LitRPG…kind of.

It has the basic frame of any LitRPG. It has monsters, some kind of magic system, stats(kinda), classes…but everything lacks depth. The first hour or so was a little confusing because it had me believe that the main character was one of a few that had been given a chance at a newly developing technology that would integrate the human consciousness to the point where the body is no longer needed. But…even though it was heavily implied that it was a one way trip, the main character is shocked to find out he died in the real world and trapped in the game.

As the story goes on, there seems to be tons of other people just like him and there have been many more before him. Okay, I’ll accept that the scientists wanted to keep up a good pitch so that people would choose the game world over the death penalty. But really? There are so many other players and none of them have a backstory except Tom and the Goblin King. The rest of these people seem to have no drive of their own and they all needed the new guy that had been there for two days to give them some motivation.

That leads to another topic, the main character is some very rare class, okay cool, and is somehow stronger than the other adventurers that have been there for seemingly months, okay…not cool. It was very difficult to assess the amount of danger when monsters appeared because you don’t really have a measure of the main characters strength compared to the creatures or even other players. It was very much: I have sword, I cut you, I kill you. Repeat as needed for combat.

The main character goes from average worker nerd guy to bonafide sword swinging monster, expert tactician, and leader of men in…a day.

The last issue I have is with the whole “hunt or be hunted” thing. It’s said many times throughout the book but at no point did I feel the main character was being hunted by anything, not even the Goblin King. The sense of danger one should get with a premise like that would surely be conveyed through the actions of hunting or being hunted Yeah, they hunted a couple times. But I didn’t feel any danger. It really makes that phrase seem like empty words.

I really wanted more from the book because the premise was intriguing and I love LitRPG’s.