Overall I started off really enjoying this book. For the first 10 hours I thought that the story progression and personal growth of the characters was going rather well. The story had action, hints of possible romance and character growth that would allow our MC to survive the violent world of Ludus.
SPOILERS
However at some point in the book the Author decides to make our MC incapable of learning from his mistakes and unable to devise enough ways to properly defend himself. In 16 hours our MC was only able to ENGINEER one device. ONE DEVICE!
Sure, a magazine fed crossbow pistol is a decent engineering project but it is hardly an epic feat. So much for ENGINEERING LUDUS. I was highly disappointed that the go to solution to most of the conflicts in the book were Magical Solutions.
The book starts off by saying that our MC knows that this world is a kill or be killed world. Yet later on in the book he hesitates to resort to killing the evil people who are trying to kill him. This always drives me nuts.
Then there are the many close calls our MC has. He is nearly killed on multiple occasions because he is a crappy front line fighter, yet he continues to fall back on those same shitty weapon skills when he is threatened at close range. Not to mention his horrible habit of charging headlong into things given that he is clearly a ranged damage dealer. Where are the cleaver gadgets and tinkerer traps that he should be using to slow down and decimate his foes. As he did in the very beginning of the book. In my opinion our MC is not overly cautious enough to be called an Engineer. He lacks the patience.
Another issue is our MC’s aversion to finding wives. I get it. But his is Ludus. He talks about growing his Sisters clan yet ignores the best method of actually doing so. He could of fixed his lack of fighting skills by simply finding himself a couple of dependable warrior wives. But our MC is incredibly non proactive when it comes to preparing for the future. A future in which bandits can wipe out a merchant Clan in the blink of an eye.
I will fully admit that I did not listen to the last 4 hours. The story just didn’t grip my attention after so many hours of listening to our Engineer MC’s failure to plan sufficiently for his future.