Story 3 of 5 stars
Heat – n/a
Series – Standalone
Main Characters – Yui Shaw, Ken, Kirk Lord
Listened to audio narrated very well by Suzy Jackson and Steve West.
This is an Audible Original which I choose in May’s monthly free selections.
This book attempts to make a fun story out of a role playing game. Their world has a one hundred year cycle, a time for the Demon King to rise and conquer and in a hundred years a Hero will rise to defeat him. Unfortunately the latest Demon King isn’t following the script and after only 23 years has already conquered over half of the world.
With fears that there will be nothing left by the time the Hero is reborn Yui Shaw is determined to find a way to defeat the Demon King before he takes over the entire world. She seeks out skills and training in hopes to acquire the legendary hero sword and acquires a sidekick and a fairy along the way to help her on her quest.
While I like the idea of converting game play to a story, the author sticks too closely to game language, skills and leveling design and less on a believable, seamless story. There are a lot of fun, quirky moments, but the author is always telling us what happens instead of letting us experience it. It’s very clunky reading about her leveling up and how she’s applying her skill points, as well as always using game commands instead of describing the action.
This might be a great story for younger readers or GameLit/LitRPG fans but it missed the mark for me as fantasy fiction.
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Wyldheart Reads 