~Disclaimer: I received a free audiobook copy of this book. I did buy the kindle book to accompany my reading. ~
I really need to share this story with my dungeon master because their most recent game was a horror dnd game where we were trapped and I think they deserve to contemplate being thrown into that horror show. The premise was a huge draw, but I took a bit to actually listen/read because… well… sometimes life is like that.
While I believe that tabletop gamers will derive more enjoyment from this book than general gamelit fans, it still offers a compelling narrative for anyone interested in the genre.
The characters in the story felt true to the spirit of a roleplaying campaign, and the clever jokes about common tropes brought a smile to my face. Although I didn’t always agree with the main character’s choices, I understood that since he wasn’t fully convinced of the reality of his situation, some of his decisions were forgivable. In fact, if I found myself unexpectedly transported into a game I had created, I would probably react in an entertaining way rather than making the most strategic moves.
One aspect that became tiresome and unnecessary was the repetitive inclusion of the character sheet. Instead of providing the entire sheet repeatedly, it would have been more effective to simply highlight the changes. This would have made the narrative flow more smoothly. My other issue was the cliffhanger ending. I fully intend to pick up the next book because I enjoyed the story, but cliffhangers always annoy me. Especially since I felt like the story wrapped up really well prior to the cliffhanger.
Mikael Naramore does an excellent job narrating.