20 LitRPG Books That Are Virtually Unputdownable

The first book in M.D. Ireman's Bounds of Reception series, The Axe and the Throne follows Tallos as he journeys north to find the bodies of his friend's sons, who are said to have been taken by Northmen, but what he finds instead is far more gruesome.

In The Land: Founding, the first book in Aleron Kong's Chaos Seeds series, Richter is banished to The Land, which is full of deadly and challenging foes, and he must figure out how to forge his own kingdom (while also somehow surviving).

Ritualist, the first installment in Dakota Krout's The Completionist Chronicles, follows the story of Joe, who decides to become a permanent addition to a game world, only to realize that in this game, people with his abilities are actively hunted.

The first book in Dakota Krout's The Divine Dungeon series, Dungeon Born, introduces Cal, a man who has spent years trapped within a magical stone but is slowly learning to increase his power and size — though the only way to continue developing is to eat anyone who enters his depths.

The Commander's Tale, the first book in Dean Henegar's Limitless Lands series, tells the story of Colonel James Raytak, a 93-year-old combat veteran who begins an experimental life support system controlled by an artificial intelligence, which imports his consciousness directly into an unreleased new game.

The first book in Vasily Mahanenko's Way of the Shaman series, Survival Quest explores the world of Barilona, where millions of players escape for months at a time to experience magic and combat — but also where criminals are sent to serve their time in a virtual inferno.

In AlterWorld, the first book in D. Rus's Play to Live series, a seasoned gamer and terminal cancer patient named Max decides to extend his chances of survival by escaping into the virtual landscape of AlterWorld, though he knows a new pandemic may cause him to be stuck in this virtual world forever.

In Cosimo Yap's Opening Moves, the first book in The Gam3 series, a college student named Alan escapes reality and the alien invasion plaguing Earth by focusing all his energy into the digital universe of The Game, though the stakes of this virtual world are much higher than he initially imagined.

The first book in G. Akella's Realm of Arkon series, Patch 17 follows gamer Roman Kozhevnikov, who finds himself trapped inside the deadliest zone of his favorite game against his will, and through his character, Krian, Roman must fight to survive (as well as to exact revenge for his banishment to the virtual world).

In The Trapped Mind Project, the first book in Michael Chatfield's Emerilia series, a former CEO named Austin Zane decides to build a new life for himself as Dave, a half-dwarf in the virtual reality game, but instead of an escape, he discovers that Earth as he knows it is really a virtual reality simulation.

James Hunter's Cataclysm, the first book in the Viridian Gate Online series, tells the story of Jack Mitchel, an EMT who attempts to survive the asteroid hurtling toward Earth by entering an ultraimmersive virtual world, even though that means permanently trapping his mind and killing his body in the process.

The first book in Terry Schott's The Game Is Life series, The Game follows Zack, a 74-year-old man who wakes to find himself in a world where he is 17 and no longer near death, but instead welcomed back and asked if he is ready for his next game.

In Andrei Livadny's Edge of Reality, the first book in the Phantom Server series, a cyber dweller who wishes to desert the real world for the virtual one discovers a new universe that may allow him to cut off his ties from reality for good — even though the stakes of this new universe are much higher than ever before.

In Daniel Schinhofen's Gamer For Life, the first book in the Alpha World series, a man facing life in prison without parole agrees to an opportunity to test long-term immersion in a new virtual reality game, deciding life imprisonment in a virtual world is preferable to life behind bars.

The first book in Andrew Rowe's Arcane Ascension series, Sufficiently Advanced Magic follows Corin Cadence as he attempts to rescue his brother from the Serpent Spire — a colossal tower with ever-shifting rooms, traps, and monsters that his brother never returned from five years before.

Luke Chmilenko's Ascend Online, the first in a trilogy of the same name, follows Marcus as he enters a revolutionary new video game with his friends, only to find himself separated from them the moment he logs in and thrown into a remote village under attack.