Wow, Prax Venter took a break from doing harem and stepped into some hardcore LITRPG that features both town building and tower climbing as the main components of the tale. I am very pleasantly surprised, and maybe a little shocked that he opted to go for the more family friendly version, but while sex sells Disney owns everything. So I get it.
Here the MC is a bit of nonconformist who hates to follow the rules. He has an aversion towards authority figures and doesn’t like being told what to do. As a result, oh and I so understand this guy to his core, he ends up doing something stupid and getting himself stuck in a spaceship that has been trapped underground for countless thousands of years. He then has to fight off an organism that mimics other creatures and can only be killed by fire. Sorry, that’s the Thing. Damn, I love that movie. Anyway, the MC does stumble into a space vessel and finds himself inserted into a VR world. He soon discovers that the world he is in is under attack by a corruption from the real world, and that he is the only hope that the real world and the virtual world have of defeating this dimensional eating stuff.
The story is well paced and has some intriguing characters, it also does one hell of a job world building and setting up future books. One thing I liked is how the MC doesn’t flip from being a self centered jerk to doing the right thing quickly, and it is something that he later acknowledges in the book, that if he’d had things his way he would have died right off from his arrogance and lack of listening skills. Venter treats this every well, and it is some solid character growth; which was nice to see develop.
I also like the companion that the MC gets, not the girl, but the A.I. He was funny and a good source of info that gets parsed out as he grew in power and could access more systems. It sure beat one large info dump. The girl of his dreams also was played out well, as in she didn’t fall for him right off the bat, and had trust issues through most of the book. Issues that were completely understandable. The townspeople all have vibrant personalities and stood out. My only complaint was that I couldn’t tell if the village only had a handful of people left or if the book only spotlighted a handful of them for expediency’s sake. It could go either way, and if the former is true then where will the people come from to build up the town as it grows? I guess We’ll see.
The narration is amazing, complete with some SFX, but not enough to be overwhelming. I love the smooth vocal tones of Justin Thomas James’ narration, and thought that Hay’s voicing of Jack perfect. Hays just seems to do incredulous so well. Plus, he’s fulla snark in real life. The surprise is that Andrea Parsenau comes on board to help do the female voices and naturally, this is a three way I am most happy to have experienced, it’s like three of my favorite narrators came together to make an audiobook just for me. And it is just for me, but I’m not stingy, so Imma share it with y’all. So, I don’t know if you get the hints I’m droppin, but this is some hella good narration. I rather like the SBT team up.
Final Score, 8.3 stars. Good story, good characters, and good narration combine to bring us an incredible tale of one man’s struggle to save everything he knows.