Frank Douglass

Mis-Titled

Revisado: 06-09-24

Ok, so I have enjoyed this series so far. The author has an interesting style and is creative. I have two main issues with this book.
They spend less than 10% of the book IN THE 5th REALM. This book is about consolidation and I swear its like Chatfield got ADD. There are SO many POV changes, there often 3-4 per chapter (I think the most was 6). And the POV changes were often to characters that were tertiary to the tertiary characters... Combine that with the Eastern naming convention used with about 60% of the names, and it became very confusing for an audio title. Much of this book did not focus on E&R, which is ok, many of the plotlines were interesting and were tied up to make a point.
This series is facing what all LitRPG series' face as their characters get into the mid-high levels, the story expands past individual feats/levels/stats etc to politics, world building etc. So far Chatfield is handling that ok, but we will see in the next book, where I see he has split the 6th Realm into two books... it is my hope that at least ONE of them actually takes place in the Sixth Realm.
Plot note, the expectation is that our heroes and Alva will run into the big sects soon, and that has a lot of potential. I am also looking to see the SHA make a return.
So far this is what I call a "Little to no resistance" series, nothing really bad ever happens, no one really gives a credible threat. If this series wants to succeed, that will have to change, it is like a game that is too easy, one loses interest. Up until now, its just arrogant factions underestimating Erik and Rugrat, or Greater Alva, and getting their asses handed to them.

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Repetitive Anthology

Revisado: 03-18-24

This book seems as if Daems ran out of real ideas for an intricate plot and just wrote a group of anthologies that were tied together on a serial timeline. The tropes from the previous books were peppered throughout.

1. Big stupid men leer and underestimate small woman
2. Woman kicks their ass in different ways.
3. "Hey Jolie" performance
3. Rinse and repeat through different vignettes.

The one thing that annoyed me a bit is the absolute lack of creativity that all men at every level have in this series. It is like the main character being a woman is the only person who can think. Every guy in this incredibly tough and well trained group of special forces has absolutely no brains for strategy or tactics, and if left without the main female character, would go caveman on every tactical situation. This is INCREDIBLY insulting to special forces everywhere. Men and women in special forces are HIGHLY educated, well trained, and known for thinking outside of the box. It is so bad that eventually the reason for the TSFG allowing women into the service was NOT due to that fact that they should be given equal access to perform, but because the organization was unable to "think like" a woman, which is equated to calm, creative tactical and strategic thinking. Overall, though an ok ending to the series (at least it REALLY felt that way), it was disappointing.
The narration was well done, though the male voices were sometimes difficult to differentiate.

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Wow, just wow.

Revisado: 02-22-24

I rarely do reviews, but this one REQUIRED a review. I took quite a while passing up on this book for other titles, and finally decided to give it a try to pass some time. What can I say other than Oh My... As others have mentioned, this book is a slow burn for the first 20 chapters or so. Why? Because there is serious storytelling here (reminded me of Rothfuss), incredible character development, nothing is predictable (Martin like). The characters have their own purpose, their own stories, that are not just there to push a plot line. Without saying too much, this becomes an emotional roller coaster.

They call this LitRPG, but it is nothing like the typical genre's fare. This is like an incredibly large, bordering on dark, fantasy with LitRPG seasoning. The narrator is good most of the time, but she has a habit (that I have noticed in other books) of ending certain scenes in an overly dramatic fashion. If you like a great story, great characters and an emotional rollercoaster and don't mind some pacing, this is for you.

The only one downside is that the author puts a lot of their current political views into this book, a lot of anti-white rhetoric pushing the evil colonialist narrative. It gets old after a while, and frankly it is really not necessary to the plot. Imagine being stuck in a fantasy world with many different kids of species, monsters etc, and worrying about the humans in this world being white colonialists. Later on in the series this moves towards a thrust of anti-speciesism, which is MUCH more realistic and plot worthy.

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WHY!?

Revisado: 01-29-24

This is one of the few reviews I have been motivated to write, and it is for one reason. The narration and production of this book was HORRIBLE. The first narrator was decent, it's always tough for a male narrator to portray a lead female character, but he did a good job. Unfortunately that came to a very abrupt end here. From the very start I was put off. The narration was monotone, and this male narrator should not portray female lead characters. The main character, which was very well written, became a different person just by her conversation style. I had to bump up the playback speed up to 1.2 just to make it bearable.
On top of the poor narration, the production value was poor. There was background noise, some hissing at times, and very often you could hear the narrator shifting, swallowing, breathing etc. What is worse and inexplicable after ALL of the ratings, is that the NEXT FOUR books have the same narration. I soldiered through this one, but I will not be getting the next four, which is a shame, because I WOULD have with the former narrator, or probably just about any narrator who is competent portraying female leads, or even an AI narrator which are typically substandard, but couldn't be worse.

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Outstanding! Realistic military fiction.

Revisado: 06-25-23

This is an excellent series, deep characters, great action compact, and clean writing. R.C. Bray continues to be one of the best narrators in the business.

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The weakest of the series

Revisado: 07-10-22

First about Starbridge. I am a fan of Science Fiction/Space/military opera, and this (with the possible exception of the previous book, is not that. Starbridge is a series of loosely connected books that span about 25 years, each focusing on different characters from many different cultures. AC Crispin does an outstanding job describing cultures and beliefs. This series is unique because each book outlines a peaceful first contact situation from the perspective of a multi-system planetary union of aliens that are peaceful explorers, not conquerors. This is refreshing, and the writing is clever. This particular book was a bit of a letdown for a few reasons. First it was a bit slow, and there were many discussions about archaeology, iconology, and geology, which added context but became dry on a few occasions. What was left out was more of a focus on the new alien culture and its every day life. The previous stories did an EXCELLENT job of this, but in this one I never related to them. The only real alien perspective you got was from the antagonist, and was dogmatic and spiteful. Now the other issue I have is personal. This was the first time we have seen the original protagonist since the first book, and its been over 20 years. Over the other six books we have seen her long time love interest and the father of her child, building an attachment to him. So now after all this time we see Mahree and she enters into a somewhat "forced" affair with a "romantic figure" that just seems so out of character for her. It was disappointing, and the results just did not seem realistic, even as "enlightened" as we are supposed to believe the characters are. The one new unique character WAS well done, having an Ethiopian background that was well developed and integrated into the story.

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Decent Story that history buffs will recognize

Revisado: 05-26-21

This was a fairly well written book, unlike most space opera/Space Marine books Huff makes use of new races and they are unique. It was a risk and I appreciated it. The relationship between NCO and young officer was certainly recognizable, as was the banter between soldiers even of such different cultures. What was even more recognizable was the battle. The first thing that hit me both in situation, geography and even the layout of the final battle encampment was that this was basically a futuristic re-write of the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulu Nation, even down to the loud challenges and chants. The narration was solid.

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Excellent and creative, narrator struggled

Revisado: 01-22-21

I was very pleasantly surprised. The author used the typical military sci-fi framework, but integrated a Star Wars-esque fantasy element that worked surprisingly well. Some may be turned off by the 'Murica theme, but even that was a pleasant departure from the 'oh so common' British Royal Navy trope. Great value 4 books for 1 credit. My only real issue was the narrator, who really struggled with the female voice.

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A slow start but an interesting premise

Revisado: 02-19-20

A decent read, I'll most likely get thre next. This book ends like a chapter in a larger book. The worst part though is that it is written in First person present tense which is tedious and more than a bit annoying.

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Still good but getting repetitive.

Revisado: 02-24-19

The micro story lines are repetitive, but the macro story line has much potential, unfortunately it's dragging a bit too much to actually cover the mi ro repetition McGill saving the day and pissing off or seducing everyone on some unique hellhole.

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