Rounded to 4.5 stars.
Thank you to Orbit for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I’m not a gamer, I don’t even casually play video games, but somehow, Dalglish has made RPG sound way more interesting in this book than I have found it to be in real life. Orbit sent me an audiobook ARC narrated by John Patneaude, and I had a blast with this series.
This is the last book in the trilogy, and over the course of the first book, I fell in love with the Isekai LitRPG genre. There are a lot of moving parts throughout all three books, involving a mysterious artifact, being transported into an alternate universe while sleeping, the two ominous black suns hanging in the sky, and religious overtones.
We get to revisit our favorite characters from the first two books—Nick, Violette, Llesia, Sorrow, Simon, and Cataloger. Cat, as she goes by now, has transitioned from being the cataloger to a character heavily involved with the quest, and provides information and support as best she can now that she is out of the Cataloger role. These five characters become found family, with the exception of Simon, who is outside of the artifact and running a space station.
Dalglish incorporated the coolest parts of video games in the story, people it with relatable (and hatable) characters, kept the action flowing, and incorporated plenty of humor. I don’t want to give away anything, so writing a review for a fast-paced book that’s the last of the trilogy is harder than writing reviews for standalone books, at least for me. There is so much action in this book, that it felt like every time I picked it up, they were involved in a battle, and this persisted throughout the book. The chapters are told through the perspective of several characters — Nick, Cat, Simon, Gareth, and even Sorrow. I actually found myself
This is the ideal ending to a trilogy. Throughout the trilogy, I’ve had plenty of questions. Why is the sword sentient? What is the artifact and where did it come from? What *are* those black suns in the sky? How are the characters supposed to be able to beat a god-king? Fortunately, Dalglish didn’t let me down and left me feeling very satisfied with the ending.
Overall, this was an outstanding read. Despite the fact that I’m not familiar with RPG games, I actually really liked the way the stats, levels, and spells are announced, giving me the sensation that I was actually in Yensere with the characters. However, since it reads so similar to gameplay, it doesn’t lend itself to emotional investment, even as I found myself invested in the characters. This led me to wonder if there could have been deeper connection between the found family characters (including Batal the Beast), since these bonds weren’t necessarily explored in depth, particularly for the side characters. Additionally, the narrator was fantastic, but pulled me out of the story when he pronounced the word ‘across’ as ‘acrost’. But this one slip didn’t mar my enjoyment of the book, and I can proudly say that I now like Isekai LitRPG novels.