Dungeon Configure Book Review

Dungeon Configure is the first book in the Dark Exchange series. Currently there are two books out, but this is just my review on the first. Book one was published on December 5, 2019.

I've read quite a few dungeon core stories, but none that I've read have actually taken place on our modern day Earth. When David gets in a brutal car crash with some unworldly beast he wakes up to see his own body, lying broken in the wreckage of his prized car. Before long his fairy guide shows up to teach him the ways of being a dungeon core, which he promptly kills with a bug zapper. And every other wannabe guide that comes after. Using the corpses of those fairies he is able to make his own minions to revive his damaged body. Now David has two consciousnesses, one is his physical body and the other is the dungeon. They are both separate but with the ability to send his body out into the world the opportunities are limitless, that is until David's body becomes horribly disfigured in a terrible accident. Now on the run David tries to repair his body. Meanwhile David's dungeon sentience is fighting a core on another world. Before long dungeon David is overrun and "human" David must try to reclaim his territory from an ancient and powerful core, else he dies in seven days.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. Parts were good, I was reading and like, okay, this is getting good. 30 minutes of reading later and the author suddenly introduces something new without explaining it well, which made it bad again. It went on like that until the end of the book, it was not very consistent. For instance, a new system to David's interface was added, and that wasn't well explained. How he got many different creatures and learned how to access certain parts of his interface weren't explained either. It made it really difficult to enjoy all of the book, and I just had to accept that for half of the additions to keep the story interesting they made no sense. Another issue I had with the book was a lot of vulgar comments. They were totally unnecessary and just made me annoyed at the author. I also found myself annoyed that the authors characters criticized LitRPG as being a vulgar genre and disliking that. There were two reasons I had issues with that, that you kind of half to go searching for that (you don't really stumble upon it, and if you do you can avoid it) and the author was writing a book with many vulgar comments. It was very hypocritical in that way and just annoyed me, because many times when the genre was brought up that was mentioned. My final issue with the book was it didn't switch between dungeon David and "human" David well. It did switch between them often but usually not in the smoothest manner where I knew I was suddenly reading about the other David. Aside side from those things though, I did really enjoy parts of the story. It was violent, but it was an interesting book and I enjoyed reading it for the most part. I don't know how much of a dungeon core book it is though. Most of the story focused on "human" David, and while he had dungeon core powers nobody was delving that dungeon. It was still LitRPG but it definitely is not exclusively dungeon core. Overall, parts of the book were very good but others were just hopelessly confusing and I don't feel like I can recommend it to read or to stay away from, I had very mixed feelings about the book. For those that have read the book, please let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Personally, I don't think I will continue the series because although it wasn't bad, it wasn't good enough to make me want to read more.

Azarinth Healer Book Review

This is a book that I have heard about for a long time. Azarinth Healer is supposed to be one of the Royal Road greats. The book is still ongoing with over 5,000 pages having been written since about two years ago. The author is Rhaegar.

Ilia is a normal college student. essentially, broke and working at a minimum wage job. And like most she has a hobby, in her case that is kickboxing. When she goes to bed one night and wakes up in the middle of a forest filled with drakes and other things that want to eat her, she's freaked out. However she quickly learns to love this new world that gifted her with an overpowered class that she can use to destroy anything that stands in her path. Her class is a merger of a brawler and a healer, both parts about as strong as a full time one. While strong Ilia is definitely not the strongest and the battle junkie will do her best to work her way up the levels and take on stronger and stronger opponents.

