Awright, you know what time it is. That’s right it is time for another SOUNBOOTH SPOTLIGHT!!!! Whoop Whoop!

Sorry had to naughty up the narrators a little bit since this book technically lacks naughty bits. The actual narration is performed by Jeff hays, Annie Ellicott, Justin Thomas James, with a special guest appearance by Annileise Rennie.

So, I am including this in this show for few reasons. First, because we have a naughty MC who is the villain of the story rather than the hero. Secondly, because Charles Dean likes to create harems and then make you want action to take place but you never get to see any action. Third, simply because this book is such a departure from what he usually writes that there is barely any beer in the book, and nary a strip of bacon to be seen. There is a sultry bath scene that is nicely descriptive, but don’t go looking for other types of naughtiness.

I will say that I did talk to Charles about this book, and we had a bit of a disagreement over the ending. He claimed that when he wrote this he had no intention of writing more books in this series, and that it was a completely self-contained tale, but I disagreed. I think the end did nothing but set up a second book. We had too many things unfinished, such as the vampire’s questline, and the other continents that needed dealing with, so I’m calling him naughty for trying to make me doubt what I’d read.

The book is clever and smartly written, and centers on a lonely guy mourning a loss and trying to just spend his days drifting about a game world doing nothing but drinking wine and eating cheese until he learns that the game is going to be shut down. Now, any other player would just move onto a new game, but the MC, Lucas, has reasons for not wanting to see this particular game world die off. So he pairs up with a dev to figure out a new way to draw players back to the game without any new content being developed.

Dean is pretty slick in the way that he handles negative levels, and having Lucas handle betraying team members. As always, he creates a set of characters to titillate the reader, but for me the BDSM Mercenary was my favorite. Bonnie! That’s her name. I loved her, if I had to pick a favorite then she’d be it. There is also the sympathetic girl, played by his game changing accomplice who is more than she seems and closer to him than he realizes.

I especially enjoyed the fat spider and the flying gorilla, but the spider Saba made me laugh consistently. A body shamed spider is not something you see everyday. The story is whip smart and crafted meticulously and definitely leaves you wanting more.

The SBT crew add in a ton of SFX and music and they perform the hell out of this book. Oddly, I did think the drumming during the battle scenes didn’t fit as well here. They kind of distracted me from the story, and I know that I’ve said that I’ve enjoyed similar work in the past but here it just seemed out of place for some reason. It wasn’t a game changer, but it did throw me off when it started up. Otherwise, just amazing. Oh, and kudos for including the ever amazing Anniliese Rennie in the book. That was just chocolate sauce on my whipped cream banana split. I can never get enough of Rennie, and to hear her paired up with SBT was a really special moment. Hays is just fun, and takes a morose Lucas into a conniving villain role very believably. JTJ has fun with his role as the betrayed gamer. Anneliese fits right in with the SBT team. Personally, I think they all get better every time they do a new book.

Final score 8.6 stars. Super awesome, with some great surprises both story wise and in the narration.