AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I read this book, and then I raved about it, and then I listened to the audio and RAVED EVEN MORE. I didn’t discover Andy Weir until 2021. I’m not sure why I picked up The Martian, but I was so glad I did.* So when Project Hail Mary came out, I was eager as a beaver! I… can’t believe I just wrote that, but here we are. I got lucky, and managed to get a skip-the-line copy on one of my libraries Libby, and I couldn't put it down. According to Libby, it took me 5 hours and 6 minutes to fly through it. I laughed out loud so many times, and I had to keep stopping and reading random passages to people. I keep thinking I have reviewed this already, but apparently not. Like The Martian, PHM is set in space, with a man who wakes up, alone, with two dead bodies and a computerised health care system; a health care system who won't allow him to do anything alone until he can tell it his name. He can’t remember his name. Slowly, memory begins to return, and we learn that his name is Ryland Grace. Weir does a great job of allowing us to follow Grace as he works through his memory blocks, and realises that he is in a spaceship. Then, he realises that he’s not in his own solar system anymore. I don’t want to give away too many more spoilers, but honestly, this book is worth a read. Like The Martian, we get glimpses into the world on Earth, but only as memories. We dip and and out of the past, and Weir has done a masterful job of this. It’s not jarring, and we learn the ups and downs along with Grace. There is a lot of science in this book, but you don’t need a degree to read it, I promise! Like The Martian, the science is there and would probably be really interesting to someone with a degree, but our main character is able to make it make sense to the general public**. It also brings that dimension of “this is not the world I am used to, this is not something I work with/hear/need to worry about every day” to fore, which helps with the setting. Best part about the audio for me was the way they did the different languages. That’s all I can say, without giving away far too much, but in the book it was visual, and very cool, but the audio took it to a whole different level. Content warnings: death, global warming, end of the world (maybe?), things resembling spiders, pain, injury, blood, maybe some soft bad language (Grace doesn’t curse), discussions of suicide (methods). Overall Rating: 5 stand out stars, and 5+ for the audiobook. * side note, I listened to the RC Bray version, not the Wil Wheaton version. ** this is an important part of the character that you don’t know about at the very beginning, so I won’t say more.
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This book is book 27 in the Stephanie Plum series. Why doesn’t it have a number-themed title like the rest of them? I. Don’t. Know. Am I immensely frustrated by this? Me? Never!
Yeah, so the title made me feel kind of meh. Sadly, that also set the tone for most of the book. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but here’s my thoughts. I’ve been reading these books for like, 10+ years now. One of my Dad’s girlfriends had the first few, and so I started reading them - because I have an inability to NOT read anything that has words on it. They were pretty good! There were some moments in the first few that stick with me, and while I think I am Team Ranger, I can see when people get swept up in the Morelli craze. So I don’t know if I’ve just hit my Stephanie Plum limit, after so many years, or if it is that the series has jumped the shark, but they just don’t hold the same magic any more. This book starts the exact same way as the others - a description of the main character from her own POV. I get it; it’s needed for anyone who comes into the series mid-way, but it’s always been drilled into me as “the one thing you don’t do” when starting a book. So it grates, and that makes it harder to fall into the book as much as I would like. In terms of storyline - meh. There’s the standard love-triangle (this one leans more into Ranger, so if you’re Team Ranger you’ll be happy); the weird extra sidekick (Lula is boss and she can stay, as can Grandma Mazur) that she picks up along the way; a mystery to solve where everyone wants to kill her; and a number of destroyed cars. Sound familiar? Yeah. There’s a new “hot female” - no Joyce Barnhart this book - with a weird storyline. The whole Indiana Jones theme running through the book was weird and felt out of place. The excerpt for the new book coming out 2021 featuring the ‘treasure hunter’ doesn’t do it for me in the slightest. Content Warnings: language, sex (mostly off page), some gore, descriptions of plastic surgery, explosions. Overall Rating: 3 stars. It’s formulaic murder fluff. If you’re into that, or want something that’s not heavy to read by the beach, this could be for you. I love a good historical fiction, but I tend to go a lot further back than this. I like to hang around with Henry VIII and his many wives, and read all about the intrigue and backstabbing that went on at court and in the noble houses. I can’t remember why I picked this one up; it might have been the cover, or it might have been that I kept seeing it mentioned everywhere.* Either way, the blurb wasn’t what drew me to this book, or at least not the whole blurb.** A woman who takes the law and revenge into her own hands is something I can get behind, I can’t lie!
