Overall a good book, I actually enjoyed the first enough to listen to this right away. That said, this book compounds on a major issue I had with the first. Primarily that our MC spends too much time avoiding what is obvious, with a side of refusing to focus.
There are way too many times where he should be following up on what is before him, simply because he knows it’s important. Yet he is constantly avoiding doing this, in persuit of unimportant things. He almost never follows up with questioning things, unless it’s “that time in the story”, despite us all knowing well beforehand that he should.
Now a better writer will spend time building up how easily distracted a character is, or establishing this as a character trait. This book never does that. It’s made even more egregious as he has what is essentially a hand held Wikipedia and almost at no point follows up on the information it offers up.
We see very little, to no, training for him as well, which gets very frustrating. Most of his skills/powers just kind of come to him. The first book does well imo in showing him progressing. This book seems to want to drag that down to a crawl. He doesn’t seem curious on exploring his powers, or figuring out new ways to use them. He’s also a VERY defensive fighter for some odd reason, always on the back foot until something happens that gives him an instant win. I’m unsure if this is because he’s supposed to be timid/inexperienced or if it’s a way to keep him morally good. Whatever reason, it makes for boring writing.
He’s also VERY nieve. He’s no more than a month into dying and being thrown onto an alien sci-fantasy penal planet, yet is always leaving himself vulnerable to sneak attacks or ambushes. You’d THINK by this point our MC would understand that his life is on the line, but it seems as if he’s ignored every near fatal second death he’s faced.
Other than that I enjoyed the book. With some tighter writing and focus… It would be absolutely a great read. If you like isekai and Sci Fantasy it’s well worth the listen, even with my misgivings.