Complains about cliches; Ends up mostly cliche.

Entertaining enough until about the last third. Ends up tripping over itself again and again with sub plot planting and an entirely too convenient Chekhov’s armory scene(s). Decently paced character development, coupled with the book defining soul searching chapter helped balance out earlier criticism. Epilogue turned a 4 star contented read/listen into a 3 star eye roll, when obvious and unnecessary conspiracies gave me war flashbacks to SAO.

Finally, is good but average addition to the genre. Especially coming from stuff like Awaken, Landing, etc. It’ll hold you over until something else comes by that’s higher priority on your list. Really, the various set ups in the Epilogue is what really made me cringe. I’d be surprised if Author finishes in less than 5 books.