The Player Blackout

Capes Online #1

by Lucas Flint

In 2043, Capes Online is the biggest, most popular VRMMORPG in the world. With over one billion active players and counting, gamers can become brave Heroes or cunning Villains, their every choice determining their Alignment. Everyone wants to play this game and almost everyone does.

Except for 25-year-old police officer Nyle Maxwell, who can't log out. Killed in a car accident on his first day on the job, Nyle gets his mind uploaded to Capes Online to save his life. But the one way mind-to-game upload process means Nyle can never return to his physical body in the real world. Nor is he allowed to contact his friends and family outside the game or else he risks deletion by the secretive government organization that put him in the game in the first place.

Things get even worse when a villain known as Dark Kosmos takes over Capes Online not long after Nyle's arrival. Trapping all of the players in the game and cutting off all contact with the real world, Dark Kosmos targets Nyle for death.

Now Nyle must become a true superhero and save his fellow players from Dark Kosmos while adjusting to his new digital life. All of which would be much easier if he didn't have a hyperactive sidekick overly fond of puns or if he even wanted to be here in the first place.

Genres: Superheroes, Audiobook, Science Fiction

408 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 19, 2019

About the author

I write superhero and LitRPG. For film and TV inquires, email filmandtv@lucasflint.com.

Reviews

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heroes or Villains?

Absolutely fascinating and so much action it was wonderful I fell in love with this book and I am going to look into doing the rest of the series but there's so much that goes on in this it is unreal it will knock you off your feet get your favorite drink ice cream coffee your favorite furry friend sit back and have a great braid promise you will not be disappointed!

[Lazybee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mediocre plot and shallow characters.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a couple of books that have LitRPG elements, and could probably be considered light LitRPG. This is the first I've read that has multiple elements like stats, character progression, leveling up, and a virtual reality world.

I really liked this book. I figured starting off with LitRPG by reading a superhero story within the sub genre was perfect, because I love superhero fiction. The premise is actually pretty close to something you would find in multiple sci fi stories. The main character dies and gets his mind uploaded into a virtual reality MMO instead of a clone or robot or spaceship, but it's still the same kind of thing. Because of this, it was actually pretty familiar despite being a very different style than I'm used to.

I will say I am an avid gamer, and I played City of Heroes since the day it came out, so part of my enjoyment came from noticing a lot of similarities in the game world here. There were still plenty of differences, but it was a fun aspect to remember my days as someone who never played a MMO before starting out in a Superhero game.

That being said, I did like aspects of seeing the stats and levels and game notifications. Sometimes it was a bit repetitive, but it was easy to gloss over it if I needed to.

As for the plot, I was pleasantly surprised that it was engaging and believable. It wasn't just a dude playing a video game, there were things happening that had implications outside of the game world. I did enjoy the normal in game stuff, but I liked that there was an overarching plot beyond that.

Overall, this was great for someone who likes either LitRPG or Superhero books. Lots of action, plenty of gaming goodness, and a fun adventure with real world implications. I heard that the second book comes out sometime this month, and I'm sure I'll be reading it soon.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most LitRPGs novels lock the hero in the game at some point to add tension to the story. The Player Blackout does it a little bit differently. The hero here is a small-town cop who died on his first day on the job. Why he is chosen for an experimental program that uploads brains into a gaming system is one of the mysteries of the story that we are trying to resolve. It’s that connection to the outside world (in this case a real-world mystery) that I really like in LitRPGs—stories where in what happens in the game matters in some way to life outside the game. Of course our hero, Winter, can’t get into the outside world anymore