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Dave Willmarth Books in Order

Browse Dave Willmarth books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and simple where to start tips for Shadow Sun, Battleborne, and more.

Last updated: July 2, 2026

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24 books

Io Online

by Dave Willmarth

2017

Alexander and his guild make their living inside the world's biggest VRMMORPG, until a rare dungeon kill reveals demons thought long gone. An experimental immersion system changes everything, and trouble inside the game starts echoing beyond it.

The Dire Lands

by Dave Willmarth

2017

After an attack on Jupiter Tech's Olympus headquarters, Alexander and the Greystone Guild face danger in both the real world and Io. New allies, harsher dungeons, and betrayal test them as they claim and defend Dire Keep.

Darkness Fallen

by Dave Willmarth

2018

Alexander and the Greystone Guild expand their lands, forge new alliances, and prepare to strike the Dark One. Then tragedy hits, old enemies return, and the truth behind Io's growing darkness starts to surface.

Defenders of the Realm

by Dave Willmarth

2018

Elysia is thriving, but Alexander's kingdom soon faces an orc horde, escaped demons, and the Dark One's schemes all at once. To protect his people, the Greystone Guild has to fight a widening war on several fronts.

The Land of the Undying

by Dave Willmarth

2018

Med student Shari and coder Mace survive a world overrun by undead and lethal plant life by retreating into a virtual realm. But even there they're divided, she as a light elf and he as a drow, and survival may mean leaving the real world behind.

Pathways

by Dave Willmarth

2019

Mace and Shari head toward Graf to strike at the Black Flame, while their scattered allies face monsters, food shortages, and dangerous trips to the surface. The story widens into kingdom building, new magic, and a race to upload humanity before time runs out.

Shadow Sun Expansion

by Dave Willmarth

2019

Humanity is nearly wiped out, and Allistor's group has one year to grow stronger before the invasion deepens. Clearing dungeons, crafting gear, and finding new survivors all come with harder choices and deadlier enemies.

Shadow Sun Survival

by Dave Willmarth

2019

Allistor is an indoor gamer until aliens remake Earth, declare humans expendable, and unleash monsters under a new RPG system. Grieving and furious, he gathers survivors, builds a stronghold, and learns to fight back.

Survivors

by Dave Willmarth

2019

Mace and Shari keep searching for other survivors while undead pressure mounts aboveground. As they level up inside the game world they hope to live in, every quest and dungeon run becomes part of a desperate plan to save themselves.

World At War

by Dave Willmarth

2019

King Alexander tries to unite elves, dwarves, and humans against the Dark One and the drow, but war reaches his gates before any alliance is secure. The fight spills across Io and back toward the besieged real world.

Battleborne

by Dave Willmarth

2020

Soldier Max dies, meets a Valkyrie, and chooses reincarnation over oblivion. Reborn as a half-monster on a deadly world with game-like rules, he has to survive at level zero and learn what it means to be one of the Battleborne.

Shadow Sun Progression

by Dave Willmarth

2020

Now a planetary prince and emperor, Allistor is pulled into interplanetary politics while still trying to unite human survivors on Earth. New enemies, painful losses, and a dangerous artifact make rebuilding humanity even harder.

Shadow Sun Rebellion

by Dave Willmarth

2020

The stabilization year is over, and alien colonists have arrived. Allistor's people must defend what they've built, navigate rival factions, and take the fight beyond Earth if humanity wants any real future.

Shadow Sun Unification

by Dave Willmarth

2021

Allistor is finally finding survivors and trainers enough to rebuild humanity, but rival aliens, divine schemers, and a jealous human noble keep pushing back. A tragic turn sends him toward a direct reckoning with the architects of Earth's fall.

Wrack and Ruin

by Dave Willmarth

2021

Max builds Stormhaven, defends it from an orc assault, and follows an epic quest into dangerous wilds. Along the way he finds allies, ancient dwarven secrets, and a discovery that could reshape his kingdom or end it.

Dungeons & Guardians

by Dave Willmarth

2022

Max and his party hunt the Heart of the Mountain while a growing northern threat puts Stormhaven at risk. The quest promises huge rewards, but new dungeons, fresh enemies, and a ruthless Battleborne queen make every step costly.

Mars System Reboot

by Dave Willmarth

2022

Commander Fletcher and a crew of ten head to Mars to start humanity's first colony. A fatal accident, a damaged ship, and the discovery of a merciless galactic System turn the mission into a fight to survive on a hostile world.

Shadow Sun Consolidation

by Dave Willmarth

2022

Allistor has risen from frightened survivor to emperor, and now he has to hold that power together. With millions depending on him and fresh threats emerging, consolidating his gains may be his hardest fight yet.

