now I’m listening to Chaos Seeds Book 1: The Land: Founding, which is a “LitRPG”, or a novel about a character who is literally trapped in an MMORPG game world complete with stats, EXP points, and respawn on death.
Finished book 1, then went on to and finished book 2—The Land: Forging. I love the narrator, Nick Podehl.
I also like the story, except for a few issues: First, a number of people point out that the main character, Richter, doesn’t seem to be overly bothered by having been transported to a new world. That’s kind of a minor niggle for me, though, and admittedly, the second book does suggest he wasn’t happy with his life on Earth because he refuses to talk much about it.
Second, there are too many pop culture references, and several are overused or obvious.
Third, the main character is supposed to be in his mid twenties and the Book 1 prologue takes place on Earth in the year 2037… but his pop culture references are our pop culture references. He references Ghostbusters, Labyrinth, and the meme “KHAAAAN!” just to name a few off the top of my head; and he more than once says “hashtag[insert meme]”. When deciding what skills to level, he thinks about mobilization being important for winning wars, and cites orbital flight being a factor in the West winning World War III. He should be too young for Gen-X and Millenial references, and he doesn’t seem affected by what to him are more modern current events, so the pop culture references are as mildly head-scratching as much as they are overused.
Aside from that, it’s a good series. I know I said someone compared it to Ready Player One, but that book was about using pop culture references to help win the game and so are somewhat integral to the plot. This isn’t like that. The nostalgic references are there, but the plot doesn’t hinge on them and other characters are confused or ignore when they happen.
The Land:Founding – 8.5/10
The Land:Forging – 7.8/10