A strange, foreign world. Mysterious judges with capricious rules. Thousands of gamers find themselves split into factions and pitted against each other at the whim of an unknown higher power, with no idea how they got there or why they were chosen. Dying in this world hurts, but it's not the end: dead players always respawn to fight again.
Echo, with his extensive knowledge of fighting, armor, and weapons, has all the makings of a great leader. The ragtag recruits fighting for him under the less-than-threatening name "Society of Pinprick Enthusiasts" become the bane of the opposing factions, sowing terror in their wake. But this game won't be won in straightforward skirmishes. The squad will have to forge pacts with their own faction, the judges, and even their enemies. Each day brings new twists, new rules, and new ways to play, and a step that seemed to be in the right direction might suddenly become a fatal mistake.
Brute force and bravado won't be enough for Echo to carve his way to the top and stay there. He will have to lead his squad through mistakes, good fortune, victory, and defeat in his quest to secure his position.
My Opinion: 307 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
Full Disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
Ok. Right off the bat, I’m going to say that this story is unusual and not everyone is going to get past some early artistic choices. Not only is the beginning really unclear about what’s happening or why, but also in the story itself is told in an unusual way. However, if you can adjust to how the story is told and get through the start, you’ll find an action focused story that combines tactical and historical weapons and armor with PvP and interesting small group fighting.
The biggest thing to address is how the story is told. Instead of a traditional chapter format with clear beginnings, middles, and ends, the story is told in ‘slides’. Which are snapshots of thought or dialogue or events. Sometimes these slides are pages long, other times only a few paragraphs. There’s no normal connective text between these ‘slides’ either, just abrupt jumps between scenes which may skip hours or even days. It was a big adjustment to read the story in this format.
On the story side, the beginning was a little annoying. It had a good enough action start but the main character (MC) is an unreliable narrator as he makes statements that haven’t been shown to be true to the reader. Like that the world is a simulation or game, the ‘Watchers’ are NPCs, and that violence outside of the arena is physically impossible. Additionally, beyond the arena fights, it's not particularly clear what’s happening. I mean the MC says everyone brought to the place is a hard core gamer but he’s only spoken to a few people. There’s also no scene showing how everyone got there, wherever there is, as the story starts with the MC in a park talking to a guy he thinks is on drugs, then entering the stands of the area to watch a fight.
It’s not until about 11% into the story that the MC recounts how he knows he can’t die, that he’d tried to kill himself only to find himself respawn back in the town temple. The story shifts into this slice of life accounting of the MC and his buddy with dreadlocks just messing around, meeting people, and not really doing anything.
About 20% in the story shifts again to the thousand or so gamers choosing one of six gods to follow and organize around. It’s not until this point that the story really gets to what it’s good at, which is tactical group fighting and leveling. Once the PvP and faction versus faction start, the story pace picks up with the MC trying to rally and train his faction and fighting the other sides in increasingly challenging battles. It’s honestly the only reason I didn’t
Game mechanic-wise, it's technically LitRPG but feels more like a melee group battle royale game with RPG upgrades. There are RPG game-like elements/rules that eventually show up but a good portion of the early story (20% ish) doesn’t have them. Death is not permanent as when someone dies they respawn. All equipment is provided free and there’s a range of realistic melee armor and weapons. Ranged weapons don’t exist and even if a weapon is thrown it doesn’t do damage. “Death can only come from a weapon held in your enemy’s hands!” There’s PvP and faction v faction fighting. Once the story gets to that point the MC/narrator explains that they get XP and level for killing other factions, for looting rival god’s temples, and earning the respect of native people. Each level gained gives choices to gain bonuses or special abilities.
The big draw in the story was hands down the fighting. There was realistic use of melee weapons, armor, and interesting group tactics in the fights after the 20% mark that the MC used. There was clear personal knowledge or research done for the variety of swords, spears, and armor types including their advantages/disadvantages, and their historical use on the battlefield. Once the faction versus faction stuff starts, it gets more interesting with the MC trying to help his side use group fighting and realistic use of the weapons and armors to defeat their foes.
Overall, if you can get past the format of the story and the unclear start, it’s an entertaining story for those that like PvP and Faction V Faction fighting.
Score: 7.2 out of 10