CivCEO by Andrew Karevik

“If you’re the kind of person who’s only moral when you’re rich, then you probably won’t ever be moral, even if you get your riches,”
― Andrew Karevik, CivCEO

This is the first book in the series The Accidental Champion by Andrew Karevik. It is a LitRPG, which means that it has elements of a game in it along with fantasy and was self-published 2019. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Neil Hellegers.

Now the story follows Charles Morris, and 80 something old entrepreneur who is rich as filth and successful but alone, one day he gets swept away by an airhead of goddess who kidnapped the wrong person to be her champion. Because of that, Charles is dropped in the village only to take up the mantle of champion as he wants to help the village grow. He has to please the people along with bringing in revenue in order make his stamp in this world filled with dangerous creatures and powerful magic.

Now, normally I would try and give a few sentences to the characters but I hardly remember any of them. Most have only one chapter dedicated to them such as the two married champions who has been at war with each other for twenty years or the vampire creature who is taking up a mine Charles needs. None left much an impression on me and frankly, neither did Charles. He has strong morals; always thinks he is right. A bit of a Gary Stu as he never really fails. If he encounters bandits, he convinces them to go to his side. He negotiates peace between two champions who has been fighting for twenty years. His only real mistake was when he was building something in the village and didn’t figure out that he has to tell the people to stop working or they won’t which ended up hurting people and the building. He fixes it easily though so there are no repercussions.

The lack of a real challenge is probably the greatest flaw of this book. All other’s such as the pacing, structure of the story and telling was really good. It was consistent and didn’t drag on too much. Many of these kinds of books hangs up on all the stats which makes them boring as it drags on. This one is faster paced and only gives the information needed.

Of course, the few extreme negative reviews I found did think it wasn’t close enough to a game in this book, which I would translate it wasn’t tedious enough with a lot of stats and details. That works fine in games where you have a cheat in front of you but the books I have read who does the same will loose a lot of readers. The four readers who wanted that will be happy but the thousands of readers who didn’t will think the book is too boring. Games don’t translate well to anything other than a visual media. Now, if you are looking for a book with a copy pasted Civilization game in it, then this one is not for you, but if you want to read a book depicting a strategy game with better pace then this will have you covered.

As I mentioned the problem in this book is that there is no challenge, no motivation. Charles does it because he just thinks it looks interesting while encountering few bumps in the road. The author sets up two threats, other champions who wants to raid you, and the merchants who is more like a cartel. The other champions who is a threat is merely hinted at, they might come into play in future books, and the merchant’s guild is only a nuisance at best. They never really pose a real threat in this book which means that the story is a relatively smooth ride throughout with only a few “accidents” that are solved relatively quickly or doesn’t feel like a threat.

So, how would I rate this book? Frankly, it was hard. There are plenty of good things about it and that the book successfully are able to translate games into writing form without falling into the pitfalls like so many other in the same genre does is impressive. But this book in itself doesn’t really give you much to go on. It is only 298 pages long and it feels like the story has barely begun. Considering the amount of books in this series it has barely begun but how will I know if I want to continue reading if I have nothing to base that decision on. I think that is the currently the issue with it. It doesn’t give us enough to base a strong opinion on it. I would give it a 6 out of 10, but does think that the future books will be better. The storyline to make it better is there, but for now it is only hinted at and that is not enough to make me want to continue reading.

With Kind Regards

Senefer.