Not many refuse heaven. Fewer reject paradise. Certainly rare are those who would find themselves before a being of unknown power and point out the demerits of nirvana.

One man does.

When the aloof fourth son of a business mogul makes the decision to save a life at the cost of his own, he discovers that what awaits him at the end of his mortality is not eternal oblivion.

He cannot help but be disappointed.

When he realizes the world he's been brought to works like the old fantasy games he used to love, he begins to see the merits.

If only he did not start out as the weakest thing in existence, and if only the world he was in was not populated with madness-inducing creatures and fates worse than death.

"Decide for yourself, your fantasies and your Nightmares, your companions and your adversaries, your angels and your demons, your gods and your monsters.

Alamir stretches to you a hand of a thousand possibilities -

You only need take it."

My Opinion: 332 pages, $4.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited

The story grabbed my attention from the very first pages and never lost it. While it starts out with a human main character (MC) in our normal world it takes a surprising twist and turns into a multi-narrative Re: Monster story. That’s the kind of story where the MC is somehow either reincarnated or transformed into a monster and the story is about his growth and evolution from something weak, in this case an earthworm. The RPG elements are pretty strong in this story and I enjoyed all the monster powers and ways the MC intelligently exploited the system to become more and more powerful. There are 3-4 other narratives besides the main one with the MC, though some of the POVs ultimately didn't mean much besides doing some world building in this 1st book, I was still entertained and I liked the RPG monster evolution system of the main story.

Overall, a really good Re: Monster story that I was glad I picked up even if it’s not on KU.

Score: 7.7 out of 10

Janus and Oblivion: A LitRPG Saga (The Nightmares of Alamir Book 1)

https://amzn.to/32S7URQ

Dark: Fearless Pioneer (Dark LitRPG book 1)

It started with a girl. One he had seen many months past, and only for a few evenings.

Her father, as it turned out, was a barbaric maniac, straight out of the foulest dungeons of the Middle Ages. Decades into the 21st century, the madman seemed terribly out of place.

Yet he was also a powerful mogul – and determined to turn the life of every man who had ever been romantically involved with his daughter into a particular variant of hell only made possible by the latest VR technology. All seventeen of his girl’s former lovers would suffer in virtual reality until they snapped.

The torturers had considered every possibility and taken every measure to assure their success. Not even death would offer their victims an escape. No harm would come to their bodies, of course. Only their minds.

For the first sixteen, the project succeeded. But the seventeenth was different. The seventeenth was Dark.

My Opinion: 360 pages, $3.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited

I’ll be honest, the first 10% of the novel was a little hard to get through. It’s a bunch of real world stuff that just setups why the main character (MC) gets trapped in the FIVR game in this out of the way location. It’s kind of a dark section with torture, a convoluted setup, and background info that doesn’t effect the rest of the story.

Still, after that section the story gets really interesting and becomes this kind of survivalist crafting story with the MC stuck in a high end zone facing monsters more powerful than him with nothing to either fight or protect himself with. In that section it’s kind of like Clan of the Cave Bear or another primitive survival story where the MC has to discover ways of making tools, shelter, weapons from bare bones resources. Then as the tech level increases and the MC learns more about the system, it becomes about increasing his powers with his unique race and the detriments he’s been handed. Interesting stuff, but a real solo kind of story.

There’s still lots of RPG stuff, with skills increasing, levels going up with a unique progression system but that part doesn’t become a focus until your already 20% into the story. But it does become a big part of the narrative mid and late story.

Overall, I liked it once I got past the grimdark torture and real world background stuff. I liked the survival aspects, the big emphasis on crafting, and the smaller solo story. However, much of the story is pretty slice of life, as are many of the author’s stories, so you have to be cool with that.

Score: 7.6 out of 10

Dark: Fearless Pioneer (Dark: Fearless Pioneer LitRPG book 1)

https://amzn.to/2XW2EZM

Cannibal. Demon of the Mind. A Post-Apocalyptic Survival LitRPG Series

An act of terror eliminated civilization. Ninety percent of all adults died, and nine percent became zombies--whose brains were slowly recovered by nanites. Only one percent stayed human. Life had been turned into something resembling a computer game, where levels were increased by absorbing the nanorobots from other's bodies.

Presumptuous mankind had destroyed itself, but it might still be reborn in a new form, with a new meaning, with the sole Sun, and with the new God - the Supreme Mind.

Warning This fiction contains: Gore

My Opinion: 388 pages, $2.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited

This is an interesting translated Russian LitRPG novel. Neither the novel description or the current cover art really doesn’t do a good job of catching your attention and the title only makes sense once you’ve already started to read the story. Like with any translated work, expect some technical writing errors and translation issues. I think some of the early translation issues may put off some readers, just because it makes several RPG powers confusing. The biggest is with the ‘Jerk’ power, which took me over 30% of the novel to understand is some kind of movement ability. But before that, it was just a confusing power because it’s not well translated.

Other than that, the story is actually pretty good, though it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. I’d describe this as a Monster MC Techno-Zombie RPG apocalypse story. It’s only a tiny bit spoiliery, but the story is told from the POV of one of the zombies during the zombie apocalypse. As he grows more powerful, he gradually increases his intelligence stat and slowly gains back more of his human memories and gets new powers. The story slowly reveals a larger and larger picture of just what is happening in the world and how it got to that apocalypse state. I think that’s the part of the story I liked the most, the sort of mystery of what happened with the world.

The RPG stuff is decent and well thought out with the MC able to absorb nanobots from either the defeated humans or another source to level up and get upgrade options that lead to techno zombie specializations. Some of those specializations are pretty cool, but the fundamental system isn’t complex and mid and late story becomes less important and prominent.

Overall, if you can get past some of the minor translation issues and you like a Monster MC story or just like the idea of a techno zombie apocalypse story told from the zombie POV, this might be pretty good for you. I don’t know that I’d be willing to pick up a 2nd book since I feel like a lot of the mystery was revealed in book 1, but I did enjoy this story.

Score: 7.2 out of 10

Cannibal. Demon of the Mind. A Post-Apocalyptic Survival LitRPG Series

https://amzn.to/2vXMWBM

Raze (The Completionist Chronicles Book 4)

Humanity on the run. Desperate base building. Dark deeds done during daylight.

Joe has started to draw attention to himself and his abilities. While some of the attention is good and allows for personal growth, most of it is from various organizations that feel threatened by the sudden upswing of power that Joe’s guild—The Wanderers—are attaining.

As the threat to earth begins to reach its peak, all of humanity has a choice: flee to Eternium, or stay for an uncertain future. Some stay, some go, some don’t make the choice quickly enough. In Ardania, the human Kingdom is seeing an unprecedented influx of people. Supply and demand is an issue no matter where you go, as a civilization of a few million can’t prepare to accept an eighth of earth’s inhabitants at once.

Joe sets out to solve problems where he can, but he can’t be there for everyone… especially when a group of smiling enforcers are working to bring him down.

My Opinion: 295 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited

Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review, I purchased a copy when it became available.

An enjoyable story from start to finish with many small lines and puns that made me chuckle. A few small things: Early parts of the story felt a little disconnected and some real world stuff while neat may not make sense yet. Or may never make sense unless you've finished the divine dungeon series. However, most of the story is good slice of life stuff. I personally enjoyed the details in the crafting, and ritualist stuff. I like it when it gets into magical theory based on real science and logic. Oh, and not to forget one of my new favorite characters, the Coffee elemental. OMG, how has no one thought of that before? So cute too. "Drink me. I'm delicious." I can absolutely see this as a plushy.

Score: 7.5 out of 10

Raze (The Completionist Chronicles Book 4)

https://amzn.to/2Xnqvkv

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