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Pandora Unchained #1
Pandora Unchained: A Progression Fantasy Epic
Grow in Power. Master his Rare Class. Survive the Demon Tide.
When Sorin's parent's mysteriously die, he is starved for truth and thirsty for revenge. He begs the Eighth Evil, Hope, for assistance, and his prayers are answered...
...Though not in the way he ever expected.
He is made a Poison Cultivator, a rare Class that is shunned by high society.
Unable to continue his medical practice, Sorin turns to adventuring to make ends meet. Though he's only able to afford to team with a ragtag crew of outcasts as companions—An armored polar bear, a stern archer, a sleep-deprived pyromancer, and a peeping-tom rogue. Oh, and a rebellious rat familiar who won’t stop eating the party’s loot when no one is watching.
Things are looking up, until Sorin discovers his ancestor’s hidden research notes about forbidden medical research. What dark deeds was his family up to? Only he can find out... if he and his party can survive the coming Demon Tide.
The Gods are dead. The Seven Evils reign. Only Hope stands between humanity and extinction...
Don't miss this new Cultivation Progression Fantasy series from Patrick Laplante, bestselling author of Painting the Mists. Featuring loads of power progression, demon slaying, dungeons, loot, crafting, and even a rebellious pet rat, it's got something for everyone!
When Sorin's parent's mysteriously die, he is starved for truth and thirsty for revenge. He begs the Eighth Evil, Hope, for assistance, and his prayers are answered...
...Though not in the way he ever expected.
He is made a Poison Cultivator, a rare Class that is shunned by high society.
Unable to continue his medical practice, Sorin turns to adventuring to make ends meet. Though he's only able to afford to team with a ragtag crew of outcasts as companions—An armored polar bear, a stern archer, a sleep-deprived pyromancer, and a peeping-tom rogue. Oh, and a rebellious rat familiar who won’t stop eating the party’s loot when no one is watching.
Things are looking up, until Sorin discovers his ancestor’s hidden research notes about forbidden medical research. What dark deeds was his family up to? Only he can find out... if he and his party can survive the coming Demon Tide.
The Gods are dead. The Seven Evils reign. Only Hope stands between humanity and extinction...
Don't miss this new Cultivation Progression Fantasy series from Patrick Laplante, bestselling author of Painting the Mists. Featuring loads of power progression, demon slaying, dungeons, loot, crafting, and even a rebellious pet rat, it's got something for everyone!
770 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 3, 2024
208 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 9, 2024
This story talks a lot about corruption entering cultivator bodies from wounds caused by demon beasts. But there's more corruption in every facet of Sorin's society. It's systemic and blatant, and no-one seems inclined to address the issue. I find it unpalatable.
Pandora Unchained is a serviceable, if unoriginal novel. The protagonist and his team are likeable and the world's scope is tiny. It was an easy read, just not memorable.
Pandora Unchained is a serviceable, if unoriginal novel. The protagonist and his team are likeable and the world's scope is tiny. It was an easy read, just not memorable.
October 22, 2024
This would have been a solid 3 to 3.5 stars, however, I couldn't get past the fact that a member of the team was basically a pervy peeping Tom who people made jokes about but never seriously punished / criticized. Being friends / teammates with a creepy person makes you a creepy person.
December 16, 2024
This is a good story with a well-made main character. The side characters are what bring it down. They are very one dimensional, obviously there for a signal purpose and nothing else. The more villainous characters are stereotypical and boring. Some attemp is made to mitigate this in the end, but it seems tacked on with no real basis.
November 3, 2024
Meh. Almost dropped this several times. Probably would have if I had found anything else to read. The characters , action and plot are all mediocre.
Spoilers
The character is supposedly a genius, started being a doctor at 12, but when he gets a way to put his destroyed life back together, but knows that doing so publicly where his spy servants will tell his family and try to ruin him, he does it anyway. He could have snuck off to another city, taken a new name, and none of the drama of this book would have happened easily.
Also poison is a boring power set. And what a coincidence that random encounters keep involving poison that let him progress, how lucky.
Spoilers
The character is supposedly a genius, started being a doctor at 12, but when he gets a way to put his destroyed life back together, but knows that doing so publicly where his spy servants will tell his family and try to ruin him, he does it anyway. He could have snuck off to another city, taken a new name, and none of the drama of this book would have happened easily.
