What's a deck-builder LitRPG?

The system mechanics are built around a deck of cards: skills, abilities, and creatures the protagonist accumulates and assembles into a usable hand. Think Slay the Spire mechanics in long-form fantasy narrative form. It sounds gimmicky in summary and reads as one of the cleanest LitRPG systems in print once you're in it.

Is the cadence reliable?

Yes. Honour Rae has held a roughly twelve-month cadence across the run. Book 6 landed in mid-2026; book 7 is expected around mid-2027. Among ongoing LitRPG series, this is one of the more dependable schedules.

Is Luke Daniels's narration good?

Yes, and notably different from his Iron Prince work in register; All the Skills calls for a lighter touch and Daniels delivers it. Audio is the canonical format.

Why S-low rather than higher?

The craft is exceptional and the series has the discipline most LitRPG lacks. What holds it at S-low rather than S-mid is the scale: the world has stayed relatively constrained through six books, where higher-S peers (Defiance of the Fall, Infinite Realm) have built bigger cosmic structures. Whether All the Skills should scale up or stay disciplined is itself an open question; staying disciplined may be the right answer.

Where should I start if I'm new to deck-builder mechanics?

Start at Book 1. The deck mechanic is introduced gradually and the protagonist learns it alongside the reader. No prior deck-building familiarity required.

All the Skills Books in Order (2026): Complete Reading Order

Start here

Book 1, All the Skills, is the entry point. The setup establishes the protagonist's situation and the deck-builder system within the first few hours, neither rushes the other. By the end of Book 1 the genre's promise is fully visible and the case for continuing makes itself.

Verdict on the series

S-low — Worth Starting.

S-low on craft discipline. Honour Rae writes the rare LitRPG that respects the reader's time: chapters advance the deck, the character, the world, or the stakes, with very little patience-tax filler. The deck-builder mechanic is the engine, but the engine is in service of a series whose character work earns its own credit. Six books in, the series-so-far is a consensus highlight of the modern field's middle ground between Classic LitRPG and progression fantasy.

What it does best. Story-per-page discipline. The deck mechanic, used to expose character and world rather than as a numbers exercise. Honour Rae's pacing instincts, which keep books in the 12-18 hour range — long enough to be substantive, short enough to be readable. Reliable cadence.

Where it sags. Limited cosmic scope so far — this isn't a series racing toward multiversal stakes. Some readers want their LitRPG to scale up faster; All the Skills is paced for steady deepening rather than rapid expansion. That's a feature for many readers and a constraint for others.

Who it suits. Readers tired of bloated LitRPG. Anyone curious about deck-builder mechanics in narrative form. Listeners who appreciate a reliable yearly cadence. Who should skip. Readers who want cosmic-scale and multiversal stakes from book one — try Defiance of the Fall instead.

Books in order

#	Title	Published	Runtime
1	All the Skills: A Deck-Building LitRPG	December 20, 2022	13h 38m
2	All the Skills 2: A Deck-Building LitRPG	June 13, 2023	16h 32m
3	All the Skills 3: A Deck-Building LitRPG	March 12, 2024	15h 22m
4	All the Skills 4: A Deck-Building LitRPG	August 20, 2024	15h 33m
5	All the Skills 5: A Deck-Building LitRPG	March 25, 2025	11h 12m
6	All the Skills 6: A Deck-Building LitRPG	June 9, 2026	11h 14m

Book data above is pulled from my full review — updated automatically as new entries publish.

Next audiobook: Book 7 has no announced title or release date yet. Book 6 arrived in June 2026 and the series has averaged a new audiobook roughly every 12 months, which points at June 2027 as the realistic window. This line updates automatically when a date is confirmed.

Who's who (spoiler-safe)

The refresher list, not the encyclopedia: entries freeze at each character's introduction. Spellings verified against the series wiki, which is thin; this may be more cast list than the internet otherwise has.

Arthur Rowantree — the main character: a kid from a penal border village whose father's parting gift in the opening chapters is the engine of the whole series. (Book 1.)
Brixaby — Arthur's dragon: small, imperious, and hungry in the exact way that matters, because he eats cards. The deck-builder mechanic with wings. (Book 1.)
Cressida Icehouse — ally from Arthur's hive-city days, and the name most likely to make a returning listener say "oh, right, her." (Early books.)
Horatio — friend from Arthur's early climb. (Early books.)

The review has the full argument for why the dragons arriving fast matters so much.

Is the series complete?

Not yet. Honour Rae has not announced a target book count. Cadence is the most reliable factor, roughly twelve months between entries, and book 7 is expected around mid-2027. Standard ongoing-series risk applies, but cadence here is a strength rather than a worry.

Where to go next

If you finished what's out and want a similar register:

The Stubborn Skill-Grinder in a Time Loop (X-RHODEN-X) — the other modern LitRPG with this level of story-per-page discipline.
Warformed: Stormweaver (Bryce O'Connor & Luke Chmilenko) — same S-low tier, completely different (sci-fi) setting.
Cradle (Will Wight) — the completed-arc reference for progression-fantasy craft discipline at this level.