To break free, you'll need to break the game
In the virtual realm of Honorus, Ronin Ironclad is a Paladin forced to fight for his real-world coalition. Drafted players are constantly summoned to battle in-game to resolve political disputes. This was meant as a safe way for the governments to settle their differences, but it's turned into a way to control the populace.
The wonder and magical beauty of Honorus has been consumed with pointless warring, destroying the true lore of the game.
Everything changes when Ronin joins a top-level clan that fights to return Honorus to the epic fantasy game that was meant to unify the world.
Abandoning his coalition puts his real-world life in danger, but what he learns about the game and this clan, exposes him to something much greater.
My Opinion: 341 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
OMG, this story doesn’t make any sense and there are plot holes large enough to drive a truck through. On the plus side, the combat scenes are well written and there are lots of nods to MMO’s of the past. Unfortunately, not only does the fundamental premise of the story not make sense the plot twists in the story are not setup at all and are wand wavy as all heck.
The premise of the story is that the main character (MC), Ronin, is recruited by the First Clan who want to return the game they all play to its original purpose, fun and sharing of ideas. How is the game currently used? To solve global conflicts without real life war and instead have virtual wars between nation and factions. Sure, the author makes the setup sound as unappealing as possible with mandatory drafts for players and financial penalties for losing battles, but seriously no more war? Why try to stop that? It just doesn’t make sense.
Added to that just about every single plot twist in the story just doesn’t make sense. How do any of these rebels stay off the entire world government’s radar? Oh, some mod has magic code that hides them, even though all draftees live at government facilities and use government controlled internet and VR rigs. How does this group plan to change the game? Stop every single battle between governments using never before seen spells and abilities with no setup in the story. The government’s response to this? Use never before seen or described spell that reset players to level 1 and then eventually unleash server wide demon hordes and permadeath. None of which would actually accomplish any kind of goal.
The description of the game world is good. Lots of MMO goodness here. Though actual leveling done by the MC has little impact on the story other than meeting prerequisites for some spells needed to advance the story. But most of the mechanics are going to be familiar to anyone that’s played an MMO and you can tell that the author has gaming experience.
While I can appreciate that some aspects of the story are written very well, like some world building, combat, MMO/gamer humor, and character relationships, there was just too much that didn’t make logical sense in the story for me to enjoy it.
Score: 6 out of 10