Also poison is a boring power set. And what a coincidence that random encounters keep involving poison that let him progress, how lucky.
September 22, 2025
Enjoyable premise that's poorly written
I don't like giving negative reviews, but at least I will include constructive criticism.
First, have you read Primal Hunter? Because the author obviously has. There are some things that could be considered universal, such as a ranged attack having a PowerShot skill. But when certain specifics start to show up, like poison and alchemy being the core of their cultivation, a gaze attack that stuns people, your internal cultivation being the alpha predator and giving you extra powers because you're superior? That's a little too on the nose. And a companion that says "Ree!"
Next, the writing is simply amateur. More than 9/10 times dialogue ends with "said ."
"I understand" said Sorin.
"We need to leave!" said Lawrence.
"We have them on the ropes" said Stephen.
Almost every time. There are many ways to change up who said what and how but the author does not use them.
There were also a number of punctuation, spelling, and misnaming mistakes. Many of these could have been caught by a common spell checker, let alone a proofreader. It's immersion breaking when person A gets a new skill, but person B uses it, then back to person A speaking about it.
Another bit of the amateurish writing was the flip floppy nature of some of the relationships, namely between Sorin and Marcus. Also Sorin and his servants. I found myself confused as to whether he trusted or hated people depending on the chapter. You know your servants are spying on you, yet you trust them with your deep secrets? Occasionally it is remarked that information is intentionally leaked but all the other times I have to wonder.
The author explains the currency system, having copper, silver, and gold, and the conversion rate. One single time silver is used and every other time currency is mentioned it's in gold regardless if it's a cup of coffee or a library fine. What's the point of a currency system if everything uses the largest denomination of coin?
The power creep is not sustainable. The characters go from barely handling common fodder to fighting well above their rank in short order.
Similarly, world secrets are not kept secret for long. Something happens to Stephen and they make a big deal about keeping it quiet. However, it soon happens to Sorin, and he runs his mouth about everything. Then it turns out that everybody knows about it, besides just the powerful families. And then, and this annoyed me greatly, everyone else gets the rare, secret, hush hush power that was supposed to be a big deal. Doing that makes it not a big deal at all. And at this point in the story you can tell, due to the lackluster writing, that this thing is going to happen to everybody; it's just a matter of time. The entire story became extremely predictable as the foreshadowing was not subtle.
I liked the touching of Greek mythology, and how the world is shaping up, but I can't stand the writing. At about 80% I was hate-reading; I had to finish the book but I was not enjoying it. Everything was predictable and the power was skyrocketing to the point of not being fun. A lot of "of course they do" moments. Of course that one gets a hero power. Of course that one can fly and go invisible. Of course they're able to do the thing that no one else can and should kill them.
Sadly, I cannot continue this series. As I said, the idea behind the world sounds interesting, but the writing is simply not entertaining enough to make me want to explore where it's all headed.
I don't like giving negative reviews, but at least I will include constructive criticism.
First, have you read Primal Hunter? Because the author obviously has. There are some things that could be considered universal, such as a ranged attack having a PowerShot skill. But when certain specifics start to show up, like poison and alchemy being the core of their cultivation, a gaze attack that stuns people, your internal cultivation being the alpha predator and giving you extra powers because you're superior? That's a little too on the nose. And a companion that says "Ree!"
Next, the writing is simply amateur. More than 9/10 times dialogue ends with "said ."
"I understand" said Sorin.
"We need to leave!" said Lawrence.
"We have them on the ropes" said Stephen.
Almost every time. There are many ways to change up who said what and how but the author does not use them.
There were also a number of punctuation, spelling, and misnaming mistakes. Many of these could have been caught by a common spell checker, let alone a proofreader. It's immersion breaking when person A gets a new skill, but person B uses it, then back to person A speaking about it.
Another bit of the amateurish writing was the flip floppy nature of some of the relationships, namely between Sorin and Marcus. Also Sorin and his servants. I found myself confused as to whether he trusted or hated people depending on the chapter. You know your servants are spying on you, yet you trust them with your deep secrets? Occasionally it is remarked that information is intentionally leaked but all the other times I have to wonder.
