After learning he has just months to live, Gemini Fowler is granted one shot to cheat death when a billionaire game-developer offers to transfer his consciousness into a virtual realm.
The catch:
The only current VR with the capability to receive him is the unreleased video game, Enora Online, and Gemini must survive until level ten or be completely wiped from the servers… and existence.
Welcome to Enora Online, where virtual is reality.
My Opinion: 504 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This story is definitely better than the cover makes it seem. The most unique aspect of the game mechanics is definitely the ability to switch between classes by switching weapons. The other RPG mechanics are pretty standard but seen throughout the story pretty consistently. There is pretty good action and a nice dungeon dive mid story.
However, I have to be honest that the first 25% of the story is almost entirely setup and gave me an impression that the rest of the novel was going to be...more...than it ended up being. I mean, it is heavily beaten into the reader repeatedly that the RPG game world is created by this amazing superior and advanced AI that is not only sentient but has created an entire world so realistic that the programmers who looked at it practically resigned realizing their jobs were redundant. This game world was supposed to be full of dynamic quests, rich culture, and independent AI creatures with thousands of years of history to inform who they were as people. Yet, once there, the opposite feels true. The world feels culturally empty. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the lack of big cities or societies in book 1 but even the few people the MC talks to feel flat. There are also many places where the story feels more game like than I thought it would be based on early descriptions. I don't mean game mechanics but rather how the story feels on rails sort of, with quests leading the MC down particular paths and him getting obviously unearned gear, skills, and magic. Just some forced situations that feel like they should have played out differently if the game mechanics where strictly followed. Like facing native level 9 NPC hunters that don't see him hiding with his non-existent or level 1 hide skill. In addition to that, the last 25% is mostly harem (no explicit sex) with some quest clean up and a hook for book 2. But that aspect was also a turn off for me.
Overall, I enjoyed the setup of the story. Even if much of it doesn’t matter once the MC is uploaded to the game. However, it setup an expectation that wasn’t fulfilled. That plus the harem stuff that just wasn’t interesting for me, (I mean it felt like every woman that the MC saved just fell in love with him even though they only knew him for minutes or hours). This first book was just shy of good for me.
Score: 6 out of 10
Gemini's Crossing: A Fantasy LitRPG Gamelit Adventure (Enora Online Book 1)