Back in 2004, at the age of 14, I visited Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. It was pretty fun, aside from the forty five minutes I spent stuck on the “It’s a Small World” ride, having that infuriatingly bland, repetitive song burrow into my brain. The Greystone Chronicles: Book One: Io Online was definitely a much more pleasant experience than that.
I really enjoyed Laurie Catherine Winkel’s characters (especially Fibble), though her narration started off a bit robotic, enough so that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep listening past the first chapter. I’m not sure if I got used to it it as I continued, but it definitely became less of an issue before long. Jeff Hays’ characters were okay, though that dwarven laugh has definitely been a point of irritation. I hold the author more responsible for that however. Overall I think the decision to have two narrators was a good one – Jeff’s female characters are usually a point of contention for me.
The story itself wasn’t that interesting. It wasn’t bad, but it felt like the resistance the characters faced never really changed regardless of what was going on. Building a wall seemed to require as much effort as defeating a PK guild leader with a considerably level advantage. The challenges faced were nominal at best.
In a lot of ways, this book reminds me of Last Horizon: Beta, though The Greystone Chronicles was definitely better. There was definitely a good deal of cheesiness here, but it was tolerable. In both cases, I really just wish the authors would work to create a more vibrant world, where the main character isn’t just handed everything via exposition, if anything at all.
That said, a *lot* of people seem to have enjoyed Last Horizon, so maybe my taste differs from the majority of GameLit/LitRPG fans.