I found this book, and its sequels, to be a good deal more fun than many within the genre. Almost to a book (aside from maybe a handful), I’ve found LitRPGs don’t live up to their potential for storytelling. This is one of the better ones, but it still suffers from a lot of the issues plaguing others, especially those that also center on harem romances. Do I believe it is possible to write a harem romance LitRPG well? Yes. I think just about any idea can be done well, just as I think any good idea can be ruined by poor writing. Therefore, I’m not going to criticize the ideas so much as the execution.
The biggest issue with this book, and the series as a whole, is the utter lack of stakes. The hero loses nothing meaningful. Even character deaths are undone because the main character is just so overpowered. The physical conflicts in this book are an utter waste of time. We already know the hero will win and nothing meaningful will happen in the attempt to get there. The hero can do literally anything the book needs him to, making no challenge truly worthy of him, much like poorly written superhero stories. The most successful superhero stories, dating all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern Marvel and DC (with their American Comics variety), work best when they focus on what a character can’t do rather than what they can. What we can’t do leaves us wanting, makes us struggle. Thus it is satisfying when we get it and tragic if we don’t. This in particular is an issue Superman has struggled with and why certain stories of his stand out and why others fail to entertain. Similarly, there are many issues that could lead to inter-character strife and really fun social conflicts. Think about it, this guy is a slave owner. There is a lot of moral messiness that can lead to fun stories. Do we go there? No, not really. It’s mentioned and dealt with over and over again, with characters apparently being quite okay with it. The closest thing we get to moral conflict comes in the form of the former hero telepath and even this is a skeleton of what it should be. Considering the ending, I think this conflict should have taken center stage. Other character’s problems, like Mab’s brother, are handled with a handwave, ignoring potential for character conflict for the archetypical “evil-seeming woman has a soft side” that I’ve seen in every Bioware game and done there better. Archetypes are fine. There’s a reason we have them. I won’t chide an author for using them. I do believe that this was a wasted opportunity for more growth and conflict. If there’s not conflict in a scene, there’s no need for that scene. If it’s handled easily, probably need to come up with better.
The fight scenes are dry and unremarkable. They’re neither Jackie Chan level creative and entertaining or brutal and realistic. They’re just there and interspersed through the novel as something I have to slog through to get to the parts I care about. What’s more, these fights often had the same notes. Surprise ambush. Main character get’s injured. Main character is saved by people he can/does empower. Save for the final one, the other kinds of struggles are just curbstomp battles that don’t make me go “wow these characters are brilliant” but more “wow, that wasn’t worth caring about”. There are ways to make us marvel at characters as they brilliantly succeed. Sherlock Holmes, Thrawn, House (derivative of Sherlock Holmes himself), Tony Stark, Jigsaw (only in the first one), Odysseus, and Tyrion Lannister are all different variations of characters whose intellect can be used to resolve a conflict in an entertaining way. It’s just hard to write smart characters without dumbing down those around him. Here, the main character is smart when he needs to be and dumb when he needs to be, with the world following suit. I’d advise working varying up the forms of conflict to avoid repetition. Also, a author should ask themselves what is at stake in any given scene. If you find yourself continually giving the same answer for what is at stake and how the character gets out of it, you’re probably in trouble. If that is the case, find some way to make that fight/conflict different.
The only things that saved this series for me, and this book in particular, are the characters. Most of the characters in this book are 2-dimensional archetypes, backdrop fillers, mustache-twirlers, bystanders, or cheerleaders for the hero, but there are just enough main characters that are interesting to make the book worth reading. I thought these characters were a great deal of fun, and I wanted to see more of them. So much so, I found myself re-reading the story a year after I initially bought it. They’re that fun. Perhaps that’s why I’m so bothered by the fact that interaction with them comes to a screeching halt whenever there is another fight scene or power up. The half-dwarf engineer and her girlfriend are quickly discarded to the background and don’t undergo any real development. The other main girls get considerable development and in some cases, like with Myriad’s power and death others, actually mix the numbers game with character development, which is what a good LitRPG should do. That’s where the author shines and makes the best use of this genre. Write a harem story with good characters. Write a LitRPG. Write whatever you want. Be creative. Use your voice for whatever you want. I’m afraid that this book just forgets the fundamentals of good storytelling too often.
Read for the characters (aside from the main character and backdrop players, who are largely empty). Enjoy what time you have with them. They’re better than the story that surrounds them. Their promise leads me to hope for the author’s work to continue to improve, and I’ll be watching his future work closely.