A genuinely enjoyable LitRPG

**MINOR SPOILER ALERT**



I've really been enjoying this series so far. I've finished book 1 & 2, and have just started into book 3.



Overall, I think that the story is solid, the pacing is well done for the most part, and the characters have been consistent. Sometimes books in this genre tend to be poorly planned and force the characters to shift irrationally to drive the plot, but I haven't experienced that so far in this series.



I think that the only qualms I have so far are with the narrator. They are fairly minor, but are constantly irritating. I don't like the way that he says the ending phrase of every chapter in an overly dramatic tone, even when nothing particularly dramatic is happening. There have been several instances where he really read the intended tone of a characters sentence the wrong way - Like they were just stating a fact, but he read it as being REALLY sarcastic and smarmy for no reason.



Besides that, I really dislike the voice that the narrator uses for most "monster" type characters. They come off like what a particularly dumb ogre would sound like as a puppet on Sesame Street. Just really cringey. The spider queen sounds like a really bad impression of Smeagol from LOTR. I've been right on the edge of just skipping past those parts several times.



And don't get me started on how he just covers his mouth with his hand to muffle his voice when he does Sophia's (The overmind) voice. Just, why?



That said, when he's not doing a monster voice, or reading the last line of each chapter, I think he does a great job. The main character is well done, as well as most of the side characters.



There are also small issues with the authors use of MMO terminology. I get the feeling that he doesn't actually have a ton of experience in that realm. Things like saying "Port hub" instead of "Instance". Or how the MC tells us several times that he's familiar with MMOs, but then consistently makes just god-awful choices, like not assigning 10 levels of stat points before going into absolutely critical battles.



You might also catch some of the errors where either the narrator just said something incorrectly, or maybe it was missed in editing. Things like saying RIL instead of IRL.



All in all though, I definitely recommend this series if you're into LitRPGs, or even as a gateway to them if you're interested in giving them a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed if you can suspend your disbelief a bit.