This was a good story with a really interesting, overarching plot. I’m a big fan of authors who add depth to the genre by having a larger story that surrounds the day to day of leveling up and fighting through the game-world.
The book is a little short on emphasizing the standard loot, levels, and gear of normal LitRPGs, but as the novel progressed I didn’t find myself missing the lessened importance of those aspects much.
Now for the 1000 lb. gorilla… In my past experience, I have enjoyed Jeff Hays’ narration with some minor exceptions here and there. In this book he made some really strange choices. The voices he used didn’t ruin the book but they were somewhat off putting. As mentioned by another reviewer he approaches the overall narration with a voice most easily described as a half-hearted attempt at channeling the spirit of Billy Dee Williams. It reminds me of my caucasian uncle trying to mimic an urban, African American on a commercial selling fast food. Both embarrassing and in that uncomfortable valley where you’re asking yourself if this is walking the line between poor taste and racial insensitivity, if not being obviously racist.
To be clear there is no cue from the prose that this voice is particularly appropriate. On top of this the second most important character is voiced using the accent of Dana Carvey doing the horrible, comedic impression of an Austrian, Ahhrnold Schwarzenegger in the SNL skit “Hanz and Franz.” It almost sounds intentionally bad. Moreover, Hays actually reads the text of the book which describes the accent as being that of a north-eastern American. Very confusing.
All in all the book was very entertaining and enjoyable. It’s just extremely unclear why Hays made the choices he did.