This is the first book in the Underworld series by Apollos Throne. It was self-published 2017 and the audiobook was narrated by Graham Halstead. The book belongs to the LitRPG genre though the story doesn’t follow the genre to the teeth as it isn’t set in a videogame, but a fantasy world but the entire magical system is based on rpg games.
The story follows Elorion, a high school student who is pulled into a dark fantasy world filled with the undead alongside other gamers. They are all forced to feed their succubus mistress by fighting the undead with the threat of death over their head.
Elorion is described like this on good reads “is just your average high school student lazing around during summer break and thinking about bacon.” This average high schooler is athletic, smart and funny. He has also great moral and constantly wins against enemies that no other can win against. Not to mention that he level up faster than the other and can solo fight the dungeon despite being a healer while the others are barely able to handle themselves despite being in a group.
Just to understand how overpowered and unbalanced the leveling system is. They all start at a level of 25. The audiobook was around 7 hours. 1 hour in, Elorion has gone from a level 25 to a level 57. 1 and half hour in, he defeats a level 200 imp while not even being a level 100. This is not even half through the story.
And for those of you who don’t understand why a healer can level up so fast without a group, despite being a fighter. Well, the author has put in a system where his healing hurt everything in the world they venture in. Normally, games with this sort of system will still be very hard for healers (speaking as a healer in games) because this often only work on undead and they are rare in games. The author also doesn’t follow the normal game class by ensuring that healers aren’t fighters, nope. Elarion also can debuff and cast buff, along with later in the book learn fire magic making him not really a healer because I really don’t think the author wanted the character to be one.
As a healer in games, I’m insulted that the author just threw that out the door in favor of flashy elemental magic and the like. As a reader I understand since it is hard to write good healers. They often have to rely on groups, that makes them side character in stories, but considering that he is the only healer in this book and people dies for real. He really could have been an important and powerful character without the flashy fighting skill. Especially if he learns an ability that allows him to resurrect people.
The writing isn’t the best as well. The ones who love this book seem to adore the endless stats after each level up and the like, half of them not necessary, but according to these people it makes it feel more like a game. I find it funny considering that very few gamers actually watch the stats much. The ones who hate it thinks the story is just full of grinding, overpowered main character, and stats reading that are unnecessary long and makes the book feel more like an instruction manual.
Both are right depending on what you like in an LitRPG. As a writer I find the endless stats often unnecessary. Such as when Elarion looked at information about a Lich and wrote something like “race: unknown, stats: unknown, class: unknown, abilities: unknown” and so on instead of just writing that everything shown to be unknown.
I also think that the intelligence stat became a bit redundance in this book. If you are a healer, wisdom is the most important stat and Elarion put it all into wisdom. But that should make it hard for him to learn anything other magical such as elemental magic since that depends on wisdom, but that is not the case in this book which means that intelligence is redundant. I don’t think the system was too stable as the author keep changing it so the main character can learn other kinds of magic and be more overpowered.
I do think this one is among the better LitRPG’s I have read though; it just has all the problem of this genre such as the author not being able balance the book and game parts very well and it becoming a bit of a power fantasy. Such as the main character being overpowered and handsome, while all other males mostly being fat and the girls being beautiful and all liking the main character or learn to like him. The girls are the only side characters worth mentioning and it is near to be a harem if it continues. It is clearly aimed toward men, but I would think that women would like it as well as it isn’t too heavily male power fantasy. I cannot say the writing is good, it is simple and to tedious. I would overall give it a 6 out of 10, making it fine but not that good. It is better than many others in this genre but that said, I have hardly encounter one I would give more than a 6 though so take that as you will.
This is a genre who still need to be tweaked to work for books as for now, this might be the best we can get from the genre.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 