This was an extremely enjoyable LitRPG to listen to. It started off a bit slow, but once it got going I found it difficult to pull myself away. The story has a unique approach to the “Trapped-in-a-game” trope. The players are basically forced to spend 300 years of compressed game time in a half hour period in the real world. Their brains don’t mature while they are in the game, but they still experience the passage of time, which leads to some interesting consequences. I don’t usually enjoy stories that use time compression, but in this case, the mechanic served an important narrative purpose.
The best character in this story was the antagonist, Lucus. In a genre filled with larger than life villains, Lucas was a welcome change. He was basically an extremely childish player given way too much power. His rise to villainhood and his gradual abandonment of morality was a joy to listen to. Lucus is one of the most relatable yet ultimately hatable antagonists in the LitRPG genre.
Soundbooth Theater did a superb job as always, read by three different narrators as different characters spoke. There were sound effects and a few musical pieces interspersed with the narration, and I felt like that added to the experience.