Not LitRPG. Not sure what it is.

My first issue with this book is that it isn’t LitRPG. It’s a fantasy novel with game menus slapped on. Unless there’s some big secret reveal coming in later installments, this is an actual world except with leveling mechanics, not some sort of game construct or VR universe.

My second issue is the main character. The main character is what in any other book would be a villain. It’s stupidly cruel, not so much out of malice but because it simply doesn’t have the capacity to care about anything except eating or leveling (a function of the non-game world). It’s amusing in the way watching a toddler trying to drink from the wrong side of the glass is amusing but in the end there’s no reason to care about it. It starts out as being a barely sentient character to being a smarter character but only in terms of keeping itself alive and eating more. It doesn’t evolve or become a sympathetic character in any way. It’s survival is more pure dumb luck repeated so often to keep it going that I started to feel like the author was just screwing with me. Why even pretend that something that can’t think beyond it’s next meal is capable of besting foe after foe becoming an unkillable uber monster in the process?

The only reason I finished the book is because the further along I got into it the more I kept telling myself there had to be more involved here. But at the end, there wasn’t. The story is amusing, as I said before, but painfully shallow. The author has some talent though, which is partly what makes this book so disappointing. I want to be satisfied with it, but I find I’m not.

The narrator did I great job though, I will give him that. Has great timing and his female voices were good.

I’ve read several comments that complain about the sexism in the book but it’s really not that bad. The main female character Xera, is really the thing that allowed me to keep reading. Sure, her boobs get mentioned a few times and there is the odd line about women casters, but it feels like someone would have to be trying to get offended to make an issue out of that.

Will I listen to a sequel? I don’t know. I’m not sure yet if I’ll return this one.