The Frozen Realm by Mark Arrows
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm gonna be honest. The first 3/4 was somewhat annoying because I expected a LitRPG that was mostly SF with some F elements set in a vastly changed frozen Earth with even more vast underground areas.

And we DO see some of that setting, of course, and it's good.

But the grand majority that I read comes off as a hardscrabble deep post-apoc survival SF with ancient relic knights and one kid with serious daddy issues. Most of which he works out WITH his daddy in the text.

Let me be clear that this isn't a deal breaker, but being billed as an adventure and especially as a LitRPG, there are a few elements we tend to expect, such as one overwhelming advantage that actually lets our poor MC survive in a unique way against all odds. And this, unfortunately, doesn't really show up until MUCH later. Just being saved by his dad and wishing he could be allowed to study the ruins and parse out the engineering didn't quite satisfy me.

Later, it all gets some of that, and I'm happy to continue on, but my complaint is the lack of a real heroic hook until FAR into the novel.

But it did get there eventually. And the backstory is now pretty cool. It made me work for it. But damn, I'm glad that bit's done. :)


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