M.B.R.

Very Fast-Paced

Revisado: 04-20-25

As far as the progression is concerned, the MC (and side characters) are essentially power leveled without much actual struggle on their own parts. They just "get" their hand-fed training and jump to the level of power that the plot requires of them when it requires it. Very much a too fast "on rails" feel there.

The world itself is decently interesting, if really that believable. The characters are pretty shallow, and any meaningful interaction, development, or discovery is quickly abandoned to the break neck speed of the plot that does not slow down long enough to explore literally anything other than the immediate issue the plot demands.

I liked the magic, the overarching plot, and some (though not all) of the characters. This could have been slower paced and more robust in terms of depth in order to be two novels instead of one, and I probably would have enjoyed them much more.

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Everyone is annoyingly stupid.

Revisado: 04-12-25

Literally no one ever makes any sane, logical, or well-connected decision. Everyone is a one-dimentional idiot, including the MC.

The women are written as the absolute worst blue-haired liberal emotional bipolar wrecks that you can imagine. "Don't you DARE hurt that poor giant rabid monster that's killed hundreds of people and is actively trying to eat me!!! VIOLANCE IS NOT THE ANSWER and you're a terrible person for even considering it!" Literally an argument of a woman in the middle of a mass invasion of thousands of hungry monsters literally eating thousands of defenseless humans. Sticks to that opinion despite the giant monster nearly succeeding in eating her -again-, after her stupid attempt to "save" it.

That was when I realized there were no actually likable characters. Not a single one. N will not continue the series after this book. No amount of progression and world building can make me like any of these idiots.

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Some core issues, but decent enough.

Revisado: 04-12-25

The MC is interesting and his journey is compelling...right up until he meets other people. Basically all of which are either bland, terrible, or outright detrimental to everyone's survival. All of which the MC treats as valuable (they are not) and worth protecting (again, usually to the detriment of the overall group).

The women are written as emotionally volitile idiots while the men are all written as brutish juvenile thugs.

Also, the plot literally only happens (over and over again) because people (MC oncluded) keep making terrible choices that no one with sense would actually do. No one makes any sane, logical choices, no one cares about facts - just their feelings, and anytime someone says the most asinine brain-dead thing you've ever heard, everyone (including the MC) just accepts it as "valid" and doesn't challenge anyone about anything. magic slavery? Okay. Cult? That's fine. Murderers? Meh. Sources of desperately needed information? Ignored.

Mindless progression of skills/stats makes the happy chemicals in the brain, but the side characters keep being themselves and ruining even that. It got worse in book 2, making me ultimately drop the series.

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More "spice" than plot. Disappointed.

Revisado: 04-07-25

The hypersexualization of children disturbed me. There is no reason that literally every teenager even mentioned was either a SA victim, a literal dominatrix into geriatric men, a generic sex worker, or had a prolific number of casual partners.

If you ignore the weird focus on learning about the sex lives of 16 year olds (and the casual acceptances b all adults involved that all teenage girls have prolific sex lives, apparently), and how every woman is written as a "liberated and empowered master of her own sexual destiny" or whatever the women with no modesty at all call it these days, the actual world building is decent and would have been great if the book hadn't been so "spicy". Imagine sitting down to watch what you thought was a supernatural thriller movie because the description seemed cool...and find out twenty minutes in that it's actually a softcore adult film and that cool plot you hoped for is "technically" there...but not at all the focus, if you know what I mean. That was this book for me.

It was free, the narrator was great, the setting was cool, and the MC wasn't terrible. However, the actual "magic" and how it worked was heavily glossed over, the hypersexualization of teens and women in general was gross and the casual acceptance of their prolific sex lives was disturbing, and the fact you have to wade through piles of horny for the sparse plot points the story constantly teased was an annoying slog.

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A rare treat.

Revisado: 04-05-25

While anyone can nitpick and find -something- to whine about with any story (the power scaling math didn't really math for me in some places), overall, this was completely solid. It was a fun romp through an absurdist setting, providing genuine laughs, lots of interesting action, and a decent enough plot - especially for this genre.

The narrator was excellent, the story length was satisfying, and Croc is 100% the bestest and goodest boy.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 04-02-25

It sets itself up as a fun romp through an absurdist litrpg setting. However, instead of anything fun like that, the MC is just abused over and over again by the arbitrary "let's make him the underdog by dragging him through hell over and over again" plot. Which is NOT entertaining, and is actually really annoying after having gotten excited about the fun romp that didn't actually happen.

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Pure tropey filler. Gets old VERY fast.

Revisado: 03-14-25

The plot formula has become so predictable, it was actually a slog to get through while resisting the urge to simply skip ahead through the obvious fluff.

The plot for this book is "German steampunk cybermen/borg take over Australian dwarves, but MC's group screws off to spend the whole book doing side quests for kangaroo bandits." That's it. That's the whole book. Only thing that happens that advances the overall story is a bit of powering up (levels and cards), and they manage to check off one more godsword from the list.

No meaningful character development, no other meaningful overall plot advancements, no meaningful callbacks to any previous story lines/enemies/adventures. Just a bland "we rode around and taught like five monsters and gained three levels or so" story with little to no impact, wrapped in the idea of a heavily tropey mush-mash-of-stereotypes enemy that isn't actually even seen by the MC until the last hour of the book.

Interesting new cards? No. Epic card battles? No. Builds on previous relationships? No. Builds on previous adventures? No. You'll miss something important if you skip the obvious fluff sections? No. This whole book reads like a filler short story that got artificially inflated to novel length by simply adding more pointless fluff.

I won't be continuing the series after this installment. Which I hate admitting, since there are so few deck-building litrpg a to begin with and the idea was initially a good one. It's a shame that the execution became so poor.

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Oh, the irony.

Revisado: 03-08-25

I get that it's a fictional world only loosely based off modern earth. However, I can't help but laugh in derision at the utter irony of every single side character (all of whom are presented as UK residents) on the MCs side constantly warn him and worry about him "going too far", and "being too harsh", or "coming close to tyranny"...while people in the UK in real life are literally being arrested and jailed (for YEARS) for mean tweets, praying in public silently, or publicly calling child r@p!sts and murderers "pigs" because "that's hate speech, and that's illegal".

Add in the fact that throughout the series, every single female character is insufferably bossy and unjustifiably argumentative - without exception - and listening to the unrelentingly circular/redundant/looping "dialogue" has honestly become absolutely exhausting.

Six books in, and still no likeable or relatable characters, except the cat since he -also- thinks all these people are absolutely nimrods and keeps his distance from them like I wish I had.

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Can't hate a side character more.

Revisado: 02-21-25

The MC is okay, and most of the side characters are okay too. But Alyssa? I have never wanted a side character to suck start a shotgun more in my entire life. I LOATHE the fact that she becomes a mainstay for the series.

Other than that utter waste of life and oxygen, and the namby-pamby handholding "I need to be the better person -instead- of turning this walking pile of reasons for murder into pink mist" relationship with that one AWFUL side character, the plot and world building are good.

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Giant, depressing sad-sack trope.

Revisado: 02-10-25

The entire story is "everyone but the MC and his disabled sister and possible love interest is an evil sack of festering garbage who wants to and absolutely will use anyone and everything because the "plot" demands everyone else be that way so that you HAVE to sympathize with the generic, pathetic, otherwise forgettable, lower class Average Joe MC who would otherwise be an unlikable schmuck". The world building is also just "corporations are evil corrupt villains" and "the government or law enforcement won't help because they're corrupt bribe takers who don't care about anything".

So, if you love reading about a world of the scummiest types of villains just absolutely dragging a forgettable low class wage with a disabled sister through hell at literally every turn, maybe this is the book for you!

Definitely not for me. Not even the absolutely fantastic narrator could make me like anything about this pile of the worst villain tropes pretending to be a story.

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