Sacrifice by RinoZ
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Continuing this slow-burn of a necromantic LitRPG is satisfying. It's a straight progression from the previous, diving head-first into moral quandaries and improving skills while trying to limit undeserving casualties.

Deserving being anyone who tries to murder him, of course.

What is somewhat surprising in a good way is this poor kid's parents. I'm usually used to a funny trope with this whole class of literature where we get a slow progression of both power and wisdom and control over one's destiny with a single short, sharp shock of a reveal about the MC having been a massive victim of some kind of massive injustice just dropped in out of nowhere.

This particular series is the exact reverse. The entire setup IS a massive injustice dropped on him from the whole damn world and was none of his making. He's just reacting. But his parents? They love him and did all they could to protect him. Which is usually NOT the case in these kinds of novels. A good childhood, if not a perfect one.

It's actually kinda sweet.

But as is usually the case, no good deed is ever unpunished.

Fun stuff.

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Awakening by RinoZ
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After being amazed with others in this LitRPG vein (Bagwell) and already loving the centipede crap out of RonoZ's FOR THE COLONY series, I was very interested to see how this turned out.

I mean, who doesn't love to level up a necromancy class? Skeleton armies are all the rage these days.

Well, it turns out, I don't have any major bones to pick with this introduction. I'm enjoying it's deadly gaze, but it's NOT nearly as quick to escalate as I might have guessed. Indeed, the slow burn is rather impressive. Mostly a focus on survival and evading detection and wanting to genuinely help people out, as opposed to total edge-lord territory, but above that, the dangers are genuine and oppressive from multiple sources, be it an outsider incursion, the magical elites who care more for their power than the people they're supposed to help, or the fact that this poor isolated kid is almost entirely up shit creek in the worst possible areas.

I have to root for him, no matter what skills he uses. And it doesn't hurt that he has a pretty awesome moral compass.

It's a great setup. A slow burn, but a great setup. I'm going to love diving into it more.

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The Infinite State by Richard Swan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Definitely worth hunting down and reading if:

A: You have a deep and abiding hunger for rich and deep SF with fully-fleshed worldbuilding with a space-opera base but full of political intrigue, colony building against all odds, and even action.

B: Tolerate, or indeed, revel in complexity.

C: Miss vast, impressive scope in SF combined with interesting, excellent characters in unusual circumstances.


I should mention that this kind of SF is becoming quite rare these days. It used to be rather common, and often done with a half-hearted manner. But this one isn't half-hearted. It reminded me quite a bit of Palmer's Too Like the Lightning and Hamilton's far-reaching works.

If that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will. :)

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Adventures in Godok by Always RollsAOne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Strangely enough, this one was only slightly less impressive than the ones before it, but that's mostly because it wandered and explored fairly aimlessly, although still interestingly, in several locations. One being the enormous city of Godok, with a distinctive Arabic flavor with tones of Chinese fighting schools.

Fun, familiar, and fascinating, but without the deep thread of impetus, be it survival or quest, that usually graced the previous books.

But make no mistake, I'm still fully invested and can't put these books down.


Unfortunately, I now need to wait months for the next book. SIGH.

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The Boutan Caliphate by Always RollsAOne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had a great time escaping the empire and seeing the Elves and the Goblin empire. It's been pretty refreshing to see yet more relatively civilized goblin races in fiction. But damn, they do play some nasty Honor games.

All across the board, I loved the storytelling. No drop in quality from the rest of the series.

Of course, we're heading into main MC OP issue territory by now, but there's still plenty of snags (damn those titans) to keep it interesting. And there are a few great worldbuilding reveals.

It's hard to believe where we began in the series to how far we've gone. Travel the world, meet and kill new people. Alas. But this is far from a murderhobo series, thank goodness.



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The Hounds by Always RollsAOne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So good. Good writing always feels different than simple workmanlike writing. Any normal subject can become sublime in the right hands.

This LitRPG is reaching one of those heights. Epic fantasy with tons of LitRPG elements, but the weight of the storytelling is ON the storytelling.

In this case, the noose is coming to a close and while I absolutely loved the time in the capitol working as a personal guard for the Chancellor, needing to join the Hounds to escape the noose only made the noose lock in place. Great storytelling.

And what happens later? Peak. We knew it was on the horizon. We didn't know that it would happen so brutally, so quick, so final.

The fact is, normal average fiction probably would have milked a lot of this for two or three books, but this just came like a storm.

This is one of the best LitRPGs out there. Or fantasies, period.

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The Shimmering Labyrinth by Always RollsAOne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazingly strong series. These truly live or die on their stomachs and pacing, and damn, it's damn overflowing with the meat and potatoes of great storytelling.

Every plot choice is tied to massive amounts of plausibility, and better, we're given a whole city of the dead and a truly massive labyrinth/dungeon beneath it, with an insanely powerful summoner hounding these poor soldiers. Survival and sacrifice is everything. And so is secrecy.

It's rare that I get this invested in a story, but when I do, it's making me lose some serious sleep. :)

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