With the first relic in his possession, Leo Lennox sets sail across the ocean toward the distant city of Tylue in the kingdom of Sanduport.
But when pirates attack the ship carrying Leo, Allurie, and Cornalic to Tylue, the champ finds himself thrust into the middle of a political struggle to determine Sanduport's next ruler. The stakes have never been higher for Leo, and failure to win could mean the death of his new friends.
My Opinion: About 420 pages, $7.49, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure. I received an early review copy of the novel but purchased the novel once it became available.
*Link and cover art updated to author’s website since that’s the only place to find it anymore.
Leo Lenox is back, searching for the next relic in the land of Sanduport. His best shot at getting the relic is to help one of the royal candidates survive her assassins and serve as her champion in a series of contests to win her the throne.
This review will be broken up into two parts. One for the game world and one for the real world portion of the story.
Game World:
The story in the game world portion of the novel is outstanding and is the best of the three novels that have been written so far. The novel drops you right into the action and rarely slows the pace. The new character, Bolverk, has a Conan the Barbarian personality packed into a tiny gnome body. He’s great. Even if he does fade into the background a little as the story progresses. The story takes unexpected twists and turns as the challenges for the throne turn out to be more interesting and complicated than they first appear and betrayal is around every corner.
Real Life:
The real life storyline in the novel is not as good as it was in book 2. Yes, there is still lots of action here and it’s well written and interesting. However, it never reached the emotional weight of book 2. Which is understandable since you can’t kill off characters every book.
For me, the real life storyline didn’t seem to advance much. All the information I was given was information I already knew from books 1 and 2. I knew people were trying to stop the game project. I knew that there was some bleed through for Leo from the game. I knew that the A.I. in the game seemed so realistic, Leo questioned if they were actually real people somewhere. It felt like the main reason the real world story line existed in book 3 was to obfuscate whether or not the game Leo is playing is actually a game or if he’s being transported to another world or something else entirely.
Overall, great story. You are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t read this story. The game part easily gets a 9 out of 10. The real life part gets a 7 out of 10. For the entire novel, I’ll average the two out.
Score: 8 out of 10
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