The 6th and Final Book in the My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror Series. It's slice-of-life mixed with LitRPG in a magic school setting. A slow build power fantasy from Actus, the bestselling author of Morcster Chef .
Actus has been writing fantasy stories since the age of twelve, and he's been telling them since he could talk. He's currently working on three main series - Morcster Chef, Steamforged Sorcery, and My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror. You can find his works on RoyalRoad & Patreon as well as on Amazon.
In addition to his passion for writing, Actus is capable of clearing a two story building with a single jump. That isn't true, but writing about himself in third person gives Actus delusions of grandeur.
Overall I’ve enjoyed this series as some light entertainment. This ending is just bad though. If you want a twee, textbook, tie it up in a bow kinda ending then you’re in luck but for me I just felt there was so much left to explore. At the end it just seemed like the author decided well I’m done with this let’s just throw together an ending as quick as possible. No real overall plan, no culmination. I got half way through and then was like hang on we’re about to end? You would never have known this was the final one. I knew there was no conceivable way to wrap everything up in a satisfying way so quickly. It was just another regular instalment and then in the last quarter the author seemed to realise they needed to weld some kind of an ending to it. It’s a great if bittersweet feeling when a series you loved and spent a good amount of timing readings comes to a great conclusion. This just made me feel like I should avoid this guys other series.
Followed this author on RR and patreon before and it just seems like he has no passion, no overall plan for his series. Just a formula for what is successful and then makes it up as he goes along. No wonder it was such an anticlimactic, poorly thought out ending.
Overall series was light fun but there was potential there to be more. If it was planned out as a whole, the author wasn’t writing multiple other series simultaneously and there was a passion to create something really great rather than hit the needed notes to do well on KU and make money this coulda been worth remembering. Maybe prioritise quality over quantity in the future.
I first came across this series a few years back, before it started being stubbed for KU. At the time, I loved it. I sung its praises on this forum many times and recommended in every rec thread. I'm not a fan of reading update-to-update, so once I caught up, I stopped reading (IIRC it was around the middle of book 3). I finally got around to reading the entire story this last week as I saw it was completed.
This was really rough. The series has a lot of great points: it's an easy read with fun characters and a cool premise. In the first few books, you're teased quite a bit. Who is Mark's companion? Why is there fighting on the "front"? What other schools are there? What's Sylph's backstory? Why is Damien's father so mysterious? Who meddled with Damien's runes? Unfortunately, instead of interesting worldbuilding and layered answers, everything that actually does get answered (much doesn't) does so in a paper-thin manner. Just to give some examples:
- Moon is a mysterious and extremely powerful guy who has stepped out of the Cycles to fight both the Void and the Corruption. Why? Who knows. How did he get to that point? Who knows. Who is Sun, his mysterious counterpart? Who knows.
- Mark has special rules around him. He had a strange upbringing. Why? Who knows. What makes his companion so special? Who knows. Why is he so obsessed with being stronger? Who knows.
- Sylph has a mysterious backstory. She was raised to assassinate the queen. Why? Who knows. Who did it? Who knows. How did she escape? Who knows.
- There is a giant battle that's continuously going on that for some reason is too important for anyone powerful to actually come assist with the realm-ending threat of the Corruption. Why? Who knows. What caused the fighting? Who knows. Where are the enemies coming from? Who knows. What's the power level of the people fighting on the front lines? Who knows.
- Etc...
Some of these questions are actually "answered" however the real issue is that the worldbuilding is a mile wide but an inch deep. Nothing exists except for the purpose of driving the main plot.
Many of the characters introduced later in the series are absolute caricatures as well. The Queen whose only appearance amounts to "kill him because he potentially could maybe be dangerous in the future!", Damien's father demonstrating exactly zero redeeming qualities throughout his entire time in the series (why exactly did Damien's mother ever marry him?...), etc.
Then we have the whole "LitRPG" aspect of the books. Why does this exist? We never get to see anyone's stats besides Damien and Sylph's. We have nothing to compare them to so we don't ever even know what is a good or a bad stat. And to exacerbate this, one of the two data points we have isn't even accurate as we're told Henry has been hiding Damien's true stats. We are never shown his true stats after this is mentioned. Remember how the bracelets would need upgrading as the protagonists improved to accurately track their stats? Why?
I haven't even touched on how poorly plotted the actual storyline was. It was side quest after side quest but without the SoL framing that something like Mark of the Fool has. No, this series even had the main characters do side quests directly before the final battle that had near zero relevance. Why is a quarter of the 6th (or was it the 5th? they're all blending together tbh) book spent on Sylph finding a lover for the princess? There was no proper build up to anything, things just happened.
I don't want to spend more time ragging on the series but what on earth was the amnesia subplot for Damien. It had no purpose besides adding random drama and also after it was "resolved", it was treated as if it didn't exist.
I think the majority of these issues were stemming from the fact that this was a web-serial that was cut into books rather than a series that was plotted out as books in the first place.
