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The Lag
As a shady blackmarket programmer, Ivan "Attila" is never short of customers. The gaming world of MMORPG always needs his services: all those knights and thieves, vendors and vagabonds, monsters and the undead populating the dangerous forests and castles of Gryad Online.
For Attila, things are looking up: the God's Eye, his latest cheat device, is awaiting its buyer. Now Attila can afford a costly virtual suit for a full immersion online experience. Provided the buyer - a burly half-orc Barbarian nicknamed Beast - sticks to his part of the deal.
But how much does he know about Beast, really? And what evil force is playing with Gryad, disrupting its flow and locking thousands of players inside the game? Who is messing with the world's gears, summoning the spawn of the Dark from their underground tunnels and lairs? And how can Attila and his reluctant companions stop evil from taking over their new world?
For Attila, things are looking up: the God's Eye, his latest cheat device, is awaiting its buyer. Now Attila can afford a costly virtual suit for a full immersion online experience. Provided the buyer - a burly half-orc Barbarian nicknamed Beast - sticks to his part of the deal.
But how much does he know about Beast, really? And what evil force is playing with Gryad, disrupting its flow and locking thousands of players inside the game? Who is messing with the world's gears, summoning the spawn of the Dark from their underground tunnels and lairs? And how can Attila and his reluctant companions stop evil from taking over their new world?
292 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 15, 2015
39 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
Alex Bobl
25 books47 followersAuthor's FB pages:
https://www.facebook.com/alexbobl
https://www.facebook.com/Alex.Bobl.fans
Alex (Aleksei) Bobl is a science fiction writer, author of 13 novels. An ex-paratrooper, he used his military knowledge and experience to write his debut novels for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a bestselling science fiction action adventure series set in a post-apocalyptic Chernobyl.
Alex started writing in 2007 when he joined Russia's biggest writing community Samizdat. He submitted his first stories to several online writing contests at the same time as he discovered the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. He then came up with his first original story featuring military stalkers.
At Samizdat, Alex met Andrei Levitski. Together, they co-authored The Zone Warriors, Alex's first novel for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. However, due to marketing considerations, his byline didn't appear on the book. In the process of novel research, the two co-authors visited the Chernobyl nuclear power station and traveled across the entire Exclusion Zone, witnessing many deserted towns and villages, including the ill-fated towns of Chernobyl and Prypiat. In 2009, Alex published his second novel, A Quantum Bullet, featuring the adventures of two military stalkers, Labus and Camper.
The same year Alex and Andrei came up with a new eight-novel project. Entitled TechnoTma ("tma" meaning "darkness" in Russian), it depicts a post-apocalyptic world after The Peril. The first novel to come out was Password Eternity, followed by The Wastelands Clans, Barbarians of the Crimea, Jager and The Sand Blues. After that, Andrei Levitski started working on a sequel to The Wastelands Clans, while Alex Bobl wrote the final books of the series, The Fall of the Skies and The Last Battle, where all the protagonists unite in order to confront the enemy and get to the roots of The Peril.
After that, the two co-authors continued working together, writing a novella for a TechnoTma anthology The Wastelands Legends, out in April 2012. And a month later, the German release of TechnoTma followed. The eight books of TechnoTma had a total print run of over 250,000 copies and have been translated into German and Spanish. Talks are now under way about translating TechnoTma into English.
Alex's next project, a standalone novel Memoria. A Corporation of Lies, came out in February 2012 to controversial reviews. A SF action thriller dramatically different from his earlier works, it tells the story of a lone fighter who challenges the power-grabbing plans of an international corporation capable of erasing people's memories. After that he wrote novel Point Apocalypse - a sci-fi action adventure set in the near future.
Alex now is a literary agent. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two boys.
https://www.facebook.com/alexbobl
https://www.facebook.com/Alex.Bobl.fans
Alex (Aleksei) Bobl is a science fiction writer, author of 13 novels. An ex-paratrooper, he used his military knowledge and experience to write his debut novels for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a bestselling science fiction action adventure series set in a post-apocalyptic Chernobyl.
Alex started writing in 2007 when he joined Russia's biggest writing community Samizdat. He submitted his first stories to several online writing contests at the same time as he discovered the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. He then came up with his first original story featuring military stalkers.
