Farm Boy meets Secret Legacy. A well-trodden path, if there was any. But that's not the greatest sin of this book.
The Good
I never Aaaand another bust.
Farm Boy meets Secret Legacy. A well-trodden path, if there was any. But that's not the greatest sin of this book.
The Good
I never got to it.
The Bad
By chapter 2, it's already smelling bad. MC is painting himself as a paladin of virtue. Where other men fall to their base instincts, he simply has none, and thus appears as a pillar of probity that attracts the weak. MC's plot armour is MASSIVE. He's already consciously donned the mantle of saviour, outfought, outwitted and outmaneuvered a pincer attack of two (no less) experienced raider groups, all without a single scratch. This is only chapter 2, and he's only just left his village! Promising, right?!
The Cringy
The story is set in a typical fantasy medieval world. However, the narrative voice is an ungodly soup of fantasy high speech (mostly description and dialogues) and first world entitled brat cheeky americanisms (descriptions, dialogues and inner monologues). This breaks Suspension of Disbelief All The Bloody Time!
- MC is a farm boy, so whence the high speech? The author makes a half-arsed attempt at acknowledging (not explaining, mind you) the incongruity in chapter 2, but finally cops out, leaving the mystery unresolved.
- MC is a commoner in a medieval world, so whence the cheek? In the "orientation event" in chapter 4, when MC gets to be told his destiny, his out-of-left-field passive-aggressive tone and anachronistically crass monologue threw me off for good. How would flippancy from some farmboy towards lords and generals fly in a world like that? If at least it had been foreshadowed somehow, I would have frowned, but understood.
Many western authors make this bizarre assumption that casual rudeness is somehow a universal virtue. Here is a hint: It Is Not. I have no patience with entitled behaviour in real life. I won't have it in my entertainment unless it serves a purpose. In this case, it looks like a left-over from the author's praxis, that they either were unable to translate into "Fantasy" or chose to retain in the hopes of "hyping up" their stuff.
What the hell was that?! I didn't even get to the sex part, this book was so bad! You know books that manage to make you hate the MC? Not because they aWhat the hell was that?! I didn't even get to the sex part, this book was so bad! You know books that manage to make you hate the MC? Not because they are morally challenging, or clueless, but because they are bona-fide douchebags you wouldn't want to spend 15 mins with, they are so cringy...
Why would I read a book where this kind of person is the MC? Because I didn't know... Now I do. So now I don't....more
Then we get into the story and everything that I dislike about LitRPG just jumps out at me. The "I happen-to-have-isTwo prologues??? Okayy.... Why not.
Then we get into the story and everything that I dislike about LitRPG just jumps out at me. The "I happen-to-have-ism" was so overpowering in the very first (actual) chapter, that I just knew I was going to spend most of my listen being pissed off. Life's too short for that....more
First off, what do we have here? Why does the MC behave as if he's been wrongfully sent to death row while thI couldn't even finish the first chapter.
First off, what do we have here? Why does the MC behave as if he's been wrongfully sent to death row while the "doctor" calls him a volunteer? Why the unexplained antagonism? That irritated me right there. If there is a conflict, let's get into it. Don't just add gratuitous antagonism to make your MC look like a "badass". Strike one.
next, there is a philosophical point in there that rubbed me the wrong way: The MC (I guess? I never advanced enough to find out) wants his memory of this world erased. My immediate response is: "the self is a continuum of memories. How do you expect to be you, if you don't remember who you is? Might as well die.". So the book lost me right there. Why bother show (or even mention) what happens before, if it's not going to matter afterwards? Don't waste my time. Strike two.
I've had it up to here with book that go "as you know..." and proceed to info-dump on my head basic world history that the MC is supposed to know (because duh, he was there!). Especially when the info is as cheesy as what we got. At least make SOMEONE discover this info at the same time as the reader! Otherwise, I don't care how you try to bring it about, that's an immediate DNF for me. Strike three.
Nothing anyone did made any sense. No character was believable in the slightest.
There was no challenge for the MC This book didn't work for me at all.
Nothing anyone did made any sense. No character was believable in the slightest.
There was no challenge for the MC to overcome. Absolutely nothing happened to him or through him. He goes from zero to hero in the blink of an eye and without a sweat.
Inconsistencies galore. (view spoiler)[You still get electricity and running water (from where?) but a no point do you think of checking internet? Or even trying your phone? How does that make sense? (hide spoiler)]
A blessing that the book was so short; it finished before I got annoyed enough to drop it....more
OK. I dropped this book within the first chapter, but was persuaded to keep on reading. I finished it, so here are my opinions. The usual disclaimers OK. I dropped this book within the first chapter, but was persuaded to keep on reading. I finished it, so here are my opinions. The usual disclaimers apply, especially in this sub-genre: I dropped Cataclysm by the second chapter so yeah, we may not agree on much.
Let's use my usual pattern for this review: 1st chapter, the good, the bad, the ugly, the rating.
