Catharsis

For a while there all I would read were LitRPGs but I had to take a break. I figured I would treat myself to this very well-reviewed series after finishing up a spate of fairly challenging reads. I liked this book, it is far from perfect but I would say that this execution of the formula meets par, which is impressive for a new author debut. I would not recommend this as a jumping-in point for LitRPG, but if you're a fan of/familiar with this genre I think you'll find this enjoyable.

I am giving zero points for originality here, the premise is ripped straight out of any high school set fantasy game anime produced in the last 15 years. Jason is an intelligent but misunderstood kid attending a prestigious high school on scholarship, he is bullied by antagonist Alex (A rich 17yo psychopath) and expelled by a corrupt school administration. He dives into a VR MMO called Awaken Online, a cutting-edge game that's run by an intelligent AI called Alfred. This first book tackles the origins of Alfred and Jason's rise to power in the game and his efforts to crush Alex (Alexion in-game) under the heel of his boot.

If you've seen Sword Art Online this is straight-up ripping off that premise with minor changes, like the bullying subplot and an expanded plotline for the sentient AI game controller/DM. I don't fault it for being SAO-inspired, SAO is the framework on which many LitRPGs extrapolate, but that doesn't mean that this isn't one of the most blatant rip-offs of that premise I've ever read (the last chapter is total SAO bait).

Before I start tearing this book apart further I do want to give credit where it is due. This is the most litRPG a litRPG can be, it hasn't strayed from the formula one iota but it is still better written than 99% of the web novels that I've read (Take that with a grain of salt, this is competing in a space-crowded with non-English speaking authors and machine translations). I think the core strength of this story is how much attention and care has gone into building out the details of the game world. Unlike many other competitors in this space, the game that's described here is something I would want to play. There are no improvements I would offer to the setting of this book, it's perfectly executed. The game makes sense, the skills are well-defined, and the systems have been thought over. While there is power creep I would point out that this book, like nearly everything else in this genre, is an escapist power fantasy and this is just the first volume so it's hard to comment definitively.

On to the plethora of flaws:

This is a self-published debut book and it probably wasn't professionally edited so there's screwed-up grammar, tense, and just generally lacking prose. There is a clear lack of polish but I wouldn't say that the lack of polish is what's killing this book. What's killing this book is that the characterization and plot structure is a dumpster fire, these are critical flaws that go well beyond the technical details.

Let's start with Alex, our foil to Jason: He gets maybe 10 lines of dialogue in 500 pages and the bulk of his characterization happens in the last 15% of the story. He is a contrived one-dimensional villain stereotype and I wonder why he's featured so prominently when he's written like a henchman in a Saturday morning cartoon. If he's supposed to be the source of any of the tension in this story, and the second half of the book is written like he is, then this is a failure of a character. I would note that nearly every other author in this genre is guilty of writing flat villains that are meant to be stepped on to progress the power fantasy, but typically those characters don't stick around for an entire volume.

Well, what about the MC? Jason is maybe one bad day away from shooting up his school and that characterization seems to have been largely done by accident. I think that this first volume was supposed to be about Jason getting over his anger issues, but his redemption falls flat, and feels forced. This story is supposed to be about Jason but outside of his anger issues and his obsession with the game we really know next to nothing about him and that's not okay when what most of this book does is question his morality. To pile on, the bullied at school by rich kids gimmick really shouldn't be the first thing we grasp when we want a compelling character in a video game world. I've seen every variation of “poor and lame in real life, but rich and powerful in the game” and IMO there are so many more compelling archetypes. I think that this characterization is supposed to justify the choice of playstyle/in-game character and highlight the influence of the AI, but a bullied kid rolling a Necromancer-Assassin is not a new thing, it's like the author picked one generic trope to underpin a second and equally generic trope.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the plotting. The bulk of the tension in this story is not coming from the A plot at all: Instead of caring about character growth and gameplay, I spent most of this read dreading what kind of a monster Jason was going to turn into just to have that narrative thread cut out abruptly. Jason goes through something resembling redemption or at least a change in his attitude, but that change is largely unexplained. This commentary on/change in his nature is what the AI subplot seemed to be designed to deliver but if that's the case why did that subplot seemingly disappear? Every chapter has a split structure: There's the opening passage in Italics which delivers the B plot about how the AI has slipped its reins and is reading and altering the memories of its players, while the remainder is the A plot which focuses on Jason as he gets increasingly homicidal in the way he plays the game. This isn't a bad setup all things told, it raises some interesting questions about the AI as it enables the worst aspects of Jason's personality. But for some unstated reason the passages that were delivering the B plot suddenly time skip to the present and become POV from the game company as Jason rampages. I'm guessing the AI's influence is what the next volume will focus on, but if that's the case why is the introduction of this plotline the dominant source of tension in this volume?

I'll probably read on to see if and how this is going to improve as Bagwell matures as an author. I can tell from this first book that he cares about this project and there is some seriously nerdy attention to detail being paid to the game-focused elements. Despite this book having some serious flaws I am interested in the game world and if I can make a big-time generalization: no one reads LitRPG for the prose or plot. These books are like rollercoasters or bags of chips; they're pure entertainment and filler- and this story is sufficiently entertaining with a lot of room for growth and improvement. To quote my real estate agent, “This has good bones”.

From an enjoyment standpoint this is a 3.5/5, from a more global quality standpoint this is a 2/5 at best. Overall 2.75