A comedy.
All life on Earth has been stolen away by The System, transported to another world at the behest of a distant galactic empire, who lived in terror of humanity's potential.
Ben was a normal, slightly above average man, and had been about to go on the first real vacation of his adult life. Now he must contend with danger and mystery in a world of monsters, magic and treasure, armed with nothing but his wits, and the special item given to him by The System.
This is his adventure.
Welcome to The World.
My Opinion: 267 pages, $3.99, Not Available On Kindle Unlimited
This is a pretty solid story whose reviews seem to either really like the story or really dislike it. I can understand the divide since much of the fun of the story relies on getting the sense of humor of the writer. If the humor lands, you’ll like it. If not, it’ll be a skip.
The story is a super slice of life and it feels like the serial story that it is with more of it being available online. There’s a vague plot about humanity escaping the dimension but it mostly focuses on the MC and his sometimes crazy and weird adventures figuring out the rules, fighting some monsters, a little dungeon diving, and some rather odd interactions with the beings that live in the dimension.
The story is a Transported to RPG world, where everyone one on earth is sent to a new dimension. The setup takes a good bit to get through (like 15%) and the main character (MC) spends another 30% in character creation or in a too long introduction to the various locations he’s not going to and oddly a good bit in the ocean. On their own, the scenes could be boring, but the snarky dialogue and the humor that puts humanity as the most deadly biological entities in the universe pulls me through. But I can absolutely see other readers not sticking around past these scenes.
After the 50% mark when the RPG aspects show up they’re not super heavy, but there are levels, classes, races, and lots of twists that keep you guessing what’s going to happen next. The game stuff reminds me of the way the RPG system is handled in The Wandering Inn with classes and special abilities rising when the character does things related to their class, but it also being handled in a more fantasy way without clearly defined XP.
Overall, the beginning of the story doesn’t feel like LitRPG, maybe more light gamelit. But the humor and dialogue were just interesting enough to keep me reading until that started and then I was more entertained. Entertaining if you’re ok with the serial feel of the story.
Score: 7.4 out of 10
Ben's Damn Adventure: The Prince Has No Pants