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The Broken Circle Duology #1
No Extra Lives
Thane is dying. His body is failing, his mind is fraying, and the world feels like a cruel joke. When a cutting-edge VR game promises an escape, Thane logs in to lose himself in its fantasy world, Arbelon—a land of fractured beauty, prophecies, and dangerous magic. But what begins as a way to vent his bitterness soon spirals into something he can’t explain.
Arbelon feels real. Too real.
The people call him the Chosen One, a savior sent to heal their breaking world. Thane dismisses them—just NPCs in a game. But when his uncontrolled wild magic destroys a sacred sanctuary and an entire village, the consequences are all too vivid. As Arbelon’s collapse accelerates and Earth itself begins to twist in inexplicable ways, Thane faces a harrowing What if this isn’t a game at all?
Joined by a ragtag group of supporters, Thane is thrust into a battle to save Arbelon’s Heart—a battle that may cost him the only thing he has his life. In a story where reality blurs and choices matter, there are no extra lives.
Arbelon feels real. Too real.
The people call him the Chosen One, a savior sent to heal their breaking world. Thane dismisses them—just NPCs in a game. But when his uncontrolled wild magic destroys a sacred sanctuary and an entire village, the consequences are all too vivid. As Arbelon’s collapse accelerates and Earth itself begins to twist in inexplicable ways, Thane faces a harrowing What if this isn’t a game at all?
Joined by a ragtag group of supporters, Thane is thrust into a battle to save Arbelon’s Heart—a battle that may cost him the only thing he has his life. In a story where reality blurs and choices matter, there are no extra lives.
308 pages, Paperback
Published June 13, 2025
About the author
Dan Blakely
4 booksI grew up in a sleepy Midwestern town in the '70s, right as Star Wars hit the world and D&D took over my nights. From Tolkien and Donaldson to Marvel comics and games like Zork, I’ve always chased fantasy in every form—books, movies, games, and beyond. After bouncing around the country for school and work, I settled in California, but never stopped dreaming up worlds. Now, I write the kinds of stories I’ve always loved—ones filled with wonder, adventure, and maybe a little magic. I hope they surprise you, inspire you, and leave you wondering what happens next.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 27, 2026
Blakely combines a seriously ill protagonist with portal fantasy, creating a character-driven fantasy tale of a teenager saddled with two apparently unavoidable and unwanted destinies.
Facing an early death from a degenerative disease, Thane withdraws into a new cutting-edge VR fantasy game. At first Arbelon just feels like an escape, but the world and its characters soon start to feel too real to be a simulation. After his doctor claims playing the game is accelerating the nervous degeneration, Thane promises not to play again but cannot escape the feeling he is abandoning a real world to its fate: the question is whether he wants to fulfil the prophecy.
With a protagonist suffering from an incurable disease who arrives in a world they don’t really believe is real and who unleashes their anger and pain in an act of utter cruelty shortly after arrival, only to have their crime brushed aside because they are the saviour, the opening of this book overwhelmingly echoes Lord Foul’s Bane. While Blakely’s plot and world do differ from that of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, meaning this book is not merely a reskinned version of Donaldson’s story for the VR age, they do not veer sharply enough away that this initial sense of similarity fades.
This novel displays two clear differences from a classic portal fantasy. First, while Blakely places the balance of evidence and implication firmly on the side of Thane not merely succumbing to the delusion Arbelon is more than a game, the hints to each world that appear in the other also undercut the certainty that Arbelon is a separate world, leaving the reader with the possibility that Thane has become involved in mysterious events but not the fantasy quest he believes he is.
Second, while even the most mundane of lives has the theoretical possibility of a sudden heart attack or fatal accident, the swift progress of Thane’s fatal illness shifts the usual contrast between safe but mundane world and dangerous but magical world away from wish-fulfilment fantasies much more drastically than even Covenant’s vulnerability does, facing the reader with the question of whether or not facing reality and seeking to stay alive a little longer is the right choice compared to embracing the fantasy of a few days free of pain and weakness.
The ending of the novel does bring the thread of whether Thane will undertake the task his companions claim he must to save Arbelon. However, it both provides no clear evidence of whether his decision was the right one, and introduces powerful evidence that Thane’s life in the “real” world might not be what he thought. Thus, while it does not feel as stark as if a single book had been randomly sliced in two, it is definitely a cliffhanger.