The author explains the currency system, having copper, silver, and gold, and the conversion rate. One single time silver is used and every other time currency is mentioned it's in gold regardless if it's a cup of coffee or a library fine. What's the point of a currency system if everything uses the largest denomination of coin?
The power creep is not sustainable. The characters go from barely handling common fodder to fighting well above their rank in short order.
Similarly, world secrets are not kept secret for long. Something happens to Stephen and they make a big deal about keeping it quiet. However, it soon happens to Sorin, and he runs his mouth about everything. Then it turns out that everybody knows about it, besides just the powerful families. And then, and this annoyed me greatly, everyone else gets the rare, secret, hush hush power that was supposed to be a big deal. Doing that makes it not a big deal at all. And at this point in the story you can tell, due to the lackluster writing, that this thing is going to happen to everybody; it's just a matter of time. The entire story became extremely predictable as the foreshadowing was not subtle.
I liked the touching of Greek mythology, and how the world is shaping up, but I can't stand the writing. At about 80% I was hate-reading; I had to finish the book but I was not enjoying it. Everything was predictable and the power was skyrocketing to the point of not being fun. A lot of "of course they do" moments. Of course that one gets a hero power. Of course that one can fly and go invisible. Of course they're able to do the thing that no one else can and should kill them.
Sadly, I cannot continue this series. As I said, the idea behind the world sounds interesting, but the writing is simply not entertaining enough to make me want to explore where it's all headed.
November 9, 2024
More enjoyable than ‘Painting the Mists’, which I found quite boring and convoluted. This is sometimes a bit obvious but the characters are interesting. However, the peeping tom pervert thing, if it is meant to be a running joke, really doesn’t work at all and I’m surprised they left it in. It’s super-creepy when you think about it for more than five seconds. And it doesn’t add comedy so I don’t see what it’s for at all. There is a bit in the book that made me laugh near the end, when people keep popping out of the shadows going, “Ah ha ha! But what you didn’t know is that I’m a triple double agent so you are outgunned!” “Is that so? But what you didn’t know was that I have a secret mega-powerful ally!” “Oh ho ho! But…” and so on. It was like the Scarlet Pimpernel. Not sure it’s intentional but you can’t have it all. Solid book mostly.
Edit: Oh, and while I remember it has one of my bugbears, a spider with mandibles. Spiders are chelicerates and so they have fangs, but not jaws. Instead of mandibles they have specially-adapted legs called chelicerae and they don’t chew, they digest externally. Horseshoe crabs, the other main group of chelicerates, can chew but they use their legs to do it!
Edit: Oh, and while I remember it has one of my bugbears, a spider with mandibles. Spiders are chelicerates and so they have fangs, but not jaws. Instead of mandibles they have specially-adapted legs called chelicerae and they don’t chew, they digest externally. Horseshoe crabs, the other main group of chelicerates, can chew but they use their legs to do it!
September 17, 2024
Ohhhh what fun. I hadn't read anything by Patrick Laplante before but this book was great. I found that the writing was nice and tight, plus the world building and storyline was good too... for a hot minute I thought that Adam Verner's voice performance was a bit too much but in reality it seemed that he caught the MC, Sorin's character perfectly... Sorin finds his life turned upside down when he asks the God of Hope for help... and yes the god helped, he had to out right stop practicing healing magic something he's done his entire life and join the adventure guild to be a mage poisoner. You can't heal and cultivate poison... or can you???
You're gonna hafta grab on to the book to find out what happens to Sorin and his adventure team and wots'dat a Rat, eeeuu 🐀 where'd he come from?!?
You're gonna hafta grab on to the book to find out what happens to Sorin and his adventure team and wots'dat a Rat, eeeuu 🐀 where'd he come from?!?
September 10, 2024
So many interesting takes
First off, let me express that I read for the enjoyment of the story. I don't dissect the story, grammar, etc. My main question when I finish a book is: did I enjoy it?
Yes, this book I very much enjoyed. It was an interesting take on cultivation and how the main character had to change so much to grow. I enjoyed the MCs progress as well as those associated with him.
The world building was good and I liked what the author did with the naming of the world and the "gods" that currently rule, and how it ties into the dead gods.
Highly recommend and can't wait for book two
First off, let me express that I read for the enjoyment of the story. I don't dissect the story, grammar, etc. My main question when I finish a book is: did I enjoy it?