I think it is best to disclose that I was not able to get through the entire book. I got through 28 percent or about 1450 pages. I attempted to do 5,200 pages in 7 days but about 2 and a half days in I realized no matter how much I love reading I would be able to read 750 pages a day without going insane. That being said though, most of what I read I loved. The main character is overpowered, but in one of the best ways. She goes into situations where she is fighting something hundreds of levels above her because she is DPS, Tank, and Healer all rolled into one. It is great to read. She mainly adventures and fights alone in what I read, however near the end that changed to a team based one. This is something I didn't enjoy. I really liked the insane battle junkie healer of death but when she went on a team I felt like that took away what I really loved about the story. Maybe this goes back to what it was later on but the last few hundred pages I read didn't have the same appeal as the first 1200. Regardless though those 1200 pages were amazing. The class may not have been balanced but she still struggled because she was taking on opponents hundreds of levels above and it was a joy to read. I do plan to hopefully one day finish the book, but if any of you have read past page 1500 let me, and the other people who read this know if she goes back to being the insane battle junkie that kept me reading that first chunk. I may write an updated review in the future on the next 3500 pages.

Second Chance- A Battle Mage Reborn Book Review

Second Chance- A Battle Mage Reborn is the first book in the EndWorld Everlasting Saga. The book is by R. Brady Frost. Currently there is only one book in the series, which was published on October 17th of this year.

Denton Wade is an aging older man dying from cancer. He also distrusts new technology with a passion. For those nearing the end of their life though there is an opportunity for a guaranteed afterlife, which is similar to a video game. Even though Denton doesn't trust technology at the urging of his children he and his eldest daughters look at the facilities. While there Denton pretty much decides he isn't going to do it, however he finds himself in the game world before he even leaves the place. It turns out he died two weeks after that visit, and had changed his mind and decided to upload his consciousness. However before that could happen he had passed away, the only reason he was in the game now was that they had scanned him when he first visited. Now in a game world he begrudgingly accepts the new level one player will set out to save the virtual world.

The writing in this book was good, however, the story was not. There wasn't much that was unique to the story, I felt like it was just a generic book that didn't stand out from any others in the genre. The book wasn't bad, but it didn't make me want to read it. I had to push myself to finish the book as it couldn't keep my attention. Practically everything I read was done before, the best parts seemed to be ideas taken from other books. While that isn't necessarily bad it didn't keep my interest because I felt like I was reading something that I had before. The story hadn't added anything unique to itself. The character was lucky enough to be spawned with a rare relic which he temporarily traded for a sword that was very overpowered for his level. I didn't really like that, it meant that his power was more given to him instead of earned. He also had allies that were more powerful than him so while there was a couple pages of him working himself most of it was him fighting with the more experienced, it felt like the character never earned much himself. One example of that were some rare drops he found, the more experienced person told him exactly what to do in order to profit off of it. There wasn't much that I enjoyed about the book, but there were a few things. The dialogue was fun to read and two of the characters were intriguing, neither of those being the main one. One such example was a guy who got cheated out of all of his money and went from a weapon combatant to a brawler with metal pants. While that seemed odd his story was very interesting and I think if the book was written from his point of view it would be much more entertaining, funny, and a more enjoyable read. The other was a woman who's main quest was to protect and save some dire wolf pups, I would have loved to hear more of her story and the other guy's. I feel like the story had promising characters, but the main character and the general basic world made it so the story just wasn't that interesting. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book but I hope the author's next series can tap into more of his own ideas, like metal pants and the dire wolf protector.

He Who Fights With Monsters Book Review #2

I reviewed this series a few months ago, but a good chunk more of that book has been released. If you haven't seen that review, check that out first because this will include spoilers for some of the newer parts. Last I reviewed this it had 166 chapters, it is now up to almost the mid 250s. The review for the first part is here: http://dragons-lair-book-blog.blogspot.com/2020/02/he-who-fights-with-monsters-book-review.html

I won't recap the story because I did that in the last review. However, I feel like the writing style has changed a little. In the more recent part of the book, lots has changed in the story. I feel like Jason is becoming less of a bizarre and strange politician and more of a person hardened by his experiences. This is both good and bad though. I feel like it does make the story less hilarious and goes to more serious tones. That isn't a bad thing but it does contrast the original opinion of Jason that we saw in the first chunk of the book. I have really enjoyed reading the increased synergy between Jason's adventuring group. They obviously become closer, less guarded, and work together well which is really good to see. One thing I don't enjoy though is the fact that Jason's team seems relatively untouchable. Jason gets damaged a fair bit, however his team always seems to be relatively unscathed. There are "close calls" but you never get the feeling of Jason's team really being at risk. For being hurt for more than a chapter. This is a little frustrating as danger makes books more interesting, and even though the book is great the lack of danger concerning Jason's team makes things a little less excited. Overall though, the book is still funny, albeit not as much as it used to be. The book has taken on more of a serious tone, however it seems like only Jason is still at risk. However, it is still a very enjoyable book and I still recommend it. The length of the book, over 2,000 pages, also makes it a great read while we do our best to stay inside.

