He Who Fights With Monsters Book Review

Previously I have been told that I should review something on Royal Road or other sites like that. Now, 1,465 pages (or 166 chapters) later I am up to date on the free, open version of He Who Fights With Monsters. He Who Fights With Monsters is written by Shirtaloon on Royal Road and ScribbleHub. For those of you who aren't aware, those are both sites where authors can post their books, usually a chapter at a time. If you read on Kindle or something like that, I suggest using WebToEPub to turn the story into a PDF then send that to your Kindle. He Who Fights With Monsters has a new chapter on every weekday, Monday through Friday, and has been going on for about six months. Here is the link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26294/he-who-fights-with-monsters

He Who Fights With Monsters begins with the main character, Jason, waking up naked in the middle of a hedge maze with no recollection of how he got there. Soon after he fights some mutated gerbils, kills a cannibal trying to find his next meal, gets magical abilities from some rocks, and kills some more cannibals. All in all, quite eventful. The main character Jason tries to make the best of this new world he finds himself in, his outrageous personality and political mind quickly putting him near the tops of some different social circles. Throughout the book Jason meets a wide variety of people and monsters, and kills a variety as well. Jason ends up creating a very dark and evil seeming power set, which is always fun to read about.

I really liked this book. It started off really great and slowly it lost some appeal but it was still a good book, within the last little bit the story has definitely picked up and is great once more. There wasn't ever a time where I did not enjoy reading the book, I just preferred the start and the more recent parts. Jason is an awesome character, he keeps the story funny and interesting. He is accomplishes many things through manipulation, which is really fun to read. He uses his innate weirdness to push someone else into doing what he wants, but it is always in an outrageous and funny way. I really enjoy the main character and the other characters are great as well. The book is LitRPG but doesn't really show damage or anything like that. I like how it is used however I do have one complaint about the LitRPG aspect. Spells and abilities will have different costs, but it never really gives it a numeric value or compares it to Jason's overall mana capacity. You don't know how much more a moderate mana spell costs compared to a minor, and you don't know how many times Jason can use it. For all I know, Jason can either use a moderate spell anywhere from five times to five hundred or more. The book never really gave an amount for that and I don't think it will, which is an annoyance. I like how the combat is written, but I don't like that I don't know how many times Jason can use something and I found that annoying when reading. Jason does have character growth, which I appreciate, and so do the people around him. The dialogue was believably written and usually witty and funny. I loved how the abilities fit together, especially for Jason, however it did seem like it made him overpowered. The story had good development as well and the book was always kept interesting and kept me wanting to read more. Overall, it was a really good book with a good story and even better dialogue however, the combat and abilities could use some refining. I will keep reading this book with each new chapter that comes out and it is definitely a book I can recommend.

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