I love Ryan Rimmel’s Noobtown series so I thought I would give this a shot. I had an open mind when reading this book. I read it to the end, hoping it would offer something to keep my attention or some of Ryan’s humorous flare. It didn’t. For those who found this an entertaining read, I commend you for that. To me, it had a lot of the new author mechanics that I find hard to get past such as flat characters, stat vomit, and repetitive character devices that act as book filler rather than any real progression. The monosyllabic Tod archetype is an overplayed character mechanic that’s supposed to inject humor but only acts like nails on the chalkboard in terms of listening pleasure. The god figures watching in on the protagonist while not having any clear investment in the outcome of the hero or any real point to the story is just more filler. Then the undead angle with a corrupted dungeon is overplayed. There was no world building and barely any character building. There was an attempt to add to the humor with pop culture references but it was blatant and heavy-handed vs cute and insightful. I love light entertaining reads and this had that sort of potential— I mean… it’s a story about a crab knight and his ninja starfish companion. So that should have fit the bill but sadly, it did not.
The concept of this book with these goofy characters seems very Rimmel-ish but that’s where his influence on the content of this book seems to end. I wish Boe the best of luck on their future endeavors but this book left a lot of room for improvement. Take this review for what it’s worth or don’t. That’s up to you to decide.