You may not know this about me, but I love the rogue class. Rogues, thieves, bards, these are my people. I will take a sneak thief over a noble paladin any day, and I love paladins. Bards? How many episodes have I said I have wanted a good bard story? Probably every other one. I lament the lack of bard tales and burglars. You have to realize that I grew up reading about Gord the rogue and the Gray Mouser. My first D&D character was Lappoy Lightfinger, who lost a couple of digits trying to pick a lock early on in his career, so this book had me at the mention of Rogue. Also, I’m a funeral director, so it also sucked me in when it came to the Dead part of the title. One of my favorite Horror movies of all time is NOTLD, the original. I saw that when I was about three years old, and it cemented my love for zombies and the undead.
This book has a really interesting hook to it, the MC, John Doe, gets attacked by a player and when he respawns he does so as an undead. He’s gone from being a player to an NPC. He’s locked into the game as a result of a hack that the attacker used on him. The hack makes him unable to log out, meaning that he is effectively in a coma and unable to eat or drink anything. IN other words, not only is he trapped in the game, but he’s on a timer. If he doesn’t manage to contact the outside world he just might die in real life.
John faces a ton of obstacles including not being able to walk in the sunlight, speak to other players, or access his thief skills. In other words, he is totally boned. Now, this book really gripped me for about three quarters of the novel. The only slow point that I found was the city siege. It reminded me a lot of when I was listening to the dungeon village in Dakota Krout’s Regicide. It just did not fit the story, and I did think they could have completely cut that section out altogether. On the other hand, it might be a set up for later in the series, I really don’t know. One thing I will say is that I certainly enjoy listening to these Russian Authors. I think they are pretty creative and don’t get as much recognition as they deserve sometimes. I do believe that they were on the edge of Litrpg when it was birthed, and it is pretty cool to see the perspective of someone not in the US. I would love to see some Chinese or Japanese Litrpg translations show up.
There are a few issues with the translations in some points as the same words are used in the same sentence sometimes, for example, it felt like they said things along the line of “ It was spectacular how he swung the sword, and spectacular how the sword struck home.” That’s little things, and it makes it feel like I’m reading a Russian novel.
Compton does a solid job narrating. I think he worked the book well, and did use his voice to its fullest for a premium effect. I enjoyed listening to him, an while I won’t say I was dazzled by him I think he put out a great product, and I had no issue with his speaking, sound quality, or his characterizations.
This was a fun run, and I look forward to the next book in the series. I’m going to say a 7.9 star because I did not enjoy the city siege and felt it was just there to fluff out the book, and I will admit that he was finding the dead man’s set of equipment far faster than you would for a man who wasn’t actively looking for it. Either way the book was fun ,and I definitely want more.
Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. Getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.
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