Solo #1

By: Vasily Mahanenko, Anna Allen - translator

Narrated by: Christopher P. Brown

I was the greatest mage of chaos of my time, spending sixty years defending the world from rift creatures. If there was a mission—I completed it. If there was an enemy—I destroyed them. I was loyal to the Empire to my bone, until it decided to wipe out the Chaos clan and every last one of its members.

But life has a way of surprising you, and I got a second chance to walk the entire path again. Except the rules were different this time around. Now chaos is the weakest of the six elements, and its mages are considered bottom-feeders.

Well, time to show this world just how dead wrong it is. Chaos is mighty, and so is its true warrior!

©2025 Vasily Mahanenko (P)2026 Tantor Media

An interesting take on a chaos skill

Overall, I enjoyed the story. The author begins be providing an amble backstory for what becomes the MC's motivation for his quest. While the plot mostly revolves around him, he does take in several sidekick characters, oddly, all female and all described as stunningly beautiful HaHa!

I look forward to the next book in the series.

Christopher P. Brown's performance was quite good.

it's ok

It's ok, at least it's not misery listening porn like most Russian novels. Where the protagonist has to suffer the entire time. Pretty sure I will get the next one

Definitely worth a credit

This was a very enjoyable. Listen I finished it in one day. Can’t wait to listen to book 2 and continue in this great series.

It’s great! Mostly..

One thing I didn’t understand is why he only has one spell? He has 3 circles so he should have a spell for each circle like other mages. Also it’s very annoying how he gives away every valuable thing he finds. The pass to the academy, the 5th rank shard, and because he keeps giving everything away he is weaker than he should be and has to compete for his spot. It’s dumb. He also wastes a bunch of time training these ungrateful mages instead of getting stronger. Not my cup of tea, especially when these same people call chaos mages worthless weaklings. Other than that insufferable nonsense it’s decent. I can’t stand men who just give away their hard earned things to women for no reason really, and helping them without expecting anything in return, why??! They want to impress the beauties? The author makes it seem like if a woman is pretty enough there’s no way any man could resist. What nonsense! Not only that but instead of running around helping these strangers he could have been doing rifts, getting stronger, until the day registration opened. Then he could have walked right in with the necklace and been much better off, probably with more rift artifacts and at least one more circle. Yet this trope of stunningly beautiful women being “saved” by protagonist blah blah. Yah just give away your time and possessions you only risked your life for. Why not? She’s pretty! Also, how is earth spike a nature spell?? Obviously spells like entangle, root wall, root spike, or healing spells like rejuvenation or natures blessing. Earth spike belongs to the Earth element, obviously. The consequences of doing things his way make him a ton of enemies and he doesn’t get new spells even at 4 circles… I don’t like the lack of any real progression. Then the same thing happens again when he helps the princess with her problem for free. Jeeeeez