Brute

Tower of Gates #4

by Paul Bellow

Josh the Jock Barbarian On His Own?
When Josh dies on level one-one of the Tower of Gates, he jumps at the chance to work with a powerful player in the game. But is it the right decision? All he wants is to get out of the game, but it keeps dragging him in deeper.

Follow Josh's journey as he strives to stay alive and find his friends while making new ones inside the Tower of Gates. Leaping from one bad situation to another, Josh learns that even brutes need brains to survive.

Brute is book 4 of the Tower of Gates LitRPG saga.

318 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2018

Reviews

[The Mysterious Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been totally loving Paul Bellow’s Tower of Gates series. It’s provided just what I look for in LitRPG, a logical reason for the characters to be immersed into a gaming world, action that’s both believable and yet gives a real “RPG feeling” (something I’m abundantly qualified to opine on as I’ve been a gamer since the days of D&D’s height and still do MMORPGs) and, yes, provides stories that are well written and fun to read. And now we get to the fourth book in the series, Brute: A LitRPG Novel. This one is a bit of a departure from the preceding books as it’s all about what happens to Josh, the one character in the original trio who was mostly absent from the other books. Now I didn’t particularly like Josh in the prior books, but I have to admit that - to my surprise - I totally enjoyed his story here. And that is a sign of great writing. This is, quite simply, a fun read. But for the fact that I’m literally dictating this review my husband from my hospital bed I could go on and on with praises - the book definitely deserves it. Since I can’t do that I will simply note that the book is most definitely one to read, it is easy to highly recommend. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.

[Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review covers books three through six that I read consecutively. So far the series has shown the less pleasant side of human nature. The story is imaginative with interesting twists of plot. The decisions and actions of the characters are sometimes baffling and illogical. All characters in the book appear to have the inability to learn from past mistakes. The main characters themselves at times appear to have the same personality with a mediocre dose of arrogance. Situations and their solutions at times seem to be contrived.

The actions of the characters and the situations were hard to stomach until I had a change of perspective. The question I came up with is "Are their actions due to the style of writing of the author or are they being heavily influenced by the AI?" I was able to utilize suspension of belief by choosing the latter. I have found my enjoyment of the series to increase as I follow it further and look forward to seeing future growth and more of the world created by Mr. Bellow.

Very Respectfully,
Shea

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to see things from another point of view, though I'm still puzzled how Josh can be so pissed off at Eric after all this time, knowing that Eric is probably working just as hard as he is to get Sarah out of the game, but then again, I suppose that's just a plot point with no purpose (yet). Otherwise, it was an interesting addition to the series, and one that shows off some of the special skills available (especially to magic users). I'm looking forward to more books in the series, I like how this one is developing.

[Gustavo · Rating 2 out of 5]

The weakest book in the series so far. It's not badly written, far from it, but it's all about the least interesting member of the original party.

I kept on going through the chapters waiting for the boot to switch character like previous books used to do, but it kept going on and on chapter after chapter with the half orc as protagonist.

I'm not saying it's a bad character, and the story arc isn't bad, but theis series of books had done better previously and this was sort of a let down for me.

Lets's hope it gets better.

[Μιχάλης · Rating 2 out of 5]

Filler

This is a filler arc going through a confusing flashback of events that offer some insight into the world before most development getting magically erased.
Not enjoyable at all.