C. Swatek

6 hours in before the MC uses his powers well

Revisado: 05-06-24

TL;DR: setting and performance are great. MC is dumb and doesn’t use his powers well. Also, the level system doesn’t make sense with the “break” the MC took. Enjoyable listen, but frustrating at times.

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It took this story 6 hours for the necromancer to animate a body mid-fight.

I love the setting, and the performance is amazing, but Sterling is probably one of the worst portrayed necromancers I’ve ever seen. The way this system seems to reanimated dead costs mana to summon, but you get it back when you release them - so why is he bothering with the gun that should deplete his mana in an extended fire fight?

A bunch of stuff is just painful - he has a bone horse, that can go into his inventory, so why not store other skeletons or corpses in there in anticipation of a fight?

Sometimes he can’t find a corpse - but with the inventory system, he can always have one or two. Space shouldn’t be an issue, since he can hold a whole horse skeleton - a human or some dogs would easily take the same or less space.

Why not animate mid-fight? It seems instantaneous and doesn’t take his concentration, but he goes in with gun and sword, both of which he loses constantly.

He has a “death sense” so why waste ammo/mana making sure someone is dead when he could just try animating their corpse?

Aside from that - there is one big problem with the setting. The “reset” happens 5 years ago, and Sterling basically stopped participating 2 years after that. With how quickly he seems to earn XP so far, he should be VASTLY underleveled/underpowered. In any game with levels and stuff, you don’t catch up unless there’s a level cap.

Again, love the setting, it’s wonderful, but the idiocy of the MC and some of the unrealistic nature of his plot armor make it frustrating to listen to. I’ll finish the rest of the book, but unless it gets drastically better, I won’t continue the series.

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Meh

Revisado: 06-21-23

Really not a great follow up. The original had some great tension that this one loses - MC doesn’t need to do what he’s doing but he’s just there anyway.

The anti-SJW stuff feels very forced. And every time it’s brought up it pulls me out of the story.

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Fun read

Revisado: 05-26-23

Excellent book, great world building, and well written. Excited for the next book to come out!

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Not the best, but not bad

Revisado: 01-21-22

Overall, this is a fun read. I enjoyed the characters, and the setting, immensely. You don't often see Sci-Fi progression books and this one did a really good job meshing the two genres together and I *really* can't wait to read more in the series.

My main gripe is the book feels too long - while also blazing through the progression. It feels like a Sci-Fi book with a "Progression" hat. Because of certain plot elements, a lot of the main character's progress doesn't feel earned, just inevitable. There's no chance in him not improving, no risk in his actions, the only element of suspense is the timeframe in which he is able to do so.

Second big gripe is the sudden love interest of the main character's BFF (Viv) feels forced and entirely out of character. I could see it working with a bit more lead up or redemption of Grant, but it's real jarring every time it comes up once it's introduced.

Lastly, and this might be more of a "me" thing, but we don't really see or hear much about this centuries long, galaxy spanning war going on. It's the central tenant of the story (literally the reason CAD tech exists), but outside of a few mentions here and there it's like waiting for a big wave to hit that never arrives. The "big baddies" are only mentioned 24 times in the whole book, and in all the simulated prep the fighting is against themselves, not the mysterious archons. I wanted to hear more about them the entire time and it just never came.

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Boring

Revisado: 10-02-21

The book is boring.

I really enjoy the LitRPG genre, and this one started off well, but some things don't play out well - someone very important to the MC is reincarnated in the game and he's not suspicious *at all* - but it's fine because nothing becomes of it. That's a recurring theme - there's potential for stuff and nothing happens from it - OR - lots of stuff happens for no particular reason and few of the accomplishments feel earned. Maybe the most frustrating part of it all is how often he's saved by other characters throughout the book, it's this recurring thing of "I got my self in a bad situation, what will I do?!" then being whisked to safety by some random character - in one case literally out of nowhere, for the second time in less than 24 hours, and then they disappear from sight. He's got powerful abilities that aren't earned in the slightest, and he forgets the whole goal he had of starting his life over in VGO? There's a lot of action and stuff going on, but none of the outcomes feel earned and it all sort of falls flat.

The author's talented - I really enjoyed the first third of the book - but this feels like a mess once he gets into the main town until the book's finished.

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A solid “meh”

Revisado: 12-20-19

I really wanted to like this book. The Luke Daniels transition isn’t terrible, but he doesn’t do a great job with woman’s voices - not the worst I’ve heard but it’s not as immerse as Vikas. Story got a 3 star because the “we’re all trapped in this game” trope is one of the reasons I liked these books - the interplay between Joes game life and real life was interesting (if limited). And that revelation had such little impact on the book it feels like an afterthought. I don’t know - I was hoping for more.

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Interesting setting - bad interpersonal relationships

Revisado: 12-16-18

The setup and setting for this story is really interesting, and I think following a different set of characters would have made for a better listen, but the relationship this story highlights is cringe worthy at the best of times and downright rapey at the worst.

The narrator isn’t to bad, but it took a little getting used to the candor and pacing at the beginning.

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Hard to listen to

Revisado: 12-06-18

Despite the narrators best efforts - this isn’t that good of a book, the main character flip flops on emotions and contradicts himself almost any time there’s a conflict. It felt like a “power gamer” fantasy.

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Meh

Revisado: 12-06-18

I expected more from this title - it felt really whiny for the first half or three quarters of the book and didn’t get really interesting until after all the whining. I’m interested to see where the next book goes but I feel you could pass on this one and not really be out much of the plot.

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Underwhelming

Revisado: 12-12-17

The performance was great, Christy Romano really nailed all of the characters and various accents. The story was pretty underwhelming, the plot was great for the first half, but as it got closer and closer to the end it becomes more like a mad scramble to pull loose ends together and ultimately just feels like a cheap cop out.

It's been a while since I've come away from a book and thought the ending ruined the whole thing, and that about sums up my feelings here.

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