In Mythian: Book 1, I really connected with the MC, Ethan. Jaddow and Cipher were still shrouded in mystery though. Who were they? How did they know Ethan and his Wife? What was their motivation for helping him? We only got the briefest glimpses. I really grew to like Jaddow too in this book. He’s hard on Ethan but he needs to be and Ethan does what we’ve come to expect of him, find a way to persevere. He must if he’s got any hope of reuniting with his Wife. After I finished Mythian: Book 1, I actually wanted to continue the story with Hard Mode: Book 2. After finishing Book 2, I was suddenly impatient for Book 3 as I still was invested in the series. As it is with good books, they end and I had to find something else to read.
Reading the Pangea Online Book 1 from another author to help me pass the time also unexpectedly made me appreciate Ethan’s character development that much more. Unlike Ethan, the MC of Pangea is so serious and rarely jovial enough for my tastes. There are too many real world social justice issues that invade the fantasy narrative. It just constantly reminds you that you’re not in the story and destroys the immersion.
While more popular today than in other decades, the Pangea series promotes a ‘victim’ mindset or ‘poor me’ attitude which may as well be a RPG personality trait as it is a learned and acquired behavior in real life. I would never choose to create or play such a chronic complainer of a character. The book took also pity on the character thereby diminishing his achievements to the reader. This made Pangea Book 2 very hard to finish, I almost quit and the way it ended has together extinguished any desire to read the Pangea series further.
So I’m happy to say that in Hard Mode: Book 2 this not the case at all and is better than than the 1st. It doesn’t suffer from any of these issues. It’s got more characters, development, humor, adventure, fantasy, stats and ends better than many. You may actually care what happens to the MC and be able to genuinely sympathize with his plight rather than feel pity.
Why is all this? If I had to guess it would be because the author decided to think ahead of time about where he wanted to have the reader / listener end up before writing the other books and realizing that he’d painted himself into a corner. There’s even a part which reminds me of Odysseus and Circe. I don’t recall any story elements ruining the immersion to the point of pulling me out of the story world. Most importantly when the 3rd book drops, I’ll want to experience it. If it’s anything like the first two then it won’t disappoint.