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Unnatural Laws

2020 • 358 pages

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15

Unnatural Laws is a sci-fi isekai rather than the fantasy flavor I usually enjoy. Large gatherings of people are getting portaled to an alien world, seemingly at random. The few who survive the alien environment beyond the first few minutes are thrown into a series of trials to pare them down further.

The first few trials are solo challenges and Emma only has her “guide” Suri to talk to. They're extremely linear and feel like an extended tutorial. The trials alternate between survival skills and obsticle courses. I was pretty sick of the formula by the time Emma made it to the next stage.

The next stage tosses all the survivors into a large zone to form teams and complete a few fetch quests to proceed further. Emma teams up with the first people she sees and butts heads with the obligatory bully group. Like the trials, the training and banter drags on a little too long before the plot gets moving again.

The writing is really good and the sci-fi is plausible enough for me. The system buzzwords are half standard LitRPG fare and half nonsense I started tuning out. The story is still good even if you don't have patience for learning a whole new vocabulary.

March 18, 2023Report this review