Alpha Test Book Review

Well, I did say I would eventually break my resolution. It's been a few months but I do have another book review and I hope to get back on track. I read Alpha Test by David R. Pendleton. The book was published on March 30, 2018. 

Alpha Test has a certain gimmick when compared to other LitRPG books. The main character, Devon, has never been able to walk. When he is given the chance to alpha test the hyper realistic world of Angromoria he was excited at the prospect and signed up immediately. Sleepless nights are what follow as he anxiously awaits the delivery of the pod that will take him to a world where anything is possible. When the system finally arrives he is taken to a world where anything is possible, and he can do what he never could have hoped for before. He can run, walk, climb, and sort of skip. He made himself a Gnome and goes by the name Gnobody. After his first play session he attempts to log out, only to find he can't. He learns his mind doesn't want to go back to that crippled body and he must make a new life for himself in Angromoria. He is labled an alpha because of that, there are a few other alphas as well. None able to log out, all disabled in real life, all with a large bounty on their head. The people to get a first kill on an alpha get a lot of real life money, life changing amounts. With the whole game hunting for alphas like him and with a non combat oriented class, Devon is going to do his best to survive the onslaught coming for him. 

Overall the story of this book was really good, I enjoyed it and it made a good read. The dialogue was well written and seemed like they could be real conversations. I did have a few issues with the book though. The first of which was how quickly Devon learned to utilize his new legs, he had trouble walking and running at first but within the first few minutes of playing the game he is climbing trees and the fact that he had never been able to run or walk before is pretty much forgotten after the first couple chapters. I also thought the reason he couldn't get out was not a good one. I think it was kind of a dumb reason and the author could have handled it better. I also thought the time in the game had lots of plot holes. For example, there is a countdown that happens somewhere in the book and every two lines of dialogue a minute has gone by. Another example of a time plothole is the fact that in game time progresses much slower than in real life. You can live a day in the game which equates to an hour in life. My issue is not with that, many other books have utilized that same idea, my issue is that there is a real life stream of all the players that is only behind a few hours. However, that shouldn't be possible because the stream would have to be running at 24x speed. Another issue I had with the book was the main character had a romantic relationship but within a week that other character had left everything in her life behind to travel the world with the main character. I think that relationship moved way too fast in that aspect. My final issue with the book was the stats. They were way too in depth. There would be incredibly obscure and specific stats like dancing, or drug tolerance, or politician, or any other number of obscure stats. There were so many and none were well explained. They did not format well Kindle or on a computer so I pretty much skipped the games stats. They definitely needed to be trimmed down because nobody needs to read the value of 50 different stats. I know I listed a lot of negatives but I just felt like those were things that could be ironed out, overall I enjoyed the book and found it to be a good read. My criticisms weren't really anything to major throughout the story just little plot holes I found or things I didn't like that could have been fixed with a more thorough proofreader. The stats were my only major criticism but overall the book had good dialogue, a great story, creative takes on LitRPG, and a unique crafting system. I do recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed reading LitRPG or fantasy novels in the past. 

The whole idea of the series is that there are multiple different rounds of testing the game has to go through before release. My guess is that the author intended for those different testing rounds to each have their own books. Sadly though, the author passed away soon after publishing this book. It sounds like he had started book two and they hoped to finish and release that book within a year, but the book was published over two years ago. Please check out this book because it was a really enjoyable read, even as a standalone, and I wish the Pendleton family the best.