I’m not sure why I want the main character to succeed – it’s selfish and stupid and cruel, and I kept expecting for it to wear out its welcome in my head, but that never happened. I want it to kill the adventurers and get the shinies. I think it’s because the book does a good job putting you in the character’s headspace so you empathize with it instead of the humans and elves and dwarves it kills. It’s desires are simple and relatable, and it has a sentient box’s indifference to human morals rather than a melodramatic desire to defy them; it even has rudimentary empathy of its own – it doesn’t begrudge its servant eating the adventurers it was planning to eat, because hunger is something it understands. The reader also really helps – they bring this hapless character to life in a way that’s actually funny at times. The regular supporting characters are also good, and have some interesting chemistry, which helps a lot. Their chemistry with the mimic is unique and fun.
The story is interesting – you want to see where the mimic will end up and how its choices will evolve as it becomes smarter. The world is generic fantasy world #125 so far, but that’s ok; the author doesn’t seem in love with it any more than the reader, so it sits well as a delivery system for the story and doesn’t need to be anything special on its own. There is one notable exception to this – the author delves in some detail into explaining the ecology and mana system of dungeons, and I found their ideas very intriguing; they don’t just have a good answer for why you don’t find a level 20 skeleton in a level 5 dungeon, they make it part of the driving force behind events.
IMO, half the fun of LitRPG is watching the characters grow as RPG characters, and this one is special in at least one way: the main character becomes OBSERVABLY smarter, wiser, and more complex as its mental stats increase, creating a very tight coupling between the character advancement and the character development that you don’t usually see. Beyond that, it’s a decent system – it seems to have its own internal logic and I understand it well enough for the level ups and stat increases to have meaning. It even has a few interesting wrinkles for us RPG nerds, like improving relevant stats whenever a skill improves.
The book has some flaws, but none of them are deal breakers. The text has a lot of redundancy, which I’m coming to see as a common ailment of LitRPG and am kind of curious as to why. The summary implies that the book is very salacious, but it’s not, which is a good thing, because its few forays into masturbation and sex are…not great. Maybe I’m just in the wrong headspace, but I felt more uncomfortable than aroused whenever it started describing a sex or masturbation scene in detail. Like I said, it’s good there’re only a few of those instances. They don’t feel like they belong in the story.
Overall, I’d say give it a try. The setting is what it needs to be (except the dungeon lore, which I find pretty cool and well-integrated into the narrative) and the story is engaging because the characters are engaging. The text could use some pruning and the sex scenes aren’t really sexy, but those are only a minor blemish on an otherwise enjoyable experience. Plus, how often do you find yourself empathizing with a stupid, selfish, greedy character? Sounds impossible, but this story will show you how it’s done.