I know there are a lot of critical comments here but I do not want to disparage the author. They finished their story, which is more than most web-serial authors can say. It seems to be getting fairly good reviews as well, so maybe its just not for me.
TL; DR: A thrilling conclusion that almost doesn’t feel like it for a majority of the story, but allows for our heroes to take the reins and drive us home one more time.
After listening through the entire series, I can honestly say that the six book set is best read like one long book, and I’m really glad to have listened to it as such. This was fun; it isn’t the greatest series, but it gave me plenty of laughs and “ooh I see you, author” moments.
Characters: Damien, Sylph, and Henry continue to be our main push forward and they do it well. Again, this is nothing complicated, but I appreciated the various mini romances occurring in these books. They were comfortable without being overwhelming and you got to see a variety of different aspects of it. As a side note, I saw some people complaining that they wanted more after-story, but as someone who usually hates epilogues, I was all right with this one. Two thumbs up in that regard.
Setting: There were a lot, and sometimes it felt like whiplash as I tried to keep track of everywhere and everyone. It was rough, but we got there.
Story: Like I said previously, some of the hopping have me whiplash, but I didn’t mind terribly. The end point was reached and the goals we had to find and situations we had to resolve, were, so I can’t complain too much. I personally liked the way all of the little stories were wrapped up all nice and pretty.
Writing: It’s the weakest part, and tends to be for this series. If I hear the word “drawled” one more time, my brain might drawl out of my head. Either way, it’s serviceable. From what I hear, this is one of the first series by this author and for an early series, it’s really enjoyable, in spite of these flaws.
It was fun; I want my own Henry. He is, after all, irreplaceable.
A wonderful, heartwarming, badass story. The ending felt a little rushed and there were some holes that could have been plugged but it was thoroughly enjoyable and one of the most fun series i've read.
A decent ending to the series. I did feel it was maybe rushed or just didn't have a complete ending to the story. The big fights weren't too spectacular, the rise of power in Damien and Sylph weren't really showcased in an epic battle, and what felt like a get together for an all out fight faltered to a limited overview of everything that happened. So that's a little sad overall but still a good series worth reading/listening to.
Wow! I can’t begin to describe what an amazing ending to a great series! Actus is an amazing author and I love their work so much! This series was first of the books that I read! Damian, Henry, and Sylph are amazing main characters! I loved the ending it was the perfect ending to an amazing series. Awesome magic system and super cool world building. Highly recommend this series!
What a shallow ending. There are so many loose threads; it's just incredible. I feel like I wasted my time. There were several characters more intriguing than Damien introduced over the course of the series, and they were basically abandoned once they were no longer needed for the main plot. A very meandering main plot. The story was just boring fluff a lot of the time. And the ending had no buildup at all. It didn't feel like the last book until the last two hours or so. I regret buying this series.
I can‘t say I‘m not slightly disappointed. In the last book it felt like the author was already loosing interest. This one confirms it. The events felt rushed and the more you progress, the worse it gets. The story after book 5 felt like halfway finished. In this one it suddenly ends. In a matter off maybe ten chapters the ending gets summarized so the story has officially ended. It is a happy ending, I guess, but I don’t feel satisfied. It was hard to read the whole book and I only did because I already came that far. This is the finale. Your supposed to barely be able to put your book down in the evening, read late into the night, because you need to know what happens next. This isn’t supposed to be hard. Then there’s still the other issues. The power in the end feels undeserved. The characters feels dead/onedimensional. Critical emotional confrontations just get laughed away. The great war gets mostly finished offscreen because off some mystical stuff. There was no epic ending. There was an author that pushed out 6 books in rapid succession and in the end got sick of writing his own story and ending it as fast as possible. I wish Actus would’ve just taken a break and gathered some inspiration, as the first 3 books are really, really good. This feels like a waste. A disappointing ending to a well started story.
Actus actually pulled out all the stops in this series' conclusion. Need I say, that Realmbreaker is the best book yet, and I loved, loved, LOVED the book. Actus knew how to build each character as each book in the series was laid out, and I for one loved watching Damien, Sylph and even Henry become more than just words on a page. And Actus even worked his magic to make the side characters real too! Really making this one of the best slice-of-life adventure evarrr. In this book we got to watch as our team of students work closely together with teaching mages to get stronger so they would be better prepared to fight the corruption. With best teachers Blackmist had to offer. And after that they're all called to to arms, to fight for their lives and for all the non-combatants. So how can I call it a slice-of-life when it seems like it's more of an action-driven plot? Well it just is, because of Actus and the care he took when writing the story. Even tying everything up in the end... Peter Berkrot perfectly preformed Damien's story throughout this entire series!!! Bravo!!!
I didn’t leave a review for any of the other books because I didn’t want to just repeat myself. This book series, and this book itself, was wonderful. From the start of the first book With Damien performing his companion ritual all the way until the end, it was amazing. I loved the journey of growth that Damien had and the trials and tribulations he overcame to finish was he unknowingly set off to complete. There were some small grammar issues in all of the books but nothing that would change my mind. This book series is the best book series I have read in quite some time. I think the best part is that this last book tied up loose ends quite nicely. Thank you Actus.
