Book 1: Death and Axes
This first-person story’s protagonist begins the book as a “data miner”, which involves swinging a pick in a virtual world for a place to sleep and food to eat. Which might be the silliest conceit I’ve ever seen in a LitRPG book. He’s an orphan (of course) and his best friend has a sick mother. The mother has a condition that can only be treated by spending more money than any ordinary person would see in his life. And in the course of “data mining”, he finds something that will allow him to succeed in the entertainment part of the virtual world he inhabits.
And of course, the real world has been wrecked by some sort of apocalyptic war, so people can only leave their habitation cubicles with filter masks and environment suits..
During the course of the book, the protagonist makes true friends who help him to win the big tournament and get the girl he has been crushing on, all while acquiring nearly game-breaking gear.
There’s nothing vaguely new here. But what saves the book for me is that the characters are likable and the rote plot is pretty well written. Don’t get this for novelty; there is none. But if you’re looking for something with more of a cozy feel, it might work well. I’ll be continuing the series.
Book 2: Magic and Mayhem
The story of the previous book in this series is ignored except for a few of Esil’s friends. Here we see Esil drafted to test a new, more immersive game and system.
The story is lower-stakes and the plot is rather rote. The characters are still likable, but there is some rather manufactured friction between them. The ending is nice, but seems a bit unearned.
Not bad, but if this had been the first book, I might not have continued. I’m going to hope that this is just second-book-syndrome striking and continue on to the last book in the series.
Book 3: Vials and Tribulations
Another book; another restart.
First book was rags to riches, second book was full immersion, and this book is vicarious rags to riches.
Most of the characters here are from the previous books, though there is a new co-protagonist who is from the same orphanage that Esil grew up in.
Again, we have a competition with a prize that is important to the new guy, we have much the same antagonists, and the character arcs are almost beat-for-beat the same as in the first book.
This isn’t a bad book, but it’s almost exactly the first book redone … and the first book was better.
The series is fine, but not especially memorable. Frankly, a reader might be best off just reading book 1 and dropping the series at that point. There’s nothing to hate here, but there’s very little to remember, either.