Sean

I changed my mind. I initially gave this a 3 star rating because it was ok, nothing special. But I've removed a star for that absolutely unnecessary and shitty cliffhanger ending. Litrpg doesn't need that kind of ending; we're reading for the progression and story (no matter how sparse that usually is) anyway.

Be better.

Oh look, Keith uses a bunch of invulnerability and damage reflect skills to beat another world boss. Who could have seen that coming?

And he's a massive dick while doing it. I'm shocked! I have no idea why people follow him. The chance at loot can't be enough to risk instant death and listening to him be an asshole.

He really didn't even need anyone else anyway. My prediction for the final world boss is that he solos it. I'm serious, why wouldn't he? I doubt the entire rest of the raid even did 10% of the damage, so give him another couple vastly ridiculous skills like he gets every book and it should be barely an inconvenience.

And then the Trickster can screw him in the end. That's my dream anyway, because anyone that's this big of a jerk doesn't deserve a happy ending.

Surprisingly less annoying than some of the previous books. I only sometimes wanted Matt to die horribly. I skimmed all the worthless stuff like building pathways to repair a core and blah blah, because a) you know it is going to work, and b) no one cares. But it wasn't terrible this time. And it is about time he finally remembered poor Jack. I've been annoyed about that for several books.

Still convinced this author is the same as the Backyard Dungeon guy, even more now that he couldn't resist describing women's clothing in some detail. Still cringey pointless sex scenes (although thankfully not explicit this time), still constantly calls enemies “fuckers,” so just a few more descriptions of what women are wearing and we'll have a 100% match.

What in the...?

I'll admit the writing in this series wasn't Shakespeare, but it was nothing that made me notice it either. While it doesn't show it here on Goodreads, my copy says it is co-written by someone named Austin Rising. I sure hope the next one isn't as well.

DNF at 16%, immediately after reading multiple pages of crap like this (full disclosure, paragraph breaks did get lost in the paste):

‘She nodded. Wheeled the scooter around and headed back the way we'd come. We reached the restaurant. There were no necrotons. No people on the street. The restaurant was empty and silent. There were streaks of blood. Torn articles of clothing. Broken tables. The people were gone. Hannah hissed. “They killed everyone and took them.” “Yeah.” I stared back down the street toward the canals. Imagined the fresh bodies being piled on the floor. A necromancer looking at them. Deciding which ones to reanimate first.'

Did your comma key break?? There is no f-ing way I am reading an entire book written in short, choppy sentences like this. Sure, some authors might be able to pull it off, but these guys aren't it. I'm going to read a plot summary and then move on to the next one. If it continues like this, I'm done. The main characters are already unlikable jerks, so no reason to keep torturing myself.

Mediocre

As Immortan Joe once wisely pronounced, “Mediocre.”

2.5 stars, but I am kind-hearted and generous to a fault. Trust me.

No spoilers since I got to read an advanced copy, but I cannot begin to express how much I needed this book. Not only was this one the most well-written of the series, showing Raley's continued growth as an author, but it was also my favorite.

So many protagonists I've read in the past few years seem to be complete unlikable assholes. King Henry is the likable one, and it makes all the difference. I actively find myself hating all the other ones after I'm several books into the series because they just become insufferable, and who wants to root for a character that you wouldn't give the time of day to in real life? King Henry is abrasive and an acquired taste, but he has a heart of gold, and this book seems like it was literally made to showcase all of those facets together.

Hell, there is even a new character that is literally the epitome of what I hate in pretty much every other situation I've ever encountered this type of character, but I love her. She was almost my pick for favorite new character, just lost by a smidgen. And barely beat out another by a smidgen. So 3 new characters that I absolutely loved, and plenty more that I greatly enjoyed, they just couldn't be given as much screen time because then the book would be 5000 pages long. Which would have been ok with me.

The biggest compliment I can give this book, besides just the utter joy I felt when finally getting it my grubby little hands, is the sadness I felt when it was all over. Not because the book was sad, but because it was done and now I will have to wait any amount of time until reading more. More about these new characters, more about old characters, more about the world of King Henry. Even if that time was only to be a week, I'd still be a little sad. Since it will be longer than that, you see where my despair comes from. Perhaps it is time to do another total series re-read just to keep my spirits up.

If you love King Henry, you will love this book. You already know it, I shouldn't have to tell you!

Well, it had to happen I guess. My blinders forgiving a lot of the BS in this series have finally come off. I guess I should be happy that he didn't blatantly steal from any other IPs (except the entire Cthulhu mythos, of course) in this one, but the number of silly pop culture references certainly made up for it. Seriously, life and death scenarios, but you make time to quip movie quotes? GTFO.

But worse than that, the first half of the book we have Cain and Hannah being absolute assholes to Aura. I swear, the author should just replace her with a doormat and be done with it. Hannah is turning into a snotty little bitch, and it is pissing me off. I used to root for her, now I just want to see her get smacked by someone bigger and badder and unforgiving of her bullshit.

Cain, for some reason, has the emotional range of a cardboard cutout. If the cutout were of a dick.
This seems to have become a thing lately, as I've found myself complaining about it a lot across many series lately. Why do authors think that making their main character an asshole is cool? We get it, he's a rough and tough assassin, and he had to rein his emotions in to stay alive, and blah blah. Shut up. Then you try to make us think he's growing some emotions via his interactions with the new “family” around him. That would be cool if he actually were, but he only is when you say he is, otherwise he's just a dick. There are even times when he thinks to himself that he could soften his words or not sound so dickish, but then he says nah, I'm getting soft, screw them, let them deal with it. I'm Cain, big meany-head, and I will not be deterred in my quest to...oh damn, drink girly drinks and moon over his car. So emotion, much wow. Give me a break. Manufactured “humanizing” traits that are just dumb. And done many times over by other authors.

This honestly should have been a 2*, but I'll give it another try with the next book before I totally give up. I mean, at least it hasn't turned to complete shit like Iron Druid and Sandman Slim, so there's still hope, right? Right??

I am teetering on the edge between “this is cool” and “this is blatantly stealing other characters to sound cool.”

First we had the casual mention of other series, Dresden, Iron Druid, a couple others I'm not familiar with. Then we had an actual character from Iron Druid, just with the name changed. Then we had LITERALLY the Lucifer from the TV show, down to the “What is it you most desire?” Sure, Lucifer is public domain, but I doubt anyone could even muster a defense that it was obviously the tv version. Now in this book, not only do we have him meet “Henry and Murray” (Harry and Murphy) from Chicago, replete with “Hell's Bells” and duster references, but we have essentially Death from On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony, with guest appearances by the rest of the Incarnations of Immortality. Again, public domain characters, but come on, you even stole the horse's name, Mortis!

Is this whole series going to be nothing but taking ideas that others have created and then twisting them slightly to encompass the Cthulhu mythos as well? (Yet another public domain series of stories that have been co-opted, of course.) Is this even legal? I feel like it would not be difficult at all to prove correlation here if a lawyer chose to, but maybe it is fair use or something? Can someone enlighten me? Because yeah it is cool at first to think, “Oh, he's talking about Dresden!” but then not as cool to think, “Huh, he literally stole the entire Lucifer character wholesale.”

-1 star for including the character that made me actively despise the Iron Druid series. Yes, the Iron Druid author is actually the one that took a big old dump all over his readers and told them how much he despises them, but Granuile's (sp?) character was the one delivering the message. To have her show up here, even in a limited capacity, almost made me drop this series altogether.

Thankfully she didn't matter much or have much page-time, but that being said, since she was so trivial to the story, it is clear that she was only included as a “look at me, I am using a character from a series I keep hinting about!” She could have been any random druid except for the fact that he decided there aren't any except the Iron Druid and her. I'm assuming he got permission to use her, despite not using her actual name, but who knows. Same with the other cameos late in the book.

I can only hope that she leaves by the start of the next book. This one was fine, and I enjoyed it for the most part, but I'm still gonna deduct that star because it forced me to remember how badly that series turned from something I loved to something I hated. I believe I never even read the final book or two, despite knowing the series was ending, because it turned to complete crap and actively worked to drive people like me away. I can't imagine she'll stick around, but if she does, game over man, game over.

I'm coming back to write a review for the first book after making it to book 10 I think? Sure, I rated this one pretty well, but if I were to rate the series in totality it would maaaaaybe be a 2 star.

Avoid this series. If you need reasons why, first and foremost, the author basically just took a bunch of other ideas and characters and threw them together into his story. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stuff is all public domain now, so he's free to use that, but the main character (Cain) even uses Lovecraft's works as reference material in the book, so not a lot new is being created in that corner. Toss in a bunch of Greek and Norse gods that are also free to use, along with a big chunk of fae stuff that we've all seen in dozens of series, and now you have almost the entirety of the background for the series.

For that last little smattering of unoriginality, now toss in blatant but “names are changed so I don't get sued” references to Dresden, Iron Druid, a couple other series I'm not familiar with (Nate Temple or Church or something?), which are literally implying that they all exist in the same world despite those other authors likely never intending anything of the sort, then literally steal a character from Iron Druid for an entire book (name changed again, you can't prove anything!!!) and THEN make one of the books literally a blatant ripoff of Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse, right down to the horse being named Mortis, and you'll quickly see how there is very little originality in this series at all. Reading the real source material for all of this, including Lovecraft, would be a better use of your time.

And that little bit of originality? A dickhead main character who is also somehow a whiny little bitch, and a bratty young girl that apparently thinks being a bitch is endearing. My biggest gripe is that one character “betrays” Cain (not really, it is like your co-worker not telling you he's also your boss) and up through book ten or whatever I got to, neither Cain nor Hannah (the whiny little bitch) can let it go or trust this other character, despite them doing everything they can to help since then and putting up with being treated like shit. This character should have told them where to go long ago and never spoken to them again.

So yeah, I'm very sorry I read as much of this series as I did. I'm angry at myself for continuing as long as I did, but I guess I wanted to keep giving it a chance. Don't be like me, avoid at all costs. Read those other series instead. This guy is nothing but a hack and a plagiarist.

Boring Training Montage

This book is literally one big training montage. Without Eye of the Tiger to make it interesting.

Super boooooooring.

Also, lots of typos, sometimes several on the same page.

How does an author write this many books and still type “distain” instead of “disdain?” Not once, but multiple times, since the main character, Keith, is an asshole that has that feeling all the time about everyone around him.

That's just one of many, many wrong word typos in this book. Real words, just the wrong ones for where they are written. Ask for beta readers or something, if you don't have an editor (you can't).

More of the same. Numbers go up, monsters get harder but still lose because of some ridiculously OP skills. Girls fawn over Keith, but he hates the attention and wishes they would all just go away. He is literally only nice to people because it gets him what he wants faster; if he could get what he wanted more easily via threats or intimidation or murder he would do that, because he's a sociopathic asshole. I hate him with every fiber of my being. Oh, but he's supposed to be relatable because he...is an asshole when he drives like a maniac, and is an asshole when he demands his monkey friend eat healthy...both things that I think are supposed to be funny/endearing? Spoiler alert, they aren't.

Honestly I just want to see it through to the end at this point, and it doesn't have any core-building bull like so many others in this genre, so I stay like an abused spouse. I don't know why I do, but I do.

Literally the only good thing about this series now is Tac and all of his stories about his relatives. It just sucks that such a good idea is ruined by the main character being such a jerk. I am actively hoping that the Trickster screws him at the end of the story for being such an ass.

I'm even more convinced now that Jez Cajiao is also Logan Jacobs, author of Backyard Dungeon and about a billion other copy/paste series. Between referring to every enemy as “fuckers” ad nauseum to now apparently forgetting which series he is writing and adding a completely unnecessary and god-awfully awkward sex scene into this book, the evidence is pretty conclusive in my mind. I'm tempted to do one of those writing analysis comparisons, I'm that convinced, but I'm also super lazy.

But as for this book/series, nothing annoys me more in these “System” universes than a freaking moron main character that purposely avoids reading his notifications when they have proven to be immensely useful more times than I can count. Sure, plenty of them are probably a nuisance, but countless times they could have made the difference in a battle, or a prep phase, or whatever. But nooooo, Matt actively suppresses them, and tells us about it like we should agree with how annoying he thinks they are. Of course, they are nothing more than plot devices to make certain things happen when the author wants them to, which gets tiresome. I also feel like the author is doing it on purpose just to annoy me, personally, because at this point it is just stupid.

Still, I want to like the series more than I do, hence the 2.5 stars rounding up to 3. I look forward to Book 43 when Matt finally remembers to do all of the things he keeps putting aside.

There are many things I like about this series, and many I don't.

In the “don't like” category, how absolutely stupid do you have to be to find yourself in a “System” universe and constantly, intentionally, ignore your notifications?? Matt does that all the time, and it is often something really important or really helpful. After a couple of times you'd think he might get a bit better at it, right?

I won't get into more details about some of the stupidity of the main character, because I want to talk about something that I feel must be true, as crazy as it may sound. You see, a couple of years ago I read a few of these terrible harem books called Backyard Dungeon, and aside from the vast amounts of cringe inherent in harem books, the biggest thing that annoyed me was how EVERY fight scene was essentially this: “The fucker came at me. I dodged, and shot the fucker in the face, then spun and kicked the next fucker in line.” Basically fucker fucker fucker. Completely unoriginal and lazy, and while I am certainly no stranger to that kind of language, it just got to be so obvious and annoying that I couldn't take it anymore. In my mind, even if your protagonist is callous and rough and uses language like that, it is still incredibly lazy of the author to write like that.

These books do the EXACT same thing. All the time. To the point where I am now convinced that both authors are the same person. The Backyard Dungeon guy has apparently written over 200 books in like 5 years, somehow, so it wouldn't be a stretch for him to have tossed in the books this author has done as well. I don't know how someone could write 200+ books in such a short time without it being obvious AI, but it is uncanny how similar the fight descriptions are in both series, and I have a hard time believing two different authors are inept in the exact same way. Like, I'm positive you could swap fight scenes between the books and no one would notice a change.

That being said, I still like this series, whereas BD sucked, so I'm not trying to crap all over this series or say not to read it. But as more and more fight scenes stack up with exactly the same wording, over and over and over, I couldn't help but make the connection. Is it true, or am I just seeing things? Who knows. But I'd like to know if anyone has ever seen the two of them in the same room together!

You know how people complain about Marvel movies injecting humor into scenes where it isn't needed, or is out of place? That's the main character in this book, Rocky.

On top of that, he thinks he's incredibly smart for some reason, despite having no memories. He's got everything figured out, until he realizes he doesn't, but then goes right back to assuming that he does once the current danger has passed.

I'm just going to say it; he's too stupid to live. He's mentally challenged. I actively root for him to die. This is a pretty short book, particularly with all the spacing between paragraphs and formatting. It still seemed way, way, waaaaaay too long because I hate the main character so much.

I honestly don't know how people can give this a positive rating, let alone 5 stars. The writing is awful, the characters are awful and shallow, and the world is nothing new if you've read the STYX series he wrote. I've read the first one of that, and while I don't remember much, and it certainly wasn't this bad, I gave it 3/5 so it wasn't amazing I guess. There are dozens of litrpg series out there better than this one, and even if they are generic they probably don't have retarded main characters like Rocky.

Avoid at all costs.

Coming back to this after having read all 7 books that are currently available in this series.

They are enjoyable, solid 3/5 stars. Not amazing, but certainly worth reading, and the protagonist is a normal dude instead of an autistic introvert that thinks other people are icky. Yes, I'm looking at multiple other litrpg series right now. I've quit several otherwise “ok” series simply because I hate the main character far more than any villain the author can dream up. coughRandidlycough

But the reason I'm backtracking and reviewing this book, and boosting the star rating by one as well, is because there is NO CULTIVATION in the entire series! Thank you baby Jesus. It was ok for a bit when I first started getting into litrpg, but it has become the focus of far too many series. I can't even bring myself to read the latest Defiance of the Fall book because the last one was literally 700 pages of navel gazing by the main character, contemplating his core and his dao and whatever bullshit the author thinks people want. Maybe they do, but I don't, and I am ECSTATIC that this book has absolutely zero. And if you are like me, maybe you'll read my review and feel that refreshing breath of fresh air wafting over you as you contemplate an entire series without that crap.

So yeah. Not the most amazing series ever, but solid, and none of the annoying stuff I hate. Maybe a bit too much game messages early on, but it gets a lot better. If I have one complaint it is one that is shared by most litrpg; side characters often get left behind for multiple books/thousands of pages while the main character gets trapped in a dungeon or mentally masturbates to their core or whatever. That happens here a lot, and it kind of bugs me, but what can you do? I still really enjoyed this series, although I should warn you that it is written in that typical Royal Road style where every chapter is about 5 minutes long, so you end up thinking you'll just read one more, and suddenly it is 3am and you need to be up for work in a few hours. Yeah, that happened to me pretty much constantly with this series, which shows that I did in fact enjoy it and want to read more.

Over the three books of this series, more time was spent describing breakfasts and “gaudy but tasteful” mansions than the actual resolution to the conflict. It is like the author planned on more books, but then suddenly decided nope, I'm done, and concluded it in less than 20 pages. Dumb.

Not that anyone expected a book like this to be Shakespeare, but come on, put a little effort into it. With how dumb and terrible the ending was, I would recommend not even starting this series, if by some chance you are reading these reviews ahead of time. You are literally missing nothing by skipping this one.

For those looking to start this series, don't waste your time.

While I didn't hate each individual book, the plot quite literally gets wrapped up in like 20 pages at the end. It honestly felt like there was supposed to be a 4th book, and at the last minute the author said, “Nah, F it, I'm done,” and then just wrote a couple of pages to skip over months and months of conclusion.

If you never read this series, you will not have missed anything, trust me.

Abandoned about 30%.

I was already not feeling it in books 3 and 4, but I stuck it out. No more, I'm out.

First, the name is absolutely stupid. Just reading “Randidly” thousands of times over the course of the series is traumatizing me.

Second, we're getting more and more “staring at my navel” chapters like Defiance of the Fall and others where the MC works on his “core” or whatever bullshit. I hate those with a passion, and I was hopeful this series would avoid all of that. Nope.

Literally nothing important happened in the previous book, but with the Raid dungeon I was hopeful about this installment. Again, nope. Just stupid pointless quests and “big bad behind the scenes” bullshit, with a TON of horrible combat descriptions. Seriously, you suck at it, just stop.

And if I had a nickel for every time a character in one of these litrpg books faced down a powerful enemy (or group of enemies) and snorted or smirked, I'd be a billionaire. No joke, search the text of this entire series for smirk and snort and tell me that's not an excessive amount. Who even snorts in real life anyway, except on accident and with immediate embarrassment?

Oh, and Sydney? Spoiler alert, she's just a massive C word, and Randidly (ugh) is just a pathetic simp for her abuse. And Ace might actually be learning impaired. I guess it makes sense that Randidly (ugh) is re tarded as well with those two as his best friends.

I could go more into specifics, but it isn't worth my time. I gave it 4.3 books, probably 2 more than it deserved. Time to cut my losses like so many of these books should have done, but I guess that RR money is hard to pass up.

-1 star because I wish the main character would get smacked down and humbled for once. He's a massive asshole, and I hate him. I'm no psychologist (nor do I wish to be one), but I'm pretty sure Keith is some manner of -path, probably a sociopath. He uses everyone like they are disposable tools, treats them like shit, and literally doesn't care about anything but his own goals.

I said it in my review of the last book, I get that he has reasons for being that way, but it isn't fun to read. At all. The author is clearly aware that Keith is a major asshole too, as characters in world periodically tell him so, but Keith doesn't care. And I hate him for it.

Against my better judgment I will probably continue reading, but I am starting to root for the ending of the series to be that The Trickster screws him and his family hates him because they know about all of the horrible things he's done and the shitty way he's treated people.

To all authors out there: stop making your characters unlikable assholes that we can't root for. Jesus, even Dexter was easier to feel some sympathy for than protagonists like Keith, and Dexter murdered people for fun!

This is a reasonably entertaining series, but I'm starting to actively dislike the main character a lot. I get why he acts the way he does in terms of rudeness, abruptness, “everything for the mission,” etc. And why he doesn't want to form any attachments to people. He has a valid reason for all of that in the world in which the story takes place.

That doesn't mean it is fun to read. He's a dick, and he uses people with very little regard for their feelings. You would think that someone with as much interpersonal experience as he has would know that being nice to people is often more effective than being a jerk, but apparently the author has chosen to make him ignore all of that experience and sprint for the finish line of his “quest” despite having spent so long on it already.

Speaking of that, if you've read to this point none of this will be spoilers, but the being is literally named The Trickster. You just know the ending isn't going to be a happy one. Either all of that time he has been alive will have elapsed and his family is long dead, or something else will bamboozle him. Assuming that no actual time elapses, why is he in such a rush now? I get being frustrated at spending like 400 years apart, but what are a few more at this point? Same with his refusal to get into any sort of relationship. I get how having to watch people grow old and die time after time is probably horrible, but he's turned into an unfeeling asshole because of it, and his family isn't going to recognize him if they ever are actually reunited.

I don't know man, I'm getting really tired of reading characters that are difficult to sympathize with. Would it have killed him to form relationships with people? I really liked Alicia, and pushed ahead to the books where she'd be in them...but no, she's barely there and he treated her like shit when she was. Again, I see that he has valid reasons that he gives in the books, but they absolutely suck to deal with as a reader. It feels like I'm being dragged down into being miserable along with him. Hell, his companions ALL tell him what a jerk he is, and maybe he eases up for 3 minutes, but then right back to being a jerk. I'll keep reading, but I am starting to hope The Trickster really screws him at the end just because he's clearly not learned how to be a better person.

I wonder if the author realizes that many of us only keep reading for the side characters and events, and if Keith were to die and somehow the story kept going on, we'd probably be happier?

Oh, and the maniac driving thing...ugh. I hate every moment of it, and it is beyond stupid. It is too late to end it without feeling weird, but come on. It is just as dumb as his other philosophies on life, that no matter how much anyone gives him advice on, he ignores. He's the dumbest 400 year old person ever, and I am starting to actively hate him. Please stop, and lighten him up just a little.

DNF about 40% in.

On the one hand I feel bad, because it is clear the author really loves this stuff. And putting out a book a month is respectable...but that might be part of the problem. There's literally nothing meaty in these books to really hold onto. I'm bored, I don't really care about any of it, and if I had anything else to read I would have quit before this book. Since I made it to 6 I can say I really did try, but I just don't care if I ever read more about these characters. I thought for a few moments throughout the series that I might enjoy more of Princess Maylolee, but now that they are married she is literally just a drone for his desires. Oh, and that whole dragon hoard thing annoyed me from the start, and even though it is supposedly gone (but really not) it still annoys me.

Finally, not trying to be mean, but despite what the bio says I am pretty sure the author is a teenage virgin. How else can you explain a married couple of 18 and 19 years old doing nothing more than head pats and occasional kisses? I get that he likes anime, but come on! It is ridiculously awkward how far the author goes to try to avoid having them do anything even vaguely adult. Don't describe it, just admit that they did it and move on. This is just dumb.

Of course, if any of these things get rectified I'll never know, because there is no reason for me to ever consider reading them again.

tl;dr booooooooring, read something else.

I'm told that the early chapters of this series are rough and the later ones get a lot better, the main character gets more tolerable, etc.

I don't care. This was literally one of the worst books I have ever read, of any genre. Maybe I'll miss out on some amazing storytelling in Book 20, but there is no way I'm struggling through more books like this one just to get there. If I hadn't heard how much better things got I never would have made it past 10% in this one.

I am willing to believe that some of the problem is the translation from Korean, and cultural differences not being familiar to me. But if so, that stuff is never going to change. And just to make sure, I went and read snippets of much, MUCH later chapters on the site it comes from, and while they might be a little better, everything is still stilted and awkward and badly written. It did NOT get so much better that I can force myself to get there. I hated this book, I hated the game system, I hated the endless stat dumps that the author copy/pasted over and over again so that we were forced to skip 2-3 pages every time we saw the SAME item repeated, and I hated the cringy dialogue.

But most of all I hated the main character. He deserves every bad thing that happens to him, and doesn't deserve any of the good things that do. It is debatable if I'd rather read the life story of a vegan crossfit bicyclist that sells essential oils or more about this character.

All I can say is, if you like slamming your testicles/ovaries in a car door, then give this book a shot. Otherwise, save yourself a lot of pain. And don't listen to everyone that tells you how awesome the series gets. It can't be that awesome to justify going through who knows how many books of this crap.

Avoid at all costs.

2.5/5

Not bad, but nothing I haven't read before except for the memes. If you've read Defiance of the Fall or Primal Hunter you have seen everything this book has to offer, this is just less of those. And I started book 2 and after about 15% I realized I didn't care about any of it, so that's enough of this series for me I think.

DNF at 66%. Trigger warning, I was super triggered when writing this.

I muddled through the first book despite it being fairly uninspired and clearly derivative of Dungeon Crawler Carl (at least he admitted in the forward that he literally talked to DCC's author, so that was expected I guess). My complaints then were that the rpg part of litrpg was incredibly lacking. A quest would reward +1 to some stat, a stat which we had never heard of up until this point, and we still, to this day, probably don't even know what it does. I get that the point of this “system” is to be hostile towards the players, but it is like the author was just making up the system as he went along, and there was zero reason for the reader to care about it at all beyond it forcing the characters to do stuff for the author to send them where he wanted.

But even still, I finished it and didn't hate it, and I was willing to read more. Well, this book fixed that mistake. I was already growing bored and tired of the ENDLESS moralizing and monologuing by the main character, Brad. Did you know he was bullied as a kid? Did you know that he almost killed himself because of it? Did you know that a teacher talked to him and convinced him to get jacked, and Brad used that to bully the bullies, only to later regret being such a meany? Did you know he was in the Air Force, and apparently every superior office there was a bully too? Did you know that Brad has to be careful not to “go to a dark place” whenever he loses his temper? Did you know that Slash (his dog) means the world to him, and the very thought of losing him or him getting hurt risks sending Brad into one of those rages?

Well, if you somehow didn't know all of that after the first book, you can't help but pick up on it after every single one of those facts being repeated about a dozen times during the course of this book. Because that's what this book is. Not lots of cool litrpg questing and skill increasing and gaining cool powers all the other stuff common to the genre. No, this book is about Brad telling us those things over and over again, with a couple of incidental things the system forces him to do mixed in (along with a huge helping of Brad telling us just how much he hates this antagonistic system). Sure, maybe the final third of the book that I didn't read turns things around completely, but I don't care, you lost me already.

Now, all of that wasn't enough to make me quit, but it was getting close. The exact point I quit is when Kira, the Strong Black Woman he teams up with, tells an absolutely pointless and ridiculous story that is clearly nothing but the author trying to either virtue signal or somehow develop her character in the worst way possible. Look, we already knew she was strong and independent, and I honestly had no problem with her character. I've said it before, some of my favorite characters are strong females. The Lady from The Black Company is perhaps my favorite of all time. But she's strong because she took it. Which was how I viewed Kira for the most part, up until this absolutely ridiculous “let's generate sympathy” story.

This isn't a spoiler because it has zero to do with the actual story. Apparently Kira had an uncle who was a misogynist (she thankfully didn't use that term, but that's what he was). Her family tried to shelter her from that fact, and when she was around 14 her father had it out with him at a family picnic and ended with the smackdown of telling him to “fucking evolve,” and the entire rest of the family backed her father, telling her uncle what a piece of shit he was. I can only imagine what a day for women's rights that was. But somehow, despite her never telling us how her uncle might have somehow stunted her emotional growth or victimized her or anything, and despite her being only 14 when this verbal beatdown from her very own father took place, and her being I dunno, 30 or so now, and a successful business owner no less, apparently just thinking about that day makes her cry and has made her life oh so difficult ever since. What?? Even if somehow her uncle made her feel inferior as a kid, she literally watched him get the comeuppance he deserved and had her entire family invalidating the way he treated women. Shouldn't that have done the exact opposite of ruining her life? Shouldn't it have empowered her? It is literally the dumbest, most pointless story I can remember reading in a book like this. I feel like somehow an entire segment of the story was left out, because I am just not getting what was so traumatizing about this relative that had very little to do with her life up to that point being a dick, and then getting blasted in front of everyone about it. He never did anything to her specifically that we are told. What am I missing? (EDIT: Is it as simple as the fact that some men still think like her uncle, and that fact alone is enough to trigger her decades later?? That's the only thing I can think of, honestly. And if that's it...suck it up, buttercup.)

On top of that, the clear references to real world political events is just stupid. You're the author, you can do whatever you want, but if you decide to make your characters have opinions about REAL events that I disagree with, then I am entitled to shit all over your book in a review. If I were an author I might be tempted to put stuff in to trigger people like Paul Sating just for fun, but if I actually wanted to make money, why would I risk alienating a large percentage of my potential audience? I want your money even if I hate your politics. Unless my job is actually to give political opinions, why do you want to hear mine, and why do I want to make you decide not to give me your money? I've never understood that with celebrities, movie directors, authors, etc. Is virtue signaling to others more important than making a product that everyone likes and thus spends money on?? Apparently it is. Which is why I stopped watching/purchasing the vast majority of movies and shows that I used to enjoy. And I will never give another even fraction of a penny to authors like this one via reading on KU, much less buying their books.

If you made it all the way to the end of this review, and you honestly don't care about the author saying stupid shit that doesn't need to be there, just read the first part of my review and realize that there are about a thousand or more litrpg books that are more entertaining than this one. You know how they say “show, don't tell” in writing? I view endless, endless character thoughts as the very definition of telling, and that's all this book is. Even worse, they are just the same ones repeated over and over and over. To be fair, the dialogue is usually fine, and I sort of like Slash and the way he talks, but that is about 1% of the total word count in the book. The rest are Brad telling us about how he used to be bullied and then worked out. Shut up.