Dragon Seed is an excellent book that I enjoyed right from the start. In some ways, it reminded me of Dave Willmarth’s Dark Elf series and James Hunter’s Viridian Gate Online, as it starts out with a world ending sort of apocalypse when something called the Hex virus. It’s a virus that when you get it you have about 4 days to live, and it will be a nice slow and miserable kind of death. The MC, Hector Park, ends up getting Hex and leaves quarantine, as anyone who is infected should and goes looking for his brother. Turns out his bro is an important figure who just so happens to have a set up that will allow them to have their brains downloaded into a game in order to save their consciousnesses. So you can see the similarities, but that is all it is, pretty facile, and to be blunt it is hard to come up with new and creative ways to put people into game worlds. That wasn’t a plug for my new segment, either.
So, once in the game world we get to see a lot of PC options, and Hector wants to become a Dragon Rider, and what is cool is that he doesn’t automatically start off as one. He has to go through an entire series of events to actually EARN the class. That’s right, he has to earn the class, and if he fails there is no second chance. He can’t reapply. I liked that aspect a lot. Plus, there are some little hints as to what’s really going on, so pay attention to comments made about the NPC’s and their dreams. Also, this is one book where I think it is safe to actually view the NPC’s as being as real as the PC’s, since everyone that is playing the game is dead. They are just as electronically alive as the NPC’s, the only difference is that they get a respawn ability.
There are several things that I like about this book, but the primary ones are that we do not really get a definitive answer on what happened to Hector’s brother, nor do we get to find out if he makes it as a Dragon Knight until the end of the book. Also, there is the mystery of the NPC’s dreams that needs addressed, so while the book does a good job wrapping up its first act it unquestioningly has plenty of things to focus on in the following books. The only downside that I found was that it was predictable as to who was going to be the baddie that sticks it to Hector. I really saw the “twist” coming from a mile away, but then I never trust anybody so I’d never be surprised. Still lots of crunch and excellent game mechanics and a wonderfully built world.
Without a doubt one of the best things about this story was how it was handled by Soundbooth. The team really pulls out all the stops, and while they don’t hit the sound effects button on this book what they do is to add a wonderfully cinematic score to a lot of parts of the novel. In fact it was most notable during an epic battle scene, when the score kicked in it added so much that it made a good battle scene feel pretty epic. I really appreciated how it didn’t overwhelm the spoken words and only added to the drama and excitement of the scene. I really felt like I was watching a scene out of Braveheart. The score itself was well done, and I applaud the subtle way it was used. It could have dominated everything rather than enhancing. I feel that the score in various parts of the narration was more of a benefit than I would have expected. Justin Thomas James and Laurie Catherine Winkel, the Bonnie and Clyde of SBT are amazing here. I call them that because the only people that get three names are people like John Hinkley Jr., John Wilkes Booth, and Lee Harvey Oswald. So, if you hafta use all three names you must be up to sumpin! Or it might just be that they’ll steal your breath as they steal the story away from James Osiris Baldwin. Hmmm, another one with three names. I’d say watch out for this guy, because so far he’s blown me away with his writing. Jeff Hays, also lends his vociferous skills to the track, and as he is my favorite narrator anything else I say will sound biased. Because it is. But he rocks. Party on, Jeff. Party on.
So the long and the short of it is that this is an impressive debut Litrpg novel. Baldwin has a few books under his belt already, but this is his first foray into the genre and he hit it pretty well. My final score 8.3 just because I did see a few of the twists way before they happened.
Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. Getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.
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