They lied, they lie, they will lie. This world is built on deception.
Our hero entered the store that fateful evening and became involved in a life-or-death game arranged by a mysterious creature. He survived, but instead of being on Earth, he now appeared to be in a different world, with other people who had passed a similarly deadly test. Some made it through by using force, some by using their cunning... Everyone has their own story, but they all have one thing in common - there are no good people among them.
The world of Karik turned out to be akin to a game. In it, one can level up, grow stronger, even resurrect in case of failure. But if one makes a mistake of believing the wrong person, they will die for good. Will the magic that he needs to conceal, or maybe his patron, who seems incapable of telling the truth, help him? Who can say?
My Opinion: 653 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is actually a re-release of a previously published (Dec. 2017) novel called “World of Karik: (The First Player) LitRPG series”. You can actually see the hardcover and back cover blurb on the author’s page. I reviewed it then and really enjoyed the story but the only thing that stopped it from getting a good review were the many many translation issues. With this re-release, those seemed to have been fixed and I am bumping up the review score to 7.3 out of 10.
Original Review: (Dec. 2017)
“The novel is best described as a Apocalypse Survival Slice of Life LitRPG. So, similar stories would be The Arcane Survivalist, Life in the North, Gamer of the Dead, or Survival World.
People are being taken from earth by powerful beings and dropped onto another planet. This planet works with RPG game rules. Each person is given one skill or ability to help them survive and tombstone that they resurrect at if they die. If the tombstone is broken, they die permanently.
The main character (MC) convinces the god of chaos to give him mastery of magic and thus he has an OP ability among all the other players on this world. While there’s a way to exit the world, it’s so difficult no one has yet succeeded.
The story is basically a slice of life power up story. There’s no huge plot. It’s more about the MC learning about the rules of the world, leveling up, some betrayals that force him to power up more, and then repeating all that. There’s enough variety of monsters to fight, plot twist betrayals, and way to power up that the story is interesting even with it being over 600 pages long.
The biggest drawbacks to the story are the translation issues and the sheer length of the story makes some parts feel like filler. Those two things don’t ruin the story for me but they will for other people.”
Again. Just to be clear, the translation issue part no longer applies, but it was part of the original review.
New Score: 7.3 out of 10
A Game of Villains (World of Karik Book #1) Dystopian LitRPG Series