In this world, everyone starts with no memory and no recollection of their past life. In this world, you have nothing — even your limbs are rented, and you'll have to pay up every day. In this world, you must complete tasks assigned to you by the System or be fined and stripped of everything, including your arms and legs. In this world, you're under unrelenting supervision. But in dark corners hidden from the System's watchful eye, violence, brutality, and lawlessness abound.
In this world, you're assigned a number. You're a volitional Nullform. Now it's up to you to adapt to this reality and try to survive without ending up crippled. Just don't mess up, or you'll be wishing you were dead as you dig yourself deeper into an endless pit of debt. This world will not take pity on you. You'll have to work tirelessly to earn the right to live another day…
Read the first book in a new series from the author who brought you Clan Dominance: The Sleepless Ones.
My Opinion: 350 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
*Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review, I purchased a copy when it became available.
The promotional material from the publisher highlights this as ‘RealRPG’ and clearly credits the story as being among the first stories that lead to LitRPG even leading to the authors more popular LitRPG series. So, in that respect it makes sense that this is not LitRPG or even GameLit. There are no RPG aspects though so even calling it ‘RealRPG’ seems like a stretch.
The story is most closely related to post apocalyptic or maybe cyberpunk that takes place in a dystopian world where the main character (MC) wakes up with new arms and legs attached to him with no memory of who he is or where he is. The slice of life story follows the MC as he learns the rules of this world where every aspect of survival is provided, but at a cost, and if you can’t pay or go too far into debt the arms and legs you’re renting are taken back by force. It’s a pretty dark story that classifies workers into categories of usefulness which have slang terms like zombie, goblin, orc, halfing, but are only name and have no physiological connection to the fantasy races. The MC has to figure out a way to keep out of debt and that’s what the story is. Him experiencing this dark world, the AI driven system that runs things and assigns jobs, and the people that exist in it with the logical extrapolations would result from such a system.
The tag ‘RealRPG’ has been used by the publisher to describe LitRPG stories set in the real world, whether RPG apocalypse or just in a modern real world setting (ie: Level Up series).
Unfortunately, besides a very minor opportunity to play old games like chess or tic tac toe for extra money, there are no game aspects at all and certainly no RPG aspects. There are notifications, and a system that assigns jobs and tracks debts for things like food, medicine, and water. But nothing resembling an RPG progression system where the MC gets stronger by spending system points, or even tracks his stats, or a level up system.
While I can see how influences from the story may have inspired other authors to write LitRPG or add RPG systems, this is not LitRPG or GameLit story. That doesn’t make it a bad story. The dark dystopian setting and the allegory of an all encompassing system that’s supposed to provide necessities but ends up classifying workers and is full of holes people can take advantage of, is not badly written. It certainly is depressing and dark and it will appeal to readers that enjoy that. But, the story didn’t work for me since I was expecting some kind of LitRPG story or even a GameLit story.
Score: 6 out of 10