At Samizdat, Alex met Andrei Levitski. Together, they co-authored The Zone Warriors, Alex's first novel for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. However, due to marketing considerations, his byline didn't appear on the book. In the process of novel research, the two co-authors visited the Chernobyl nuclear power station and traveled across the entire Exclusion Zone, witnessing many deserted towns and villages, including the ill-fated towns of Chernobyl and Prypiat. In 2009, Alex published his second novel, A Quantum Bullet, featuring the adventures of two military stalkers, Labus and Camper.
The same year Alex and Andrei came up with a new eight-novel project. Entitled TechnoTma ("tma" meaning "darkness" in Russian), it depicts a post-apocalyptic world after The Peril. The first novel to come out was Password Eternity, followed by The Wastelands Clans, Barbarians of the Crimea, Jager and The Sand Blues. After that, Andrei Levitski started working on a sequel to The Wastelands Clans, while Alex Bobl wrote the final books of the series, The Fall of the Skies and The Last Battle, where all the protagonists unite in order to confront the enemy and get to the roots of The Peril.
After that, the two co-authors continued working together, writing a novella for a TechnoTma anthology The Wastelands Legends, out in April 2012. And a month later, the German release of TechnoTma followed. The eight books of TechnoTma had a total print run of over 250,000 copies and have been translated into German and Spanish. Talks are now under way about translating TechnoTma into English.
Alex's next project, a standalone novel Memoria. A Corporation of Lies, came out in February 2012 to controversial reviews. A SF action thriller dramatically different from his earlier works, it tells the story of a lone fighter who challenges the power-grabbing plans of an international corporation capable of erasing people's memories. After that he wrote novel Point Apocalypse - a sci-fi action adventure set in the near future.
Alex now is a literary agent. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two boys.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 15, 2015
Very nice opening. Quality LitRPG.
March 18, 2017
I do not understand why some folks gave this book a low rating, it is a genuine page turner with the added bonus that there is no obligatory romance or luve triangle, score 1 for the author,
This is one of the very few books I have lost sleep over and when I put it down I was still thinking about it.
If you did not know this was a translation you would never have guessed it, it read like a book written in English by an English speaking author. I normally will not read a translated book but in this case I am glad I did.
Highly recommended for game-players and anyone who loves an exciting well paced book. Five deserved stars and looking forward to the next in the series.
This is one of the very few books I have lost sleep over and when I put it down I was still thinking about it.
If you did not know this was a translation you would never have guessed it, it read like a book written in English by an English speaking author. I normally will not read a translated book but in this case I am glad I did.
Highly recommended for game-players and anyone who loves an exciting well paced book. Five deserved stars and looking forward to the next in the series.
January 22, 2016
Great read. Can't wait to read the next in the series.
March 6, 2016
abysmally poor writing, not recommended reading at all.
August 6, 2018
It's not a bad story. I just didn't feel anything for the characters. Actually, if at anything I liked Beast and that was about it. The other two weren't bad. I just didn't find them interesting. Solid story about a computer trying to take over the world, but at the end of the day, there's nothing here that really separates this from all the other LitRPG's. Once again, not a horrible story, just not my cup-o-tea.
October 21, 2015
Not exactly litrpg
ok young adult novel, but lacked the sort of game mechanics and consistency I would attribute to the vrmmorpg genre. the characters and setting seemingly lacked depth and development as well. the translation was of top notch quality, however, and might easily be mistaken for having originally been written in english.
ok young adult novel, but lacked the sort of game mechanics and consistency I would attribute to the vrmmorpg genre. the characters and setting seemingly lacked depth and development as well. the translation was of top notch quality, however, and might easily be mistaken for having originally been written in english.
February 28, 2016
After reading Ready Player One I was looking for another good virtual reality / game immersion book.
This was a disappointment. It was quite simplistic. It also had occasional translation oddities.
This was a disappointment. It was quite simplistic. It also had occasional translation oddities.
November 4, 2015
It was very hard to follow. I think because of a combination of two things: i am not a Russian reader (so the mind set is very different) and i am not an on-line game. If you have either of those two skill/knowledge sets, i think you will enjoy it a lot more than me.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews