It’s a good book and worth a listen but it wasn’t really what I was expecting.
Basically, it is about a good guy who ends up having to try and role-play a villain. But since he is a good guy at heart, except for a couple of speeches and an event where he tries to role-play as a villain, he isn’t *really* a bad guy. He is a good guy who has to come up with plausible bad-guy reasons for doing good-guy stuff. Hence the “Heroic Villain” title.
It is fine and it’s an interesting premise, but despite what I thought by glancing over some of the reviews, the MC is more Luke Skywalker than Jabba the Hut. One reviewer (here on audble.com) said it was “dark”, and a reviewer on Goodreads said “A truly great Villain”. The book is not *dark* and he isn’t really a Villain. That isn’t a slam at the book, but I do wonder what book some of the reviewers were reading….
The book mostly takes place in a typical VR fantasy MMORPG game. The MC is a wealthy retired ex-CEO whose wife tragically died, but an NPC in the starter area looks a lot like his deceased wife, so he spends all his in-game time in the starter area hanging out with this NPC. But this long-running VR game is losing customers so the MC decides to spice up the starter zone by playing as a villain (which hasn’t been done before) and hopefully renewing interest in the game.
It is a typical VR MMO, and there is no “bug” gimmick in the book, so the MC is able to log out whenever he can.
Like a lot of people, I normally don’t like this because it means there aren’t really any stakes!! The game goes poorly, you can just log out. If you “die”, you can just respawn. And if NPC XXX dies who cares because obviously they are not alive and are just lines of code.
The author tries to mitigate this by coming up with reasons why the MC can’t just quit and play something else. To Wit:
1) He has to “save” the game, and not play something else, because it has an NPC that looks like his wife.
( for *** see explanation at the bottom)
2) MC can’t fail quest XXX and it will not repeat (because.. ‘hand-wave’ A.I. reasons… ***) and failing quest XXX means failing point “1)”.
3) The NPC/player that looks like his wife can’t die because the MC is psychologically damaged from her real death and won’t be able to see her death in-game (this was written so that it was believable)
4) NPC XXX won’t respawn if they are killed ( because… ‘hand-wave’ A.I Reasons… ***) and if NPC is killed the quest is failed (see point “2)” )
*** A.I reasons – the actual reason is that the author knows that novel about a game has no stakes so has to invent one.
Look, If I am playing GTA V online and another player or NPC runs over pedestrians would I care? Probably not! This book runs into the same problem.
So because that is it a game, Mr. Dean has had to come up with a few workarounds to raise the tension. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.
I thought at first that he had set it in a game so that his “villain” MC could get away with more. I understand that authors that want to write on the wild side (or the dark side) are running scared of the Amazon ban hammer.
Stuart Grosse’s “Rules-Free VRMMO” series has an MC that is “role-plays” a villain. He tortures, rapes, and cannibalizes other players. It’s over the top nuts!
But it is all “role-playing” because it is in-game, and the other players he subjects to his terrible in-game character always seem to contact the MC in the “offline” world to tell him how they enjoyed their in-game experience and approved of it. It is over the top, and absurd (bordering on parody) but Mr. Stewart has to do it to comply with Amazon standards and not get censored or banned.
But since Mr. Dean’s MC is basically a good guy who struggles to get into character he doesn’t really take advantage that the “it is just a game” gimmick allows.
For Example..
If I was playing a *villain* in a Star Wars MMO, would I care that Jabba the Hut has Princess Leia and a harem of sexy dancer NPCs? Of course not!
It is as if the MC was working for Jabba, but complained what a perv Jabba was.. wouldn’t a villain be more like: “Hey, I want to overthrow Jabba and have my own sexy dancer NPCs!”! First of all, they are sexy *NPCs*, so who cares. Secondly, you are supposed to be a Villain, so doubly who cares.
So those are some things that annoyed me about the book. But what about what I liked?
The audiobook’s production values of it were amazing! Sound Effects, male and female voice actors. Very well done!
I had my complaints about the choice to set this in a game, but for what it is worth, the offline stuff is well done.
The whole bit with the MC trying to get over his wife’s death not only gives weight to the MC’s choices in-game, but also gives him an actual character arc.
The author is also aware enough to have a “voice of the reader” in the book.
For example, at one point another person in the story basically straight out tells the MC “it is just a game, why don’t you loosen up at play the Villian. Being a bad guy is fun!” Yeah. “Exactly” is what I thought when I heard that line.
Another example, is when the MC goes on to save some NPCs, and the MC says to himself something like “wait a minute, I’m supposed to be a bad guy”, but then he goes on to “save” the NPCs (because of reasons that are not really explained… he is a good guy at heart). But at least the author acknowledges to the reader that the MC is doing something that is the opposite of Villainess.
So yes, it is nice that the author realizes the MC is being a terrible Villain and is basically a good guy in disguise.
Given the character arc in this book, maybe the MC will get into the Villain roll with a bit more zest if there is a book 2!! I have hope.
I realize that is a lot of complaining for a 4-star review, but in the end, those complaints were about my expectations vs what I got. But what I did get was a solid book, that was well written, even if there were a few things that the reader has to gloss over. I’ll probably pick up book 2 just to see if the MC is finally able to role-play an actual villain.