The MC is an old man who wants nothing more than to not be old. He’s a prissy clean freak and spends the whole book talking down to everyone he meets. He’s a bit of a bully, although the author makes sure to point out this is only to bad people.
There’s a bit of steampunk in the mix, for those into that sort of thing, and an interesting setting with a history stretching back 10,000 years … and a mysterious tower. But almost the entire book is spent in “the academy” very prestigious very British old money. Basically, it’s high school. For me this got boring very quickly.
Jeff Hays and the Soundbooth Theater production was amazing. There was an action scene involving a sidekick which really pulled me in and I loved it. Was no less engaging than similar scenes in Dungeon Crawler Carl.
In the end, nothing much happened. The source material could have been edited down to a few hours, even if they kept all the card descriptions. If there is a 3rd book I might consider continuing the series but hard to imagine anything being resolved in the 2nd book which looks to only be a few hours long.