For those of you who don’t know Eric Nylund, he is an accomplished writer of many different sci/fi and fantasy genres. He’s adept at military science fiction (Halo), hard sci fi (Signal to Noise), urban fantasy (Mortal Coils), and others. But Nylund’s love of storytelling and fantasy really stems from gaming, both D&D and video games. So what would happen if you’re a gamer and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of the game you’re playing? This series, which is in the genre called LitRPG explores this.
Hero of Thera was the first book of this series and A Thousand Drunken Monkeys is the second. There will be more. I’m not going to spoil anything in this review, but I will say that Nylund’s love of everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Jackie Chan shines here. If you like this kind of stuff, it will be one of these stories that will have you grinning at times just from the joy of seeing echoes of your childhood gaming and movie obsessions “come to life” in these pages.
Jeff Hays read his first book, Hero of Thera and he continued his reading with this book. Jeff has fun with the accents and gives a joyous read.