Well, I have to say this is a good example of a book where you get what you’re expecting: a rules driven, video game RPG manager system as a main hero who is altruistic no matter how many times he declares “I’m not a good person.” But, then he would have to be because the whole powering up fantasy only works in this world if he OWNS people and then gets the points of human (I noticed, not objects or presumably non-intelligent species) to do his nifty trick.
The book is sufficiently tongue in cheek about all of this, and builds a solid enough world where a villain has taken over management of this city such that slaves are even allowed that I don’t think it is done in bad faith or to valorize slavery in general although it is an odd pivot point for so much of the story it reminds me of the new Netflix Sabrina story where the main characters worship Satan but are good… go figure and so keep all that in mind and try not to get too riled up.
Really my only negatives are after a well paced base-building and pretty well character driven plot we come to a crisis where strengths are suddenly disappeared to heighten the conflict but honestly the false peril is not worth it since we know it is a series and so we can guess (though I have not yet listened to the sequels) that much of this damage is temporary so I thought the time would have been better spent fleshing out the antagonists instead of a faceless one who is never revealed. Hopefully the payoff in future books is worth it, because I enjoyed it enough to keep going!
P.S. One warning – I started to have daydreams about opening menus above my family’s head to power them up during this book, creating some odd reality distorting effects as I snapped back into my reality rather than that of Felix and his harem (most especially the very endearing Andrea – PANCAKES!)