Hysteria has been captured, and the dimensional kingdom of Closetland has been born. However, with the loss of everyone’s favorite hot spring, the victory is bittersweet.
Now, Fortune’s Folly heads to their meeting with the Littan Empress, who makes them an offer they don’t want to refuse. Before they can accept, they’ll need to deal with some unwanted gifts that Hysteria left behind, and they’ll need to seek out the potential allies promised by the avatar Avarice. The kind of allies with wings, scales, and a compulsive hoarding disorder.
Armies will be crushed.
Dungeons will be conquered.
And silly hats will be worn on all important occasions.
Book 4 of Mage Tank, a new Isekai LitRPG adventure that features steady progression, intelligent characters who spend time making intentional build choices, and tons of laughs.
To be completely honest, this was my least favorite book in the series; Book 2 was rather boring but there weren't any parts that I found particularly dreadful, but this book?
Ok lets start with the positives:
The Silver Lounge aka the maybe-there-are-dragons-lounge was brilliant. I enjoyed all the Rulers, their interactions with the crew, the challenges all had different environments and tasks that were immersive, and I am pretty interested to see how this whole thing with Ishi goes (maybe with the single unlikable thing being how FUCKING formal i.e. pretentious Arlo is with the Princess, like just kill me now).
I really liked how the prologue also took the time to shit on haters of the 'Pause's for our favourite lizard. Hell yeah author.
I thought the convo between Tavio and Arlo on the nature and economic system of the Littan empire was pretty interesting.
Ok well wasnt that brief? On to the shitty stuff:
THE ENTIRE FIRST SECTION: i wont say this was the worst bit, because I believe the feeling of discombobulation and listlessness in intended to give the reader the feeling that the party have, and so -if intended- this is pretty brilliant writing. HOWEVER, it still sucks and really feels like a waste of time in a series that generally lives on the knife's edge between being overly long/ a drag and really well thought out/ fleshed out; i generally like these types of books, but aside from the new Core friend I cant find too many points that hook me in this first part, especially since she kinda disappears in the rest of the book. Also come on now author, the system basically forcing the crew to be system handimen at Level 16 due to the Dread Star? Arent you fucking yourself over? Anyway, what do I know about writing. Onwards.
CLOSETLAND: such a fucking stupid concept, need I say more
THE LAST SECTION: maybe its because I kinda skipped the part in book 2 where Arlo and Core watched team Pio run the Delve and didnt really care about Tavio at all in the first place, but this all felt like such a drag. The attack on the city seems rather forced as an encounter for the two teams to bond, and if it was supposed to serve as set-up for the plans of the Avatars and their allies in the Forest the two crews are heading into, then the book ending really just killed any momentum, especially without any hint of our friend's next actions. Also come on, did they really have to fly on the bird? And did the Littans have to immediately discover that the Closet was a Devlve? There were ofc explanations in-story, but it really just felt like excuses to set up the encounter in the Littan city, which you already know my thoughts on.
THE EPILOGUE AND SAVING THE FUCKING WORLD: We get so much talk about how the Avatars and System are gonna bring the end of the world, and about how the Big Bad is plotting to bring about Ze New World Order in every epilogue, but I am frankly kinda tired of it. Maybe its reader fatigue after reading 4 800 page books of this series consecutively, but I am really just tired of the overarching story. I generally think it difficult for authors to write world-spanning and saving plots where the MC and Crew save the day. With this book especially, while I find the concept well thought-out and interesting enough -though, again, its not really my thing-, the timing and pacing are all fucked up: Our crew is facing a world-spanning threat by entities that even the mightiest being on the planet, dragons, can't handle, and yet their entire story lately revolves around resolving this threat despite them being Level 16. They jump through delve after encounter only to be faced with the same problem over and over again; the system and the avatars. And yet they are unable to do anything about the problem, other than using tank-thick plot armour to survive and spread the story to the major superpowers of the world who seem to be doing nothing. Even more annoyingly, we get cryptic visions of the Big Bad pontificating with Avatars and his followers, and them plotting their next move (especially at the end of Book 4). One might imagine that this repetitive cycle might highlight the urgency of the problem, and as no solution is on the horizon and the plotting thickens, the reader will feel this existential anxiety and dread; take an example of such a problem for real life - climate change. However, in a book that tends to be overly detail oriented, have it's best aspects be adventures and slice of life, and be a progression fantasy, the overall effect is to create me a severe annoyance. Our heroes hit a brick wall time and again, survive without any -permanent- brain damage by the skin of their teeth due to a gimmick or plot armour (which includes bullshit skills, events, divine interventions etc), only to learn a crum more information that is broadly similar to what they knew already and non-actionable. Annoying.
Anyway, the reason this isnt a 3-star is because I dont wont to fuck over the author's rating since I enjoy the rest of his work, and because I enjoyed the dragons. I will be continuing this on RR to see where this goes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I enjoyed the trial chapters, but the rest of the book with politicking and training dragged on with way too much internal monologuing detail, and the final boss battle was also way more complicated than it needed to be. The final epilogue brought up a bunch of names that I wasn't entirely sure were introduced before and ended up just confusing me further. Yes, we know there is a big bad, but do we really need the narration from his POV?
I'll still continue the series, but this was not a strong book.
If you've read up to this point in the series, you already know that you want to read this book too. The world building remains incredible and the clever use of powers continues to enhance the action with uncertainty and cool moments. The characters are as amusing and relatable as ever. It's great as usual.
Mage Tank is one of my favorite series and Cornman has hit it out of the park again with book 4. I’ve probably read it 3 times on RoyalRoad and Patreon, and this will make time 4.