Bailed from cryo jail under mysterious circumstances, Christian Lawson is drawn into the game world of Valeria – only to be enslaved by the world's power-mad tyrant.
Forced to fight and level to serve the tyrant’s will, Christian fights back to gain his freedom. He finds hope in another player from earth, the poison-wielding ranger Alexia; a powerful but eccentric witch, and the new abilities awakening inside him. Long held bound in darkness and cold, he learns to unleash the powers of ice against his enemies.
Together they must escape the clutches of their captors and find Christian’s lost uncle; the leader of a desperate rebellion to save not only Valeria but earth itself.
My Opinion: 319 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
This is a transported to a game world story where the main character (MC) gets a class that specializes in heavy armor and ice magic, a cryo knight. He has to escape the bad people trying to use Travelers, people from other worlds that respawn after death, like himself to gain power and territory.
After about the 20% mark, there are lots of game mechanics that are used to describe the power progression for the MC and the other Travelers. Though I’ll note that there is sometimes a distinct lack of detail for some elements, like actual XP gained from killing monsters or completing quests. Additionally, the MCs class wasn’t something he got to choose, but was something that was awakened. Which made some of the progression feel story driven rather than game mechanic driven. Beyond those points there are plenty of notifications, levels, powers, and gamer mentalities with characters.
On the whole, the story is good. Good action adventure, and interesting use of powers. But you could tell there was a deliberate decision to minimize numerical details sometimes. It may have been done so that those details didn’t have to be tracked and the character’s progression could occur according to the needs of the story and not some system. The story is still good, but that decision took something away from the novel for me. Especially considering how detailed the world was described.
Score: 7.2 out of 10