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much better than the last!

Reviewed: 07-13-22

last book was a bit of a drag, this one was much more interesting. Carl back to creating chaos and defying expectations.

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much better than the last!

Reviewed: 07-13-22

last book was a bit of a drag, this one was much more interesting. Carl back to creating chaos and defying expectations.

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Above average writing, excellent performance!

Reviewed: 07-03-22

I typically hate the system apocalyse genre, and this book uses a pretty standard setting, but what sets it apart is:

- Excellent dialog, thanks to clearly defined characters (writing) and voices (narration).

- Well managed tension throughout scenes and arcs. (this genre often overly relies on litrpg elements to make you keep reading e.g. 'soon he'll be level 5 and pick a class! you better keep reading to see him exploit tf out of this wacky OP build!)

- Justifies the system apocalypse setting.
(Another downfall of this genre is poorly constructed settings, shrouded in too much mystery. i.e. the author wanted to write a system apocolypse but reasons behind it are clunkily explained or not investigated). This book not only justifies the setting, but goes further to investigate the politics behind it.

- Somehow didn't have me cringing at the 'cute companion' troupe that features so often in kids anime and YA fiction.


overall a strong 4/5 in it's genre. litrpg fans are sure to enjoy.

outside of it's genre, still an above average 3/5 but it wouldn't make my list of recommendations.

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Above average writing, excellent performance!

Reviewed: 07-03-22

I typically hate the system apocalyse genre, and this book uses a pretty standard setting, but what sets it apart is:

- Excellent dialog, thanks to clearly defined characters (writing) and voices (narration).

- Well managed tension throughout scenes and arcs. (this genre often overly relies on litrpg elements to make you keep reading e.g. 'soon he'll be level 5 and pick a class! you better keep reading to see him exploit tf out of this wacky OP build!)

- Justifies the system apocalypse setting.
(Another downfall of this genre is poorly constructed settings, shrouded in too much mystery. i.e. the author wanted to write a system apocolypse but reasons behind it are clunkily explained or not investigated). This book not only justifies the setting, but goes further to investigate the politics behind it.

- Somehow didn't have me cringing at the 'cute companion' troupe that features so often in kids anime and YA fiction.


overall a strong 4/5 in it's genre. litrpg fans are sure to enjoy.

outside of it's genre, still an above average 3/5 but it wouldn't make my list of recommendations.

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0 character development. what's the point?

Reviewed: 06-26-22

Disappointed. The boy is the same whiney kid at 12 as he is in the sequel. There's 0 character growth.

It would have been so much more interesting if there was some contrast; if he was excited to be a battlemage at the start of this book, and then something happened to make him do a 180.
Now that would be worth reading! and a powerful hook for readers of the sequel seeing that contrast we'd want to keep reading to find out what caused the change.

Instead, they use mystery (plot) as a hook. smh

Some dialog feels clunky. Exaggerated, like a kid's book. Part of it may be the narrator.

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an improvement!

Reviewed: 05-26-22

I was pleasantly surprised by this prequel!

The second half of Sea of Rust left me underwhelemed, but this book managed to keep tension a lot better.

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Highschool.

Reviewed: 05-24-22

if you're hesitating, based on the cover and description, I'm here to tell you that your instincts are correct!

I saw a review that spoke well of it so gave it a go, but it was even more juvenile than expected.

all writers need to start somewhere, I will look forward to this author's next series, and see how he's improved with a bit more experience and life under the his belt.

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1 person found this helpful

Unique Wuxia/fantasy. Well written.

Reviewed: 05-18-22

Unique setting and story, really enjoying it so far. Well written dialog, and vivid imagery

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Over explained, under developed. Pacing

Reviewed: 05-17-22

*The below review is based on the first half of the book. I'm not sure if the writing became better, or I got numb to it, but I found myself enjoying the second half more. Still, now having finished the book, the only character with any definition is the protagonist.

Half the dialog is explaining how the world works. to allow this, the MC is unbelievably ignorant so things can be explained to him.

Characters are walking stereotypes, and their relationships are shoved in our face instead of developing naturally.

Poor scene choice. Scenes are focused on PLOT and COMBAT, rather than emotions & relationships. Why even read the book? if I just want plot I can read a summary! And there are other ways of building tension than life/death battles.

For example, romance: we're TOLD that the girl has been flirting with him for several months. Then later we're TOLD that they broke up several months ago. These could be high-tension, exciting scenes but the author instead chooses to skip them and take a boring choice of EXPLAINING what happend so he can use it as a justification for plot choices.

annnd a small, final point: character sheets. thankfully there aren't too many in this book! but still, nope. Not going to work in this format buddy! at least put them in a separate chapter so we can skip.

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2 people found this helpful

plenty of dual lingual narrators available...

Reviewed: 04-10-22

the narrator's japanese is fine when speaking single words, and very short phrases, but his accent falls apart when attempting anything longer than 3 words.

its not often that they have longer sentences, but when it happens it's jarring, and annoying.

Surely he could have had a native speaker record the longer sentences and then practiced shadowing them before recording.

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1 person found this helpful