Thane is consumed but not solely defined by his degenerative disease. Thus, while readers might neither consider his choices heroic nor wish he was their friend in the way they might with some protagonists, they are likely to understand why someone who has repeatedly been told by their mother and doctors how they should be spending their last days reacts with bitterness rather than decency to being told they are destined to fulfil a prophecy.
As befits a setting centred around a computer game, the majority of the supporting cast strongly echo the tropes of classic fantasy; but also possess enough nuances of character that they both feel like real individuals and support the sense of unseen truths and motivations.
Overall, I enjoyed this novel. I recommend it to readers who enjoyed Thomas Covenant and other tales of protagonists who bitterly reject the idea that supposed chosen ones must set their own desires entirely aside in favour of saving the world.
Facing an early death from a degenerative disease, Thane withdraws into a new cutting-edge VR fantasy game. At first Arbelon just feels like an escape, but the world and its characters soon start to feel too real to be a simulation. After his doctor claims playing the game is accelerating the nervous degeneration, Thane promises not to play again but cannot escape the feeling he is abandoning a real world to its fate: the question is whether he wants to fulfil the prophecy.
With a protagonist suffering from an incurable disease who arrives in a world they don’t really believe is real and who unleashes their anger and pain in an act of utter cruelty shortly after arrival, only to have their crime brushed aside because they are the saviour, the opening of this book overwhelmingly echoes Lord Foul’s Bane. While Blakely’s plot and world do differ from that of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, meaning this book is not merely a reskinned version of Donaldson’s story for the VR age, they do not veer sharply enough away that this initial sense of similarity fades.
This novel displays two clear differences from a classic portal fantasy. First, while Blakely places the balance of evidence and implication firmly on the side of Thane not merely succumbing to the delusion Arbelon is more than a game, the hints to each world that appear in the other also undercut the certainty that Arbelon is a separate world, leaving the reader with the possibility that Thane has become involved in mysterious events but not the fantasy quest he believes he is.
Second, while even the most mundane of lives has the theoretical possibility of a sudden heart attack or fatal accident, the swift progress of Thane’s fatal illness shifts the usual contrast between safe but mundane world and dangerous but magical world away from wish-fulfilment fantasies much more drastically than even Covenant’s vulnerability does, facing the reader with the question of whether or not facing reality and seeking to stay alive a little longer is the right choice compared to embracing the fantasy of a few days free of pain and weakness.
The ending of the novel does bring the thread of whether Thane will undertake the task his companions claim he must to save Arbelon. However, it both provides no clear evidence of whether his decision was the right one, and introduces powerful evidence that Thane’s life in the “real” world might not be what he thought. Thus, while it does not feel as stark as if a single book had been randomly sliced in two, it is definitely a cliffhanger.
Thane is consumed but not solely defined by his degenerative disease. Thus, while readers might neither consider his choices heroic nor wish he was their friend in the way they might with some protagonists, they are likely to understand why someone who has repeatedly been told by their mother and doctors how they should be spending their last days reacts with bitterness rather than decency to being told they are destined to fulfil a prophecy.
As befits a setting centred around a computer game, the majority of the supporting cast strongly echo the tropes of classic fantasy; but also possess enough nuances of character that they both feel like real individuals and support the sense of unseen truths and motivations.
Overall, I enjoyed this novel. I recommend it to readers who enjoyed Thomas Covenant and other tales of protagonists who bitterly reject the idea that supposed chosen ones must set their own desires entirely aside in favour of saving the world.
January 6, 2026
Interesting and exciting
This book had good pacing and kept me turning pages. An interesting concept and kept me guessing about what was going to happen. Can't wait to find out what happens in the sequel!
This book had good pacing and kept me turning pages. An interesting concept and kept me guessing about what was going to happen. Can't wait to find out what happens in the sequel!
April 14, 2026
no extra lives
An interesting and thought provoking book. I’m looking forward to reading the next book. Spending more time with Thane and company.
An interesting and thought provoking book. I’m looking forward to reading the next book. Spending more time with Thane and company.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews