William Hopman

Ahhh it's soo goooooood!

Revisado: 09-21-21

I love how this series seems to respond to fan feedback and continues to shape into a fantastic saga. The preachiness that has been frequently griped at has continued to be toned down and the developed reactions of other characters helps too. This book had me hooked for long periods of time with a certain section in the middle keeping me listening like few books have done before. Character arcs continue to impress and personalities aren't static. The epilogue was... something else. Definitely listen to it.

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This series is going in a great direction!

Revisado: 09-21-21

This second installment fills me with excitement for the future books in the series. The annoying preachiness in the first book? Mostly remedied. Quality character arcs that aren't entirely formulaic? Still there. Great RPG system? Still building and giving that satisfying feeling of progression. The only negative I can share is that the exciting world building was toned down from the first book, but that's a pretty high bar to compare to.

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Story does so much right, but can be quite preachy

Revisado: 06-13-21

From the vast majority of perspectives, this book was fantastic. The world building was intriguing with enough rewarding details to understand for me to keep at it for days or even weeks at a time. The plot does a great job giving you a confusing and deep blank slate, then keeping you excited for the next section of the space to be written in - especially where abilities are concerned. The supporting cast was also very strong, giving some multi-dimensional characters to unpack and even connect with. I only found 2 notable areas where the plot fell short. The book did a fine job bringing different plot lines to intersect, but I've seen much better execution elsewhere. Also, in part due to the laws of the universe and in part due to the nature of MC, much of the story feels of little consequence, with many plot lines just moving the story forward in an expected way, even if the path took a couple extra turns to get there.

Then, of course, there's the insertion of a slew of real world political hot topics into the story. I'm not talking about undertones and deep motivating factors in the story, I'm talking literal speeches and sly comments from MC that feel more like skimming a Reddit comment section on socialism than a novelist sharing a thoughtful perspective. Out of the 29 hours of reading, I probably spent 1 hour listening to MC whine about disliking religion and religious people and 3 hours listening to indignant thoughts on class and economic inequality. I've sat through literal sermons that felt less peachy than this story in some parts. A part of me wants to address or refute some of it, but that's not the point. This is a fun litRPG, and it's good at being that. Stop trying to be the next Atlas Shrugged, it's just not working.

As a final complaint, I think the author greatly overestimates the effectiveness of talking nonsense to people. If you randomly say "Hey you slept with my wife" to a stranger in a restaurant (yes this actually happens), they don't stammer about trying to defend themselves and then leave the restaurant forever in shame. They tell you to shut up and stop lying, then go about their day. The book is literally full of this sort of conversation and I almost want to strip another star for it, but I like the world building too much to give a 3 star review.

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