The first chapter: A bunch of "elite" OP survivors are lavishing compliments at each other, trying to work themselves up to conquer a final boss. Urgh... the sheer amount of superlatives thrown about made me want to just... so I did. I skipped. All the way to when the story actually started, when the MC went back in time, and tbh, throughout the whole book, I didn't feel like I'd missed anything. My guess is that if this is ever rewritten, all those chapters should be redistributed as discovered backstory into the main plot, or just dropped. So yeah, a fail there. Moving on.
The Good: You know what? I liked the basic premise, a lot. Going back in time to do things right is one of my personal fantasies, so yeah, a concept I generally enjoy in media. And I liked the idea of the Towers as both the problem and the solution. Additionally, I was really interested in seing how the Towers's impact on our mana-less world would be presented.
The Bad: It didn't happen.
The world outside the Towers never solidified into something realistic, and that's a damn shame because that's where the stakes were. We were never exposed to eye-level consequences of the monster waves, nor to the cultural impact of the towers on IRL, besides currency exchange and character sheets advantages. That is just too flimsy to make it real. The outside world felt cardboardy and tasteless, as if it didn't deserve that much attention.
On the other hand, there was nothing special about the in-Tower world. Plain typical RPG game world. Classes, guilds, goblins, slimes, level-restricted areas, you know, the usual.
The main plot is also totally obscured. We don't see how the MC is reaching towards his goal. We see stats increasing, floor numbers rising, and that's about it. Nothing really "happens" on the way.
Incidentally, I see this book going the way of DragonBall Super: the fights becoming so ridiculous that we lose all sense of scale and stop getting a feeling of accomplishment altogether when one is won.
Oh, By the way, I'm from Africa, so the thing about there only being warlords over there didn't go down very well. Just saying.
The Ugly: Most of the story is told through the POV of the MC... who is a mess of inconsistencies. Conceit (view spoiler)[I don't want to "just" save the world; I want everyone to know "I" did it! (hide spoiler)], aloofness, selfishness, base materialism (view spoiler)[dude has "standards", no less, the stuck up prick! (hide spoiler)], narrow-mindedness. There's nothing to relate to with this guy. His personal family drama doesn't feel real at all (view spoiler)[he simply throws money and items at it (his father), for naught (duh?!) (hide spoiler)]. His martial personae is paradoxically flawed (view spoiler)[The famed Three Realms don't seem to have marked any grooves in his psyche; they are presented as real life "cultivation" stages, but used as mere passive game skills. You can't attain "Heavenly Eye" and remain a punk; that kind of shit changes you, at a fundamental level. (hide spoiler)]. Yeah, so basically, I couldn't give a rat's ass whether he lives of dies. He doesn't carry the story, it simply happens through him.
The other characters are just as inconsistent. There's little rationale, or believable motivation in their actions. (view spoiler)[Why did a level one 16 years old teen that had never fought before suddenly rush elite mobs in the street? How could he possibly not know the outcome? Why, in a world where death is final, did a psychotic teenage girl abandon her team one minute, and accept death for that same team literally the next? (hide spoiler)].
Then, POV switching. God did it piss me off. Sometimes a paragraph would start with one person and then switch to another, simply to show us what's in that person's head at that moment. If you are going multi-POV, be consistent about it. Don't just do it when it itches. (view spoiler)[Why did we get a few minutes of the teenager's dragon life and never go back again? What was the point of starting this thread if it was to be abandoned? (hide spoiler)].
And don't introduce your mythology two-thirds into the book. (view spoiler)[the God-Meeting chapter? WTF?! What were all those names we'd never heard before? Why do we learn about this underlying dynamics only now, and then never see its traces or effects in the book, either before or after the fact? What purpose does it serve? (hide spoiler)].
The rating I really wanted to enjoy this book. I was intrigued by the idea, the oriental concepts, the cultural implications. I deplore the lack of "craft", or technicality, there. As someone who aims at being a writer, I respect the effort. But after plodding through, I end up pretty close to my first impression: this book wasn't for me....more
Well, looks like I never got past the 10% mark after all.
As an African, a fantasy fan and an aspiring writer, I must admit I went into this book with Well, looks like I never got past the 10% mark after all.
As an African, a fantasy fan and an aspiring writer, I must admit I went into this book with some trepidation. It was a bit like: "ok, let's see what we can do". Misplaced expectation, of course.
If you've ever wondered what reading a whole book of Bjork lyrics would feel like, well here is your chance. :grin: Personally, I'd rather have a story, thank you. And I'm sure there was one, hidden below the pomp and self-aggrandizing figures of speech. But I was just too lazy to dig for it; I could have gone through the extra effort for someone I'd already built a healthy respect for, but a total unknown? No Thank you.
So no, I have no idea if the story is good or not, or what the plot even turns about, or any of the usual analysis stuff I do from time to time. On this one, I only got one thing: the author's "ego"(wink, wink) is huge. I'm pretty sure that's the only message worth remembering.
Argh... he went and killed his own book. God I'm so disappointed. This is EXACTLY what an author writing out his wet dreams would look like. I held on unArgh... he went and killed his own book. God I'm so disappointed. This is EXACTLY what an author writing out his wet dreams would look like. I held on until the end, grinding my teeth through the cringe, but I think this is where I get off. And it's a damn shame, because the STORY in itself had potential, even if very badly structured, and full of holes.
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