This book had so many good ideas, which made it all the more annoying when it failed to deliver on them at all.
Lucas is just a terrible villain, and the author didn’t make me believe he was some ruthless CEO at all. He comes off as a regular ass litrpg protag that is just playing the game for a different faction. To use Warcraft as an example, he’s more the first Horde playable character than he is the ruthless, cunning, diabolical Onyxia.
One of his companions is a straight up spymaster. Instead of sending her into enemy territories to sow discord and make his enemies fight amongst each other from within…he has her healing in most fights. I’m not joking.
A story like this doesn’t actually need many fight scenes, but they are littered throughout and fought in the most uncunning way imaginable. Honestly, I just started skipping them entirely because the thought of him acting like the regular protagonist that proclaims he despises just got annoying.
I should add, I’m not complaining that Lucas wasn’t cartoonishlt ‘evil’ enough. I’m disappointed that he lacked the cunning and charisma I wanted from a truly memorable antagonist… the kind the in-universe game actually needed.
Performance was stellar, as usual. However, SB have a habit of making spider monsters completely unintelligible that I wish they’d stop.