After a hair-raising flight from Elatha, Michael and his allies find themselves holed up in a remote region in Fjorgyn, surrounded by potential enemies. They must rid themselves of the threat of an unfriendly horde of goblins while they discover the reasons behind a dire threat in the forested realm around them. They must do all this while feeling alone and abandoned in this harsh world.
Although he wants nothing more to do with going underground and always fighting for his life, the threat of a pursuing Elathian army headed by the cruel king, Ankou Levent, requires Michael jump into action to protect his allies, his friends, and Clifford, the man he loves.
It isn't long until they hear rumors of a demonic beast plaguing the countryside, corrupting harmless creatures and bending them to its will. Michael leaps into action to protect his allies and to discover the sinister secret behind this beast's sudden arrival.
So pick it up and read an untraditional LitRPG novel that combines the best of the author's favorite genres: Plenty of adventure, some romance, a dash of eroticism, and a whole lot of fantasy RPG gaming.
My Opinion: 306 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
The beginning of the novel starts out with a quick reminder to the reader that the main character is gay and has a lover, Clifford, in the story. Nice! Feel like it’s almost done as a big warning sign since some of the negative reviews about book 1 were just about people being surprised the main character turned out to be gay.
Just to be clear, there is no sex in the story. The most graphic it gets is something like ‘for hours we explored each other as two people in love do.’
Book 2 in the Fjorgyn series is good. It’s even better than the first book which I thought was quite nice. The author took all things I liked about book 1 and improved them and also adjusted the few things I didn’t like. There’s action, adventure, crafting, town building, and more to enjoy about the story.
I enjoyed book 1 and gave it a good review. However, there were a few small things about book 1 that I didn’t like: sudden plot shift, lack of action, extensive character sheets at the end of each chapter. All that has been improved in book 2. There are tons of action scenes. Full character sheets appear much less often, instead, there are more individual references and descriptions of things like items, spells, and people. There are lots of these kinds of game mechanic descriptions.
Something that I was really glad to see fleshed out in book 2 is the community and town building. The escaped slaves have settled at an abandoned keep outside their enemies lands. The story is super detailed about what things would need to be done to found a village in a medieval society. The MC, being given ownership of the keep, has the options to invest settlement points to fulfill these needs like: build walls, create new buildings, specialty shops, farmlands, create wells in the keep, give bonuses to certain activities, and much more. All in a RTS style game manner. I liked it.
The novel has the absolute best descriptions of herbalism and potion making that I think I’ve ever read. They made me want to go make a potion or sign up for potion making classes with Prof. Michael. However, that is the extent of the crafting in the story.
There’s a lot more combat in the story. There are three big long fights scenes and a few more minor ones. The combat descriptions in the story are very strategic based and less graphically descriptive. There’s more text about characters fulfilling game roles, like healer, dps, tank and them using specific abilities in specific strategies.
Where the novel shines is in the emotional and social character development of the main character and the relationships between him and the other characters. Those scenes have weight and impact.
Overall, this is a really good novel and it was fun reading it, especially those potion making scenes.
Score: 7 out of 10.
Fjorgyn: The Deep Below (Fjorgyn Book 2)