 6 hrs 35 mins

Introduction to the ‘Whores Head Tavern’ where the gang meets up with a whole bunch of other people from the real world who have also been transported by Mordred, for essentially pissing him off in some way, albeit in a way less severe that Tim’s gang.

Katherine & her date Chaz have also been transported to the game, with Katherine become a half-Elf a Druid (someone at-one with nature)  & Chaz a Bard (musical jester kind of character).

The gang loses Katherine and find that she’s been taken to some castle up in the hills by the resident vampire.  The gang must find a way to get her back

Book 3 -A Storm of S-words 7 hrs 32 mins

The gang manage to get passage to the real world via Professor Goosewaddle, only to find out that they are still in their fantasy world characters bodies.  They enlist the help of several new people to find Mordred and make things go back to the way they were

Book 4 – The Phantom Pinas 10 hrs 33 mins

The hunt for Mordred is back on, but this time in the game world.  Mordred has been transported back as well, and he’s amassing an army to get his revenge on everyone that has done him injustice.

Book 5 – V is for Five 9 hrs 33 mins

The gang + new characters split up, Tim is on the run after believed to have turned traitor, and the others are still out to find Mordred and get some answers.

Parallel books

In between the main books of the series is a bunch of supposedly parallel short stories, the first one being D6, then 2d6, 3d6, & 4d6.

For more information, read my review on these short stories here.
They really are a bit of hit and miss to be honest.  Some stories are very good, some… you could just sleep through.

Narration & Performance
Jonathan Sleep does a fantastic job with this.  All characters are performed fantastically.  The supplementary characters of which there are many, all have their own way of speaking, own accents, and own sounds.  It really adds to the ease of listenability of the story.

The characters of Dennis & Randy added in book 3 are amazing.  They both have this dumb-ass sounding redneck drawl, and it’s hilarious to listen to.

With the introduction of book 3, the performance level greatly increases as well.
For instance voices on the telephone…you can hear the faded out/ muffled voices from the other side, actual lute strumming sounds when Chaz plays his lute,
and TV sounds when someone is watching porn on the TV. (yes, that happens).

Same as spinning/ screeching of the wheels as someone driving around a corner.

Thoughts on the progression of the series
Ok so I finally finished the whole series of Critical Failures by Robert Bevan, or at least to what is available at the moment.

And to be honest, I’m kind of getting a little tired of it. And I can see by the reviews of the 5th book on audible.com that I’m not the only one.
The 5th book ends quite abruptly, with the story not finished yet.
Understandably then, there is going to be a 6th book in the series. And maybe… maybe a 7th if Bevan doesn’t manage to wrap things up in this upcoming book.

Whilst the 1st book actually wasn’t that great, in the way that some pilot episodes of tv shows aren’t that great because they have to introduce the concept, all the characters etc in a reasonable time frame.  Yet the book set up a great concept, and it was followed through well with book 2 which was great, and book 3 which was amazing.

But book 4 was just so-so. And even though the intent was there to make it a grand spectacle… it just wasn’t there.

I think I even fell asleep a couple of times.

Book 5 feels like the story is trying to get back on track, but it really feels like it needs to come to an end soon.

The books are still funny, but the story is slipping.

I hope that Bevan rounds the series out and creates a decent ending, and of course I’ve invested this much in the series so I’d like to hear the end of it. But I’m ready to move onto something else.

I leave you with some memorable quotes/ moments from books 4 & 5.

You can find memorable quotes/ moments from Book 1  & book 3 here.

Book 4
Pretty gruesome of Katherine destroying an owl bear.

Tony the elf’s deductions of a paladin and the owl bear fight afterwards.
Chaz’s questioning of his story.
Chaz – “That’s fucking retarded.”
Tony – “Do you have an alternate theory you’d like to share?”
Chaz – “No, but just because I don’t for a fact know what actually happened, it doesn’t mean I have to accept the first crackpot theory someone pulled out of their ass….That’s how religions are formed.”

Denise to Randy, “even if it’s so, your hands have jacked off more cock than a Thai masseuse.” (Talking about Jesus’ healing magic flowing through Randy’s hands)

That must be devil magic.

With bells ringing constantly.
Tim – “We get it, it’s a million o clock, now please knock it off already”

-He must have been sweating like a rapist under all that clothing/ bandages.

Talking to Katherine , imitating ‘intimidating’ creeps from back I’m the real world.
“Yo what’s up baby girl?” Stupid gangsta
“that’s the way I talk to bitches yo”

-Katherine, to two NPC rednecks.  – “Dance for me.”
“You may dance for me or you can suck your friends dick.”
They both started bending down lifting their shoulders up and down and elbows in and out.
Katherine – “What the hell is that?”
The pair of them looked like a couple of robots trying to reinvent the Charleston
Yellow teeth –“I’m so sorry”, he lowered his arms , dropped to his knees and said… “Come on Mosley, undo your britches….”

-Finally….His willy was free.

-Bar tender – “Will there be anything else for you gentleman tonight?”
A polite way of saying, pay the tab and then get the fuck out of my sight before I cut you.

-Denise- “Randy, you got to tell those two brain cells you got there, to get to a fucking, cause you got an under-population problem.”

0Denise – “Randy’s queerer than a barrel of faggots.”
Frank- “Is that true?”
Randy- “Well I don’t know exactly what a barrel of faggots is, but I am a queer man.”
Frank- “I can safely say that no one here gives any fuck about that. But I was talking about the wolf.”

-Katherine trying to meet Cooper but getting it wrong.

When he…, or rather she turned around she was the biggest, most brutish human woman she had ever seen…outside of a Walmart.

Book 5

Denise/ Dennis is the most vulgar character ever, but still funny.

Centaur sex.

Talking about the fertile desert.
Stacy – “This place is more fertile than an Alabama middle school.”


Get a free trial of audible with 2 free books, listen to books like this for free, & then if you want….just quit before 30 days & you get to keep everything… sounds like a pretty good deal to me.