Narration: The biggest adjustment you have to get used to is the use of a narrator from the U.K. and an A.I. from France (I assume that’s a French accent). It doesn’t make sense in a story that takes place in rural Colorado, U.S.A. You’re already using Soundbooth Theater for other vocals, or at least Jeff Hays and Annie who are vocal powerhouses and have monster vocal ranges, so why did the author go with a British Accent for all the narration, shifting back to American voices for characters? Sure, I appreciate a soothing British accent as much as the next person, but it was misplaced here, and the suspenseful parts were distracting because of it. I also didn’t care for the production as used here either. Drums, intense music, or victory sounds have been used before in other titles and were done so in a tasteful manner, here they’re used during vanilla fighting sequences. It’s not that suspenseful…it’s a rat. No need for Braveheart drums sequences. I also don’t need to hear every sound like a bear sniffing, somebody burping, whatever. Background noise when somebody walks into a tavern in other titles is well placed. What was done here was not.
Story: I have over 70 LitRPG titles in my library, so I’m pretty confident when I say there’s nothing new here, and while I enjoyed the majority of the book, I found myself skipping 2-3 minutes at a time with over-explanation of events. I don’t really feel like it’s necessary to explain somebody descended the stairs, step by step, flipped on the light switch, light filling the room, boards creaking beneath him, dust faintly swirling about, etc. etc. etc. I definitely want to be immersed in the environment, but telling us about each door, what’s behind each door, how many tables and chairs are in every room, what type of rug is on the floor, etc., at every new location the MC goes to is just overkill. Seemed like it dragged on in so many places. A simple “MC caught the rest of the people up on the system and how to distribute attribute points” is sufficient. No need to walk through every conversation among the characters. This is a very slow moving end of the world survival story with LitRPG elements. Much of it was entertaining; however, much of it was just boring as it was entertaining. The author could’ve either made the book shorter, or lessened the over explanation of things and added more action into the story. Either would’ve been fine.
LitRPG: Where art thou? There’s almost no stat building. Seriously, he levels up and then they say nothing about where he chooses to place his stat points. The magic system is barely explored, no talk about how much mana is used when he casts spells, no concept about how hard something hits, just “Runs in, attacks, gets bit, health level is XX%, kills MOB, eats food and drinks water (no explanation of statistical effects), then heals.” Why wouldn’t you sell a bunch of stuff, buy alien technology, and own everything in the area? I mean a car can be traded for enough funds to purchase superior weaponry to Earth’s, so…. I don’t know…just seems to be a survival story that the author went back through and added a couple of LitRPG elements into, not really being well versed in MMORPG’s (as pointed out by another review here).
I’d say it’s worth the free credit if you also don’t mind purchasing credits to obtain books you enjoy, but if you rely on the one free credit every month to obtain a new novel you otherwise couldn’t afford, then perhaps look into some of the better LitRPG’s. I’m hoping the following installments will have corrected some issues I found in this one, otherwise the next book will be where I move onto something else in my wishlist. Hope that helps some that might be on the fence.