He entered the contest to win cash...
Now millions could die.
Random gigs and ramen noodles... that's how out-of-shape gamer Terry survives the job-starved future of 2044. Until he's accepted into the Path of Relics tournament—the most anticipated virtual reality RPG event of the decade—where he has the chance to win some real loot.
But does he have a fighting chance against the world's top Active-VR athletes?
Not to mention the ancient dungeons, puzzles, scorpion-wolves, and all-too-realistic NPCs the game world throws at him. And just how advanced is this "Portal Rig" that lets him physically experience the fantasy world as if he were transported there?
Worse, could his suspicions be true?
Are the strange and deadly malfunctions plaguing Manhattan somehow triggered by Path of Relics?
Now, outmatched and exhausted, can Terry's mysterious ability to level-up quickly and his meager martial arts skills help him avert catastrophe in the real world?
My Opinion: 449 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
I’ll start off by saying that the writing in the story isn’t bad. No technical issues. There’s a good bit of front loaded world building that was done well. I felt for the main character (MC) and the world that had been put out of work due to A.I. advancement. One in the game, combat is pretty good when it appears and there are a variety of game puzzles that stretch out the questline.
This is a story that tries to bring in too many elements and doesn’t do any poorly but also doesn’t end up doing any really well. It starts off as a competitive PvP tournament for a new VRMMO, then switches to the main character (MC) abandoning that to explore the RPG side of the MMO, then it adds in some cyberpunk A.I. affecting the real world elements. If the story had focused more on any one of those elements I think I would have enjoyed the story more. As it is, none were developed too deeply before the story shifted to the next.
Additionally, the A.I. cyberpunk element felt like a huge stretch. Like no one in the entire city wouldn’t have noticed the intrusion of a foreign A.I. in a world where A.I. have taken over everyone’s jobs? I also wished the A.I. that ends up being an antagonist were actually shown the entire story instead of just seeing the results of intrusions and supposition about what was happening. It would have made the A.I. feel more like a character I could root for or against and less of an ambiguous condition of the game.
It takes a good bit of time before the MC gets to the game and even more before there are RPG elements. There are RPG elements, leveling, and automatic stat increases that are based on real world increases in health and athleticism while playing the game. A novel element but not really put to a particularly interesting use in the end. Also there’s a game mechanic hole that if the game was based on how in shape you were, the pro gamers or people that were in shape would automatically have huge starting stats. And that’s really what most of the RPG elements felt like to me. Since there were no choices of how to apply stats or class power choices the stats and levels didn’t end up feeling like a major part of the story, just a way to show the MC had gained more game power and why he could somehow beat professional gamers. If the RPG stuff was removed from the story, it wouldn’t change much about the plot since the MC could still gain the same story powers by reading scrolls and all the A.I. stuff would unfold exactly the same.
Overall, I struggled to stay interested in the story. In the ads for the novel, the author says that it may not be for everyone and I don’t think it was for me. There are folks that will still enjoy the story, but because the RPG elements didn’t feel like they really mattered I lost interest and had to force myself to finish reading the story.
Score: 6 out of 10
Path of Relics: Aether Shard (The Lore Seeker Odyssey Book 1)