Yes, this book I very much enjoyed. It was an interesting take on cultivation and how the main character had to change so much to grow. I enjoyed the MCs progress as well as those associated with him.
The world building was good and I liked what the author did with the naming of the world and the "gods" that currently rule, and how it ties into the dead gods.
Highly recommend and can't wait for book two
October 3, 2024
rat second most used companion
From his previous set heavily in Chinese mythology we get a world set in post-Greek apocalypse.
The story is deep into the medical field do I feel the author should read more up the names famous plants from thouse stories. But ya the story was great in every thing else has they is book felt like it could’ve been a script for a movie an rarely do such legends get created an now we have for everyone to enjoy
From his previous set heavily in Chinese mythology we get a world set in post-Greek apocalypse.
The story is deep into the medical field do I feel the author should read more up the names famous plants from thouse stories. But ya the story was great in every thing else has they is book felt like it could’ve been a script for a movie an rarely do such legends get created an now we have for everyone to enjoy
December 5, 2024
Not for me
The overacting in multiple voices was distracting for me. I'm not sure if the writers intent was a collection of sarcastic conversations or not. I would not pretend to be a writer or a voice actor. I'm just stating my opinion as someone who has read & listened to hundreds of books on Kindle & Audible.
The overacting in multiple voices was distracting for me. I'm not sure if the writers intent was a collection of sarcastic conversations or not. I would not pretend to be a writer or a voice actor. I'm just stating my opinion as someone who has read & listened to hundreds of books on Kindle & Audible.
September 14, 2024
Wonder filled
Wonderful, complicated, and intriguing world building! The character development is stellar. I can't wait to read what happens next!
Patrick Laplante is an amazing story teller. Thank you, sir.
Wonderful, complicated, and intriguing world building! The character development is stellar. I can't wait to read what happens next!
Patrick Laplante is an amazing story teller. Thank you, sir.
September 14, 2024
Great read
While the gang is off to a new city Can't wait to see What kind of troubles they get into next. I highly recommend you read this book it was definitely worth it , I could hardly put it down. I cannot wait for the next 1 December will not get here fast enough
While the gang is off to a new city Can't wait to see What kind of troubles they get into next. I highly recommend you read this book it was definitely worth it , I could hardly put it down. I cannot wait for the next 1 December will not get here fast enough
October 11, 2024
It took me a while, but what a ride
I didn't like this book, I loved this book. There are parts that are a little hard to follow, but they are few and far between. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book, NOW.
Highly recommended.
I didn't like this book, I loved this book. There are parts that are a little hard to follow, but they are few and far between. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book, NOW.
Highly recommended.
December 15, 2024
Captivating!
Lots of fun in a cultivating story from a different perspective! This is an atypical approach to a leveling story with lots of surprises to keep the story interesting. Great characters, with some evil adventurers in the midst of a demon surge! Enjoy!
Lots of fun in a cultivating story from a different perspective! This is an atypical approach to a leveling story with lots of surprises to keep the story interesting. Great characters, with some evil adventurers in the midst of a demon surge! Enjoy!
December 26, 2025
great start. interesting LitRPG.
excited to-read the next book. I like how the plot was developed without a lot of filler. Definitely a worthwhile read if you like Fantasy novels.
excited to-read the next book. I like how the plot was developed without a lot of filler. Definitely a worthwhile read if you like Fantasy novels.
September 4, 2024
Patrick's new series is off to a strong start, in a cataclysmic world with Greek- and class-based cultivation. Probably less accessible than Painting the Mists for readers new to cultivation fiction.
September 30, 2024
Great book
Great book I can't wait to read the next book in the series I would recommend this author to anyone
Great book I can't wait to read the next book in the series I would recommend this author to anyone
December 11, 2024
Very good
I liked the coming of age story of the young main character. Looking forward to reading his adventures on the way to godhood.
I liked the coming of age story of the young main character. Looking forward to reading his adventures on the way to godhood.
December 28, 2025
Even a cripple can be useful
It was interesting that someone who could be called a doctor of death used his gifts to fight with others. I really did not like the loot poacher.
It was interesting that someone who could be called a doctor of death used his gifts to fight with others. I really did not like the loot poacher.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews