The Good Guys Series in Order: 16 Books by Eric Ugland
8 min readBy LevelUpShelf EditorialLast reviewed
TL;DR: Sixteen books, read by number. Neil Hellegers narrates all sixteen (Tantor, 150 h 56 m). Book 16, One Man's Laughter, reached Audible on December 9, 2025; no store or publisher lists book 17 yet. The Bad Guys books are a separate spin-off.
Read The Good Guys series in order, 1 to 16: One More Last Time first, One Man's Laughter last, with no book 17 dated yet. The books are short, 9 hours 26 minutes on average on Audible, so the whole run is 150 hours 56 minutes of Neil Hellegers. The wait is the cost: the last two books came 420 and 476 days apart. Below: the order, every audiobook length, the book 17 question, and where readers split on Montana.
Key Takeaways
- 16 books in the main series, all on Audible.
- Short books: 6 h 33 m to 14 h 56 m each.
- Fast start, slow now: books 1 to 6 all came out in 2019; books 15 and 16 were 476 days apart.
- No book 17 date from Audible or the author's site.
- One narrator: Neil Hellegers for the whole run.
The Good Guys Reading Order at a Glance
The year is the Audible release year of each audiobook.
- One More Last Time (2019)
- Heir Today, Pawn Tomorrow (2019)
- Dungeon Mauling (2019)
- Four: The Loot (2019)
- Dukes and Ladders (2019)
- Home, Siege Home (2019)
- The Bare Hunt (2020)
- Eastbound and Town (2020)
- Four Beheadings and a Funeral (2020)
- Eat, Slay, Love (2021)
- Killing Them Awfully (2021)
- Wild Wild Quest (2022)
- Flex in the City (2022)
- Of Slicing Men (2023)
- Bad to the Throne (2024)
- One Man's Laughter (2025)
Overview
The Good Guys is Eric Ugland's LitRPG series; its main character, Montana, is the one readers argue about below. Goodreads calls it "A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure", and the Tantor covers carry a "GameLit LitRPG" band. Every title is a pun, which is the first thing you notice on the list above.
Goodreads dates book 1 to 2018, and the audiobook followed in April 2019. On Goodreads, One More Last Time has 4.27 from 7,029 ratings.
Desk note: Commitment: B-rank (150 h 56 m), only just: the B band starts at 150 hours. The first six books together (48 h 14 m) are shorter than book 1 of He Who Fights with Monsters and book 2 combined (50 h 57 m).
Cover: Audible product page
Every Good Guys Book in Order
Dates, lengths and ratings come from each audiobook's Audible listing (all read by Neil Hellegers, published by Tantor). Ratings were read on our check date and will drift. Amazon's Kindle pages did not load for this check.
| # | Title | Audible | Length | Audible rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One More Last Time | Apr 16, 2019 | 7 h 43 m | 4.6 (5,751) |
| 2 | Heir Today, Pawn Tomorrow | May 14, 2019 | 6 h 33 m | 4.7 (4,229) |
| 3 | Dungeon Mauling | Jun 11, 2019 | 8 h 24 m | 4.8 (3,971) |
| 4 | Four: The Loot | Jun 28, 2019 | 8 h 17 m | 4.8 (3,568) |
| 5 | Dukes and Ladders | Sep 10, 2019 | 8 h 26 m | 4.8 (3,498) |
| 6 | Home, Siege Home | Sep 24, 2019 | 8 h 51 m | 4.8 (3,528) |
| 7 | The Bare Hunt | Apr 21, 2020 | 9 h 7 m | 4.8 (3,188) |
| 8 | Eastbound and Town | Sep 23, 2020 | 8 h 8 m | 4.8 (2,898) |
| 9 | Four Beheadings and a Funeral | Oct 20, 2020 | 9 h 20 m | 4.8 (3,018) |
| 10 | Eat, Slay, Love | Jul 13, 2021 | 9 h 19 m | 4.8 (2,751) |
| 11 | Killing Them Awfully | Oct 5, 2021 | 8 h 54 m | 4.7 (2,630) |
| 12 | Wild Wild Quest | Feb 8, 2022 | 10 h 56 m | 4.8 (2,570) |
| 13 | Flex in the City | Nov 15, 2022 | 9 h 10 m | 4.7 (2,198) |
| 14 | Of Slicing Men | Jun 27, 2023 | 9 h 35 m | 4.9 (1,448) |
| 15 | Bad to the Throne | Aug 20, 2024 | 13 h 17 m | 4.9 (1,526) |
| 16 | One Man's Laughter | Dec 9, 2025 | 14 h 56 m | 4.5 (1,044) |
The last two books are the longest, and book 16 has the lowest Audible average of the run. Ratings alone don't say why; the readers below do.
Cover: Audible product page
Step-by-Step: How to Read The Good Guys
1. Start with One More Last Time: 7 hours 43 minutes on Audible.
2. Read books 2 to 16 by number. The pun titles do not hint at the order, so use the list above.
3. Leave The Bad Guys for later. It is a separate spin-off series on Audible, with its own numbering, also read by Neil Hellegers. It is not part of the main count.
4. Expect a wait after book 16. No book 17 is listed by a store or the author.
When Is The Good Guys Book 17 Coming Out?
There is no official date. As of our check:
- Audible: the series list runs from 1 to 16, with no book 17 entry.
- Eric Ugland's site: the newest Good Guys entry is One Man's Laughter, "Book 16 in the Good Guys series."
- Goodreads: counts "17 primary works", but we could not tie the seventeenth to a dated official listing.
- Rising Shadow, a book database, lists "The Good Guys 17" with "Release date: 2027". That is not a publisher or store page, so treat it as unconfirmed.
Book 16 had been out for 319 days when we checked. The two gaps before it were 420 and 476 days, so a long wait would be in line with recent books. We'll add book 17 to our release calendar when a store or the author dates it.
The Audiobooks: Neil Hellegers
Neil Hellegers reads all sixteen for Tantor. The total is 150 hours 56 minutes; the average book is 9 hours 26 minutes, and only books 15 and 16 pass 11 hours.
Short books split listeners on value. u/tmccart3: "I was tempted to start this but I use audible and the books are way too short to spend credits on" (comment, January 21, 2026). u/lablizard, in the same thread: "The narrator is one of my favorites; I feel it's worth the credit ^_^" (comment).
The narrator is one of my favorites; I feel it's worth the credit ^_^
Cover: Audible product page
Where Readers Split: Montana
The main character is the argument. u/sams0n007: "It's my favorite series. I love the world building, I love the system, but more than anything else. I love the characters." (comment). u/spaul247 quit: "The first book or two was good, but Montana ends up behaving so inconceivably stupid so often that I just couldn't finish the series." (comment).
The humor is the other draw. u/staplegun27: "I think almost every book has a point where I have genuinely laughed out loud." (comment, January 22, 2026).
Tips Before You Start
- Judge it by book 2. Both camps above agree the early books work; the split comes later, over Montana.
- Use the short books. At 6 to 9 hours, the first six make a cheap test of the whole series' tone.
- Comedy first: if pun titles and a goofy lead annoy you on the list above, skip it.
- Spoilers: later blurbs give away earlier books. Read only the next one.
Cover: Audible product page
Our take
Our pick: start The Good Guys if you want short, funny LitRPG on audio. Books 1 to 6 are 48 h 14 m together, all read by one narrator, and readers who stay mention laughing out loud.
Skip it (for now) if: a careless main character ruins a story for you; that is the most common complaint.
What we don't know yet: when book 17 comes out. No store or author page dated it as of October 24, 2026.
How we checked this
On October 24, 2026 we read Audible's catalog data for all sixteen audiobooks and the series list (narrator, length, date, publisher, rating), the Goodreads series page, Eric Ugland's books page and the Rising Shadow entry for book 17. Amazon's Kindle pages did not load. Reader quotes come from a January 2026 r/litrpg thread, read through the Arctic Shift archive. Totals and day counts are our arithmetic. We have not read the series ourselves.
Related Reading
- Noobtown reading order: another long-running LitRPG that readers describe as heavy on humor.
- Dungeon Crawler Carl reading order: eight books so far, and a ten-book plan from the author.
- LitRPG reading orders: every series we track, book by book.
Frequently Asked Questions
What order should I read The Good Guys series in? By number, One More Last Time to One Man's Laughter.
When is The Good Guys book 17 coming out? No official date as of October 24, 2026.
How many Good Guys books are there? Sixteen are out.
Who narrates The Good Guys audiobooks? Neil Hellegers, all sixteen.
Are The Good Guys books worth an Audible credit? They are short, averaging 9 h 26 m; readers split on value.
References
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The LevelUpShelf desk reads the store pages and the reader threads so you can pick book 1 with the numbers in front of you. Every count is dated and linked.
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About this article
LevelUpShelf is independent: no ads, no sponsored posts, and nobody pays to be on a list. Some store links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you buy through one, and it never decides what we list (affiliate links). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Book counts, release dates, audiobook lengths and ratings are snapshots from the date we checked them; publishers and stores change listings, so check the store page before you buy. Recommendations come from cited reader discussions, not from reading we claim to have done. Articles are researched and written with AI tools, and every fact is checked against its source before publishing. See how the desk works and how we use AI.