Temple of Sorrows is a book made for readers new to Gamelit/Litrpg stories. It has some crunch, but nothing someone coming in fresh couldn’t handle, and it gives you the “I’m going to build up my character blindly” MC. She is basically an awesome gamer, until Devon, the MC, enters Relic Online. At which point she turns into a such a complete noob that she knocks herself out within five minutes of entering the game. She then does just about everything wrong that she can, until she starts using her head and gets into the game. Once she has made her decision to actually help out the area she is in she begins to make semi-intelligent choices. Which allows new readers to flow into the game world with her, and sink their teeth into something not so overwhelming.
Hardcore readers of LITRPG may find this tale a little less spicy than they like. Although the book has some action scenes, there is no real major battle that takes place. Even the confrontation with the book’s big bad had no teeth. It was not exciting nor action packed. It was more of a resolution created by one swift action. You might argue that the scene with the tainted animals might qualify as action packed, but I will disagree. I never got swept away in any of the fights. I can compare it to going and actually watching gladiatorial battles in ancient Rome, and then coming back and watching professional wrestling. It was nice seeing Devon use her head, and out think some things, but the action was completely watered down and carried no weight. Storywise, this looks to be a lengthy series, as Devon has to acquire several objects in order to revive an ancient city.
The writing is actually really good, it is articulate, verbose, and descriptive. It is not boring, and it is fun. There weresome research issues that drove me crazy, things that someone not familiar with animals and insects might make, such as Summers wrote that when a snake was stunned it blinked. Snakes don’t have eyelids, and so cannot blink. She also called spiders insects, they are arachnids, and I swear to you I was congratulating her in my head after those two slips for saying venomous snakes, and not calling them poisonous, when she referred to the spiders as spitting poison. Little stuff like that stands out to me. I am not a grammar nazi, but if you are going to refer to something, know how to refer to it. Research takes minutes nowadays. Otherwise, the tale is pretty flawless, and is a fun listen. I only pointed out those details because they kicked me out of the story. Like I say, the story is good, and the character of Devon is interesting. She’ll keep you reading.
The narration by Annie Ellicott and Jeff Hays is top notch as always. The pair interact with one another effortlessly, and really add some depth to the story. I will say that Annie really fills her voice with emotion that I don’t see in a lot of narrators, male or female. Jeff, on the other hand has a toolbox filled with different voices that he uses to reflect Annie’s acting. I also really appreciate the production quality of this book, it had nary a hitch nor glitch soundwise. Soundwise? Is that Pennywise’s evil narrating sibling? Either way, the narration really picks this book up and meshes with the direction that Summers is taking the story.
I did take off points for a lack of a pay off and no real big battle scene. The story absolutley needed to show the MC growing in skill with a big boss battle, of something major at the end. It just wasn’t there, but the story was really good. It just lacked teeth. 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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