This series (which I just finished in full, back to back) is difficult for me to critique. I originally fell in love with the audiobook (Book #1), but then read the rest via ebook to save money. Budgets. :(
The setting was interesting if very simple in terms of social & magical framework, but the overarching story & the types of questions that drove the plot were fascinating!
My major issue was the absolute dearth of editing, consistency, and many other issues simple AI writing tools should have been BOLDLY highlighting. So it’s hard to imagine why they went uncorrected.
I will try some of Actus’ other works, but I desperately hope he improves!!
The story wrapped up with some good closure for the characters, but no expansion of the world. In fact, after book 3 (this was book 6) the world didn't get any bigger and we didn't even get any more revelations about the people, the magic or the backstory of the world.
What started as a very tight, techinical magic system turned into adding "special abilities" that can't be understood (he literally said that). It seems like the author ran out of ideas and so just just played out the story with increasing battles with more and more creatures until the final boss fight and then had emotional resolutions.
I enjoyed this series. The character development and friendships were well written. I jist loved Henry, though I do feel they could have done a bit more with his progression. I listened to the audio version of this series and I was not a fan of the narrator. He did a good job reading the material but there wasn't much variation in the character voices. It was difficult to differentiate between them of it wasn't followed by a "character name said" Overall, it was a fun read and a good escape/timekiller.
A fine ending, although it feels a bit like it comes out of nowhere and Damien suffers a set back related to his mother that I really didn’t like or see the reason for. As a series review, I will say that it was a fun read overall, it just felt like the protagonist skilled up way too fast and lots of opportunities to explore classic litRPG/progression tropes were abandoned shortly after introduction.
It's a good entry into the series. The moment I felt the series worth is the assembly of Damien's friends at the important point. I also loved the fate of Stormsword in this series. I wished we got more from Second's perspective in this series. And most importantly, the friendship between the characters is what I loved the series for, especially between Damien and Henry.
I absolutely loved this series but it felt like something was missing
SPOILERS
I’ve enjoyed this series a lot but there was something about the ending that left me almost unfulfilled. At the very end Damien comes out of the void and talks to his mom so there’s the possibility that he could do that whenever he wants, but him just disappearing into the void without meeting back up with delph or any of his other friends was kinda just sad to me.
I have been reading this from the start and honestly it is one of the best series I have read. Though it deviates from the litRPG genre it's an experience that I will never forget. It's a sorrowful experience when a series you love ends. I look forward to reading more of your books Actus
If you've been reading the series you probably already have a good idea what to expect. This book has all the same turned up to eleven. Tons of mage combat, the full cast of characters getting to fight, more interpersonal relationship development and some final big reveals. I had tons of fun!
This series has done a great job building the characters of this book more than the hundreds ive read and it was fun to see them progress as they did however minute. You could pick out some things to criticize but i dont get paid to and just loved the series it was a fun read and enjoyable experience overall look forward to the other series Actus is making.
Literally at no point did I know what was going to happen next. So many false leads and plot paths were created to not go down. This is not a bad point but representative of how chaotic the situation they were in was. With no idea how Second would show up to end the Cycle nor how to defeat him all Damien, Sylph, and their friends could do is train. Epic ending though and ingenious solution
Final book in the series and it was great! I love the build up to this final installment with Damien and Sylph going up against the "final boss" of the series. They are such badass characters and I enjoyed the series all the way to the end. If you want a solid LITRPG series than this one may be for you!
I have thoughts for this last book. I could handle the inconsistencies, plot holes, everything being rushed etc because it was entertaining and light. BUT I thought at some point it would get fixed. This ending ? We should get a few more books they didn’t even finish school. I’m only giving it 3 stars because it was fun.
All together I've really enjoyed reading this series. The resolution to the conflict was pretty novel and the potential for another arc when the creator of the arc returns is there.
The entire series was great but this was one of if not the best end to a series in general, ever. You don't often see a book that ends like this, and it was so bittersweet that it honestly brought me to tears.
I'm happy that the series ended here. Too many authors continue to pump out books in a series long after there is any real story to tell. Overall the series has been worth reading. Some highs, some lows, but generally around a 4 star rating. Tom out
The story is complete, and I have no complaints with how it all ended. Definitely felt a bit rushed at the end, but who am I to complain? What i can complain about are the typos. Way too many editing mistakes. Clean it up, Mr. Actus.
Rant enjoyable read, loved Henry and Damien banter, my only team complaint is that Daniel's ending was about lacking, it was nice that he still went to his mum but still it was just lacking, does everyone think he's dead.
I liked the resolution and that it wasn't overly drawn out. A bit of action and politics before a confrontation with major players participating. I just wish the epilogue part had been about half-a-book more in length. Overall, a fun series.