Welcome to Midgard

by Dave Willmarth

2022

A farm boy turned soldier dies just before claiming vengeance, only to wake in Midgard as a Contender chosen by the gods. He'd rather quest and learn magic than murder rivals, but the new world may not give him that choice.

Dungeon Master

by Dave Willmarth

2023

As king of Stormhaven, Max can no longer think only about his party. Enemies close in from every side, and while he rebuilds his realm and unlocks a dungeon core, assassins and warlords keep forcing him back into battle.

Ritual Combat

by Dave Willmarth

2023

Falkor explores the tunnels below his village to grow stronger before more Contenders come hunting him. What he finds underground is worse than expected, and old enemies push him toward another deadly ritual duel.

Oath of Vengeance

by Dave Willmarth

2024

Finn is a blacksmith's apprentice with a prince for a best friend, until assassins destroy the royal family and shatter his life. Escaping through a portal with a loyal dwarf retainer, he lands in a magical world and swears revenge.

The Last High Lord

by Dave Willmarth

2024

Finn's second adventure raises the stakes with new dungeons, political pressure, and hard truths about his family's past. As orc threats grow and powerful nobles take notice, survival depends on training, loyalty, and the friends around him.

The Battle of T'ear Mann

by Dave Willmarth

2025

Finn's power keeps growing, but so do his responsibilities as the only High Lord. Court intrigue, dungeon runs, and sudden trouble on his home world force him to act fast if he wants to reclaim his throne and protect his people.

Where should I start?

If you want classic LitRPG and VR adventure: Io OnlineThe Dire LandsDarkness Fallen
If you want survival and empire building: Shadow Sun SurvivalShadow Sun ExpansionShadow Sun Rebellion
If you want reincarnation and monster-powered action: BattleborneWrack and RuinDungeons & Guardians
If you want portal fantasy and revenge: Oath of VengeanceThe Last High LordThe Battle of T'ear Mann
If you want gods, quests, and an underdog climb: Welcome to MidgardRitual Combat

Author bio

Dave Willmarth came to publishing later than some writers, but his path into fiction fits his books almost perfectly. He had wanted to write for years, started more than one novel, and then set those projects aside when work or life got in the way. What finally pulled everything together was LitRPG and GameLit, a style of storytelling that let him combine fantasy, science fiction, and gaming in one place.

That fit was personal. Willmarth has described himself as a lifelong fantasy and science fiction reader, and a gamer since the 1970s, back in the days of Pong, Tank, and tabletop roleplaying. He has also said that his parents gave him The Hobbit when he was nine, which helps explain why so many of his books are filled with monsters, quests, magic, and new worlds waiting to be explored.

He kept writing in the background for decades. In his own telling, he started and shelved a dozen manuscripts over the years, always meaning to come back when there was more time, more confidence, or both. The interest never really went away. It just needed the right form.

LitRPG changed that.

Once he found books that mixed game systems with epic fantasy adventure, he saw something that felt natural to him. He has said that the discovery pushed him to sit down and write seriously, and that he drafted the first two Greystone Chronicles books in just over a month. The first of them, Io Online, arrived in 2017. He has described publishing it almost as an experiment, then being surprised by how strongly readers responded.

Since then, he has built a bibliography that shows how many flavors of LitRPG he likes to play with. Shadow Sun Survival turns apocalypse fiction into a story about rebuilding, leadership, and bigger political stakes. Battleborne starts with a dead soldier, a Valkyrie, and a brutal second chance. The Land of the Undying mixes undead horror with virtual-world escape, while Welcome to Midgard and Oath of Vengeance lean harder into portal fantasy, gods, and revenge.

That sense of scale shows up again and again.

Across his series, Willmarth likes systems that matter, but he also likes what happens around them: parties that become families, settlements that need to be defended, and ordinary people getting shoved into leadership before they feel ready. His books often begin with survival and widen into base building, kingdom politics, or full war. He has named writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, and R.A. Salvatore among the authors he loves, and you can see pieces of that mix in his work. There is old-school fantasy adventure in the elves, dwarves, dragons, and magic. There is science fiction in the virtual worlds, alien systems, and off-world stakes. And there is a gamer's love of progression in the way characters test builds, gather loot, and learn the rules.

His work habits sound a lot like the books themselves, steady and built around momentum. In one interview he said he often writes late at night, sometimes from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and much longer on weekends. He has joked that older people need less sleep. These days he still describes himself as a part-time author, and he has said he would gladly live full time in the game worlds he creates. Until that becomes possible, he keeps writing from what he calls his man cave, turning long-running reader obsessions into fast-moving LitRPG adventures.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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