Read Time: 2 Minutes
Wow, I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as I thought I was going to. Seth McDuffee and Johnathan McClain should be an author/narrator combo that would nail it, but for me it just felt like an exercise in drudgery. The opening chapter kind of sets the scene where we get a book inside a book type thing. The whole backstory told as a story was an interesting idea, but it’s written so over the top as every sentence was run through a thesaurus to find as many synonyms or wanky way of something as possible.
So our protagonist, author Bruce Silver is the author of the most popular book series on the planet. He has a crisis of faith and kills off the main character of his series, Carpathian Einzgear, to the chagrin of his editor, Brit. So, stuff happens and next thing you know Bruce, Brit, and Bruce’s snail Gonzo are isekaied into the world of the book, where Bruce finds out the world he has written about isn’t so much fun to live in.
Resurrected as Carpathian, Bruce has to get his levels up to go fight the big bads and rescue his mentor. Mostly what happens is a lot of bellowing, screeching, meta-jokes in-universe as well as poking fun at the actual authors and narrator. So much of it felt forced, with long diatribes and soliloquies that don’t move anything further.
A lot of pop-culture references too because Bruce “borrows” much of what works from other series and adds them to his story wherever possible. Not as over-the-top as Ready Player One, but there’s a reasonable number of jokes thrown in that use this as a bit of a crutch.
Narration by Jonathan McClain was a mixed bag. On one hand, excellent quality and excellent delivery and timing. On the other, the constant screeching and other sound effects McClain and McDuffee felt they needed to write into the story became a little much at times.
For me, this is a swing and miss. I went in expecting humour and a fun litRPG romp but what I got was a depressing slog. I have enjoyed other stuff by McDuffee and McClain narrates so many of the books I like, but this didn’t land for me. If you like your prose in the colour purple and meta jokes in a fantasy setting you might enjoy this. I highly doubt I’ll continue with this series.