Anyway! Onwards. This book was great. I love a book that has a library in it, regardless of whether the library is real or fictional. This one I am taking to believe as real, given that it reads as a historical fiction, rather than a historical fantasy. I think what I really enjoyed about this book was the research aspect. Our modern day protagonist was researching this small item she found, with, honestly, not a very high chance of success. While this was happening however, she ended up in a process of discovering herself, and realising that she had let things slide in her life. It’s very much a book of self discovery, and I thought that was very well done. Our other two characters are set back in the past, so we know more about the small bottle than our researcher. I enjoyed the different points of view, particularly between the clearly educated older ladies and the young Eliza. The juxtaposition of the women and their work was also well done, and showed how while many things have changed, women in society are still seen as ‘other’ from the men. I enjoyed the eAudio of this book; there were three narrators, which made it easy to keep track of who you were reading. It was a little off putting however, that the modern day narrator had an English accent, while the character did not. So, whenever it was narrative information father than dialogue, you heard the English accent, and then when the character herself spoke, the narrator put on an American accent. Not a complete book-ruiner, but it did feel a little jarring. Author’s trigger warnings: -infidelity, divorce ideation -bodily effects of poisoning, blood -recall of a past miscarriage -brief predatory behavior against an adolescent -brief suicide ideation Overall rating: a solid 4 stars. *I tend to live in Young Adults, or in the Stabby Stabby Murder, or in Fantasy. My library has these separated by genre, which means I don’t browse outside of my comfort zone often. ** I am currently working on my own “Man leaves and woman has to figure out what the last 10 years were for”, but it’s not a genre I tend to read. Whoooo boy. So this book was “recommended” to me by a friend, using these exact words: “I just read the worst book ever. Like I stopped and googled spoilers because I didn’t know if it was as bad as I thought or if I was just in a bad headspace.” So of course I went and bought myself the ebook copy on Kobo, and proceeded to spend the night reading the whole book. Yes. I stayed up til 3am reading this book, though I was also getting to know a new friend online, so who knows if I would have persevered if that hadn’t been the case. The part of me that likes to read GOOD books hopes I wouldn’t have bothered. I have this habit of ignoring the prologue of books. I think that was what made this book readable. This review is going to contain spoilers, by the way, so stop reading now if you don’t want them. Right. What was right about this book? Well… It might have made a good movie? If you left out the beginning and end, which I guess was the whole point. Our main character is OBSESSED with films. She was named after a film star, she spent all her time with her grandmother watching old films, she’s gone to college to study film. That’s all fine, but she does kind of talk about it incessantly. Given that, the fact that the book reads more as a film than a novel makes sense. … yeah in hindsight, that’s all I can come up with on the “book got it right front”. So. The rest. Well, the mental health aspect was APPALLING. I have never suffered from hallucinations, but this book used it as a plot point, a method of gaslighting, and as a blatant sympathy pull. The representation of this mental illness was awful, and in this day and age I am really surprised that this made it to publication without being noticed or corrected. Our main character was thick as two planks. Her best friend and roommate was killed, and despite her knowing that the killer might know who she was/think she could ID them, she