The Digital Frontier

Yvvaros #1

by Alex Mulder

Six days ago, Luke Smith was a typical teenager with typical teenage problems.

Now the fate of an entire world rests on his shoulders.

MMORPGs had stopped being a part of Luke’s life years ago. That is, until he tried Yvvaros, an online sandbox role playing game only accessible through the latest in virtual reality technology. The game sucked him in almost instantly. Luke discovered a world with new stakes, rewards, and philosophical complexities deeper than anything he could have expected.

The human experience exists on a spectrum. One person’s reality may be fantasy or even hallucination to someone else. One person’s sense of what’s important is even more subjective. As Luke quickly learned, it was hard to justify living in a world of rejection over a world of adventure, excitement, and connection. He began a new life in Yvvaros, just as vivid and maybe even more compelling than his existence in the outside world.

Earth has already been explored, and the next frontier is closer to home than anyone could have imagined.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic

255 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 2, 2015

About the author

Alex Mulder is science fiction and fantasy author that lives in the mid-western United States. Much of his inspiration comes from the nature of human experience and the implications of near future technologies.

His hobbies include paragliding, modding video games, and playing the drums.

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this one. It was well done, and plotted a nice story. The characters were pretty well rounded, and of course even with the typical bullies for being bullies sake, the story didn't run off into revenge scenarios, though there certainly was some of that, the story actually stuck to a normal storyline, and followed out heroes through some rather interesting trials and tribulations. I'm happy to report I figured out who one of the characters were well before it was unveiled to the readers, but that's only a minor victory. :) If you're an LitRPG fan, you'll like this one, but if you aren't, it may not hold much interest for you, since the whole point is levelling and getting better, there is a love story tossed in there, and some mysteries to solve too, but they aren't enough to stand up without the LitRPG elements. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and highly recommend it.

[Bjorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great addition to the family of litRPG.

Light spoilers follow.

Basic premise is: stupid kids do stupid stuff.
a little further in, things get complicated. sitting outside of the story, we readers may fond ourselves shouting "why don't you just do this", feeling frustration about the stupid kids actions.

but that is one of the things I love about this book. it makes me annoyed in it's world, and not in mine.

the tech is mostly handwaved, but plausible. the game world seems a bit lackluster, but it is an early generation game, so that is forgiven.

I can easily imagine the next book beong a courtroom drama arguing the rights and status of .. well.. spoilers.

[Dominic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Predictable

[Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morbid.

[Ian Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting

Puzzled by the low reviews. Great story. I'm ready to jump into the next one. I liked the description of a predecessor of a full neural interface.