Sound and Silence: A LitRPG Adventure

Worth the Candle, Book 5

Always the Dungeon Master, never the academic.

Juniper Smith always dreamed of attending a magic college. Now he's enrolled at the Athenaeum of Sound and Silence, where students learn to bend velocity and freeze motion itself. There's just one catch: he's there as a government operative, hunting threats that lurk in the shadows between lectures.

Echoes of Earth follow him even here. An old friend wears a stranger's face, carrying secrets about Arthur's time in Juniper's world—secrets that could rewrite everything Juniper thought he understood. Under the watchful eye of an umbral professor draped in colors that belie her shadowy nature, he finds himself navigating lessons far more dangerous than any syllabus.

Dark forces are converging on the athenaeum, and Juniper is about to get an education in more ways than one.

©2026 Alexander Wales (P)2026 Podium Audio

Just wonderful

I love this series and cannot wait for the next installment. Audiobook is worth waiting for

A cut above.

Despite a new height of power and achievement for the council of arches, this book leads to a dark chapter in the series, it ends at a difficult point for juniper in particular. I know of no other author in the 'progression fantasy' or 'lit rpg' space who has the courage and competence to write a narrative like this.

Best book in the series

Alexander Wales deftly maneuvers a myriad of sensitive and complex interpersonal issues throughout this series. From thoughts of self harm, grief, questioning one’s sexuality, gender identity or in this case, consent, sexual assault and the fact, often brushed aside in American culture or at the very least considered taboo, that a man can be raped by a woman.

I’ve enjoyed this series immensely and I can’t wait for the next chapters in this saga. Bravo.

Excellent continuation

This story maintains the the high standard set for both the satisfying intelligence, and emotional depth, of the previous books.

Outstanding fantasy, TOO MUCH DISCUSSION OF FEELINGS

This would be a 10 hour book without all of the monologue on feelings & literal therapy sessions. Disappointing because the d&d/fantasy elements are novel and very well thought out & developed. Very mixed bag; for better or for worse, through good writing & bad I’m generally willing to follow where the author leads us but I found myself regularly skipping &fast forwarding thru entire chapters of emotional decompression to get back to fantasy