chooses to get into a car with a stranger, while a serial killer is roaming the campus. In the 1990’s, when cell phones aren’t a thing, and no-one knows where you are. Like duh. Come on. She also WILLINGLY gets back into a car with someone who she is afraid is a murderer…. MORE THAN ONCE! One time she’s all “oh no, I must sacrifice myself for the greater good”... come on. Like, no. I know she has mental illness, but let’s not use that as some bullsh*t reason for characters to do inane stuff. Oh, and the descriptions of the med use - also awful. And harmful. The Plot: well, it had potential. But the characters were just so dumb, and uninspiring. I was a little taken by the twist, where the roommate's grandmother was behind it all, but the ID of the serial killer? Yeah, saw that coming from the first page. Also, I HATE COMA DREAMS! So this wasn’t a coma dream, but the end of the book was literally: “so that was a movie about what happened, only it wasn’t. Here’s what actually happened…” So I walked away feeling like the whole damn book was a waste of time! It just felt like the author was stringing you along with a barely held together and barely plausible plot, just to turn around and be like, just kidding, you’ll never know what really happened… Nope. Hard pass. Content Warnings: the whole book? Gaslighting, domestic abuse, mental health, suicidal ideation, death, injury, gore, drowning, guns, fire. Overall Rating: 0 stars I knew we were getting the new Jack Heath book, so I decided to actually finish Hunter (book two), so I would be ready for the new one. So I read it, loved it, desperately needed the new book to come in! My colleague who read it back when it was released asked for a synopsis…. So we sat in the staff room and I gave her a run down… and realised I needed a map!
Hunter was a wild, WILD ride. I honestly wasn’t sure how the hell Jack Heath would take the ending of Hunter and make a sequel. BUT. HE. DID. And it was just as compulsively readable, just as un-put-downable, just. as. good. We start the book with Blake in the middle of nowhere, pretending to be someone he’s not. It gave me some Jack Reacher vibes (which I’m 100% okay with); in that he had nothing to live for and simply wanted to make the world a better place. I won’t go into details, I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone. But it’s good! Every book in this series makes me want to peer inside the author's head and just study him for a while. Think y’all could arrange that? WOuld also settle for writing advice or mentorship… (only half joking!) The story weaves together so many elements, in a way that feels completely natural when you read it, but impossible to explain when someone asks you what you’re reading. I never thought I would a) be okay with someone being a cannibal, b) want to be friends with said cannibal, and c) find a book that my mother couldn’t handle (she loves the Kellerman author family, describes the author son as “a sick puppy”). I also really enjoyed the way that the author observes society through the lens of this outcast, and calls us as readers out on some of the things “society says” - such as men not being allowed to be considered ‘beautiful’. It works really well as our MC is very much not defined by societal roles and norms, and doesn’t want to be. Content Warning: whew, where do I start? Hate crimes, descriptions of murder, abuse, torture, sex, nudity, murder, descriptions of hate crimes and paedophilia, gore, more gore, cannibalism (maybe?), mild description of abortion, language. Overall Rating: 5+ stars! Highly Recommended Here we are, back again with another LitRPG! This series is a little different from the others I have reviewed here, as the MC moves between the “real” world, and the game world, Boundless Realm. So far, the majority of the LitRPGs that I’ve read, the character is in the game world and only in the game world. I thought it might be weird to have the changing from world to Realm, but it worked really well.
Our MC is the classic big brother, look after the injured little sister when parents die - type. Timothy and Valleria are orphans whose parents died in a flying-car crash; a crash which took the use of Valleria’s legs. Since then, Timothy has been looking after his sister and adulting as best he can, which, to be really honest, is harder than movies make it seem. They live in a rundown apartment on the bad side of town, and struggle to pay rent. As an escape from their real lives, Timothy and Valleria play immersive virtual reality video games, So when Timothy finds an ad for a video-game-plotline-tester at one of the biggest game companies, he figures why not! Boundless Realm are trying to boost their biggest game. With millions of players, the game should be advancing in leaps and bounds, but players are keeping to their towns and cities, and not venturing out; and also only playing the main humanoid races (human, elf etc). When accepted for a trial period working for BR, Timothy finds that there’s a catch. He has to play as a predetermined character with an unusual race and class - all the testers do. So he becomes a Goblin Herbalist. I liked that they forced the players into unusual builds. It offered more in the way of expansion in terms of levels and skills, which was good to see. It was a refreshing change to have characters who had disadvantage when it comes to talking to the majority of races. Being a goblin has a serious disadvantage when it comes to talking to humans and humanoids; while offering the ability to make bonds with Orcs, Kobolds and other typically “beast” races. In terms of in-game play, our MC is very good at taking advantage of the NPC’s programming, and very good at landing on his feet (metaphorically). He doesn’t struggle a large amount in terms of leveling, so if you like books where the MC has to actually work hard… this might not be for you. I think this is where the addition of real-world drama made this book better. Because our character is in and out of game, he is able to make real-world money based on what he does in the game. However, he’s very good at making his bosses grumpy… This leads to many meetings with the boss and out MC having to argue the case for his character. We also get some insight into how character and real-world lives can interact - for example with schemes to make money by engineering events in game - there’s a lot of in-house scamming and plotting going on! There are issues; our female characters could be fleshed out/have better purpose; our MC always lands on his feet etc, but overall, to me at least, I found it an enjoyable read. It was a different type of world than I am used to living in - and I think a large part of that is because of the Goblin starting point. As I have listened to this and not read it, I can only review the eAudiobook. The narrator - Eric Michael Summerer - does a really good job. He keeps voices consistent across the characters, and there is good variety. I also liked that we don’t have to hear the stats of the MC over and over again - it’s not often that we get a straight wall of info covering stats (which is probably more author than audiobook narrator but I just thought of it here so here it is). CW: violence, mentions of rape and sexual degredation, graphic violence. It’s actually pretty tame! Overall Rating (eAudiobook) - 4.5 stars For the first half of this book, I moaned and groaned my way onwards, repeatedly saying things such as:
“Urgh, this is SO predictable!” “Oh, come one, this is insane. No way, I just don’t believe it.” “Dear author, I know he’s bad and all but really? All of that? Couldn’t have just stopped with one, could you? In response, my colleagues laughed at me, and asked why I was still reading if I hated it that much. Honestly?
When I finished it however, this book took up residence in my brain and just wouldn’t let go. I thought about it for the rest of the evening; I DREAMED about it. That’s impressive, especially considering that I listen to audiobooks at night when I sleep, so dreaming about a completely different book… That’s impressive. I won’t give you much plot. It’s something that you have to read for yourself. All you need to know going in is written in the blurb: It’s been 64 days since Sophie A went missing, and no-one has seen her since. “[Mac] last saw Sophie Alexander kissing James Bacon, their English teacher.” Mac is our narrator; the best friend of Sophie, student of Mr. Bacon. We follow her ups and downs as she navigates the world after her best friend goes missing. This book was bought for our Young Adults collection, but it is being moved to Adult Fiction. While I believe that it’s an important topic, the way the student/teacher relationship is portrayed in the book could easily be taken as a positive, appropriate thing. New Adults should be fine, but I personally would aim it higher than teens. Content warnings: teacher/student relationship (sexual), discussions of sex, violence, attempted suicide (side character, carbon monoxide poisoning). Rating: I have two ratings for this book. The first, as I was reading it with the belief that it would remain in the YA section, is 1 STAR. The second; taking the book as a whole, and placing it in New Adult or Adult Fiction, is 5 STARS. It’s the first time I have ever had two such polarised emotions about the same book. Overall Ratings: 1 STAR / 5 STARS Bonus - yes, the photo was taken by me, and yes, it is a West Coast, Northland, black sand beach. Because I could! These books are beautiful. I will note that if you are not a fan of world building, this probably isn’t the series for you. Also, not the series for you if you freak out because you can’t get the next book (it's been years…..). That said, if you like fantasy (I call it sci-fantasy - it's more of a alchemy, using-life-force-to-build-things, fae are real rather than wands and spells), if you like high fantasy worlds with their own mythologies, own stories, developed infrastructure - this is yours! The books are told as a story within a story - our main character is an innkeeper, and he is telling his life story to the Chronicler. The book moves seamlessly between the “present tense” - sitting in the bar and hearing the story - and the “past” - the life of Kvothe Kingkiller as he lived, loved, learned and earned his descriptive titles.
The world building in these books is Lord of the Rings level. I love this, especially in the style it’s done here, but I do understand where people would rather not read the history. (Oh! side note! It’s the second book not this one, but a game called Tak is introduced in book two, and the author and a games company called Cheapass Games developed and crowd funded the game to completion. Which, for a complete nerd like me, is like, the epitome of book merch.) Character development is good for most of the main characters in these books. Despite their limited ‘on-screen time’, Kvothe’s parents and troup are fleshed out enough that I would like a prequel on them, on their younger lives. (Though, I would not be surprised if we learn more about them in book three, but that’s just a gut feeling from having read the first two so many times.) His friends and teachers at the University all feel full and well realised, though again, there is room for more, but it’s not necessary. The University. How badly I wish this was a real place, or that I could step into a book for a while. I have a soft spot for books with a developed and plot-central library (there’s a reason why Lirael is my favourite in the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix - the Clayr’s glacier and their library is just so magical). I believe that I would be like Kvothe - taking too many courses and burning out. Here again, there is so much potential for more information - Kvothe spends some time in the Medica, some in the Library (though not for a while, thanks Jackass), and a large amount of time both on the rooftops and in the Artificery. We get brief mentions of the alchemy labs, and the other subjects that are available, but as Kvothe does not participate in them, we don’t learn overly much. I am sure Rothfuss has a syllabus however! The other place that is well covered in book one is The Aeolian. Someone could make a LOT of money if they were to recreate this bar/tavern/music hall. If you have an interest in characters with musical talents, Kvothe will probably be right up your alley. So, characters good, worldbuilding good, mythology and creatures and all background building good (jam? Good! Custard? Good! Meat? GOOD!). While this is a fictional book and therefore races are different, there is diversity among the sexes and the races. Our main character is of a race which is looked down on/hated by other races, and we see some of the slurs and discrimination he faces, when he is marked as being one of the Edema Ruh. Racism is not black/fantasy colour vs white, which is nice, and I understand that many fantasy race issues are a thinly veiled commentary on our real world race issues, and that there are a number of issues that can stem from this. Sexuality is not really a thing in this world - by that I mean that the majority of on-screen relationships read hetero, but it doesn’t appear to be frowned upon to be of a differing sexuality. We learn in an offhand remark that Stantion and Deoch are a couple, but it’s a passing comment and no-one seems to mind! So, yay for that. Content warnings: death, gore, mental health (OH! Auri! the absolute best character in the series - and the inspiration for my cat’s name :-)), magic, blood magic, language (implied, fantasy curses not ours), sex - mostly off-screen or hinted at. Overall rating: 6 stars. Okay, fine, 5 stars. (but really 6) And we are back with the LitRPGs! Hit me up if you have recommendations, I’m running out of ones which are or have been translated into English!
So a review should start from the beginning of the book, right? But the beginning doesn’t tend to be my favourite part. I don’t tend to care HOW someone got into a game world; I just wanna be in it already! So I won’t go into detail here, though I will say that I kind of hope some of the more… hinted at parts do get explained later on! I’m going to start with The Trials. (Now, I’m up to my second listen of Book Two, so that may not be the correct term as used in the book, but that’s what has stuck in my head so I’m just going to go with it.) Our MC appears in the game, and is asked what sort of a character they want to play. From memory, he has the option of being a crafter, or to become an adventurer. As this is a second chance at life, our MC choses a life of adventure, and is thrust into a series of trials designed to test various aspects of his… well, character. Mental and physical tasks come thick and fast, and once our MC makes it to the end, he is rewarded by having the greatest number of character build options. Being a character who wants to be different, he choses a rare class - Ritualist. That’s all I will tell you about that, as it’s an important plot point. The game AI is wonderful. I love that our MC gets a bonus for ACTUALLY READING THE Ts&Cs!* Game play is, for the most part, pretty standard; but I highly enjoyed the fact that our MC chose to have CON as a dump stat… and that the author then used that as a major plot point. From the point of view of someone who has DM’d a D&D campaign or two, it’s neat to see the character being… not punished but definitely at a disadvantage because of poor stat management. The AI keeps up their snarky comments, which is enjoyable (yes, I play Chaotic Neutral/Evil), and provides a decent amount of information to ensure we know what is happening in terms of game play. I know there are people who dislike that the MC is good at things from the start, but I don't mind it. He takes some damage, he makes mistakes, he says things he really shouldn’t. There’s nothing wrong in my opinion, in having a character who plays a game well - that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Of games? People complain if they are too hard, too unrealistic, too easy. The audiobook reader for this book gets a ⅘ from me; I listen at night and I do find the AI hard to hear at times (which is frustrating due to it being all the info on leveling up etc), due to the low tone. Voices are good, characters are mostly consistent. Content Warnings: Gore, implied language, language Overall Rating: 4.2 stars (only losing a bit from the AI voice) *https://www.today.com/food/nbc-s-new-streaming-service-peacock-hid-cake-recipe-its-t187076 We were in lockdown for almost 7 weeks. That’s a long time. As a librarian, and someone who has over 500 books shelved in my bedroom, I thought I would have read a lot more than I actually did. I know I am not alone - many of my colleagues have stated that they too were near unable to read during lockdown - all the time in the world but zero desire to read. It unsettled me. I have always been a reader; on the bus, in the car, under the desk, in the swimming pool*. So to have absolutely no desire to read made me uncomfortable. I checked in with myself, and while I wasn’t exhibiting a concerning number of depression symptoms (the inability to enjoy reading is one of my major but often ignored symptoms), I think most people were hit by *something* during lockdown.
***IMPORTANT*** Depression, anxiety, BPD, Bipolar - all of these are normal, and it is PERFECTLY OK to have them, to be a survivor, or a sufferer, or a supporter; to be on medication, to be hospitalised, to have a “relapse” or even just someone who talks about these things without stigma. This is something I believe in with 100% of my being, and there will be times I talk about it here. I will try and make sure I use a warning if/when I talk about things which have the potential to be triggering, but I will not stop talking about how Mental Health is important, and how we should normalise it, so that people don’t suffer in silence. That hasn’t worked in the past and we all need to be working towards changing that. Ok, PSA over. Anyway. What I was trying to say was that I found myself able to consume only two types of books: Memoirs about a woman who fosters children in the UK; and LitRPGs. Literally the only thing I have been listening to as audiobooks since then, are LitRPGs. I refer to these as my “D&D audiobooks”, though that’s not entirely accurate. According to Wikipedia (the most useful and widely referenced source... /s), a LitRPG is: short for Literary Role Playing Game, a literary genre combining the conventions of computer RPGs with science-fiction and fantasy novels. The proponents of the term state that in LitRPG, games or game-like challenges form an essential part of the story, and visible RPG statistics (for example strength, intelligence, damage) are a significant part of the reading experience. Basically, if you’ve ever played a game like Oblivion, or Assassins’ Creed, these books are what you would get if you described everything your character did in words. The main character is (often) trapped inside a video game, or trialling a VR video game for a new company (these tend to be a little further in the future). They can pull up their stat sheet; they get notifications from the ‘system’ when they gain skills, or debuffs; and they get quests. Sometimes there are other people in their “new world” who come from “the real world”, but sometimes it’s just the main character and a bunch of NPCs (non-player characters, the basic fodder you get in a game who can sell you items, give you quests etc). Of course, the NPCs in these games don’t act as though they are in a game - as far as they know, that’s the real world! I could write for hours about the mechanics of LitRPGs, but this is a book review blog, so onto the review! I have been slack lately, and not writing as many reviews as I should have been. (And, of course, that’s OKAY! We don’t have to be super productive all of the time. That’s just unsustainable.) So I will be reviewing the first FIVE books of The Realm Between Series by Phoenix Grey, read by Neil Hellegers. I made my way through these FIVE books twice this year… What can I say? They’re good! The basic premise is that our main character (who I will refer to from here on out as Azure, which is his in-game name) has… an eventful first chapter, and then wakes up in a barn, on a bed of straw. Unsurprisingly, he is super confused, and spends the first day or so waiting to be pulled out of the game. Once he realises that this doesn’t seem likely to happen, he begins to work on enjoying the experience. Book One - The Curse - sets up the world building in a localised but detailed manner. Azure meets two brothers, Uden and Lonnell, who teach him the very basics - think, “stick them with the pointy end” type of basics. Azure learns how to shoot a bow and arrow, use a basic sword, and realises that there is a lot more in the world than he expected. We learn about the different ways of gaining and improving skills, and how important money is in terms of purchasing decent equipment - that is, aside from what you can scrounge from your kills. Book Two - Two Brothers - we learn that for most people, death is permanent. Azure makes his way to the mainland, seeing some…. interesting things along the way. Book Three - The Adventurer’s Guild - Azure joins the Adventurer’s Guild on the mainland. We learn about the guild - how it works, who can join, what sort of rewards you get. I found the Fishing Skill highly entertaining - I didn’t expect to, as it’s very much a grinding section - it felt kind of like a claw machine, except you don’t know what you might pull out of the lake… It was enjoyable, and I wouldn’t mind reading more of that! Yes, I am a little weird, I know! Book Four - Magic School - Azure finally begins to learn magic! This book had one of the creepier dungeons so far. It was really interesting, I like that the author uses puzzle dungeons - it’s a bit more intellectually stimulating than simple hack and slash, which I appreciate. We meet our first character aside from Azure who comes from the “real world”. It’s a little sad, knowing how Azure ended up in the game*, and thus we know more than Azure and Janine about why they are there and what is happening to them IRL. Book FIve - The Evil Within - More adventuring, more learning, more magic. Lots of hours spent crafting potions. Then things really pick up. There is a gang that we have heard about in previous books, and this is where our adventurer really gets stuck into what feels like a main quest line. That’s not to say that there aren’t other quests, they just seem more run-of-the-mill filler type quests, whereas this could be the main quest line. So, if you’re still with me… I really enjoyed these. They ARE more grinding, more levelling based; our MC doesn’t start out with flash armor and attack skills that are so good he doesn’t need help. If you don’t like the slow and steady style of game, this might not be the series for you. I like that Azure has to gain his skills manually, there aren’t shortcuts. It feels more realistic, more believable, which - I get it - isn’t always what people are looking for. There were a few places where it was a bit slow, and some of the characters are not particularly likeable all the time. I do find the beginning of each book a little weird - set in the “real world”, it feels just a little wrong, and the fact that we don’t really understand what’s happening to Azure’s body is something I find a bit hard to get my head around. I kind of hope we find out more about this, as I am sure the author has a plan! The audiobooks are really good. Neil Hellegers does a good job in terms of speed and pacing, and for the most part, keeping distinct voices. There are a few instances in which the voices blur into one another, but that happens! The number of times we get ‘notifications’ and a look at the stat sheets aren’t too consuming, which is nice. As I have only read the audiobooks, I can’t speak to what it looks like on page. Content warnings: gore, death, swearing, references to sex, injury, blood, guts, burns. Overall Rating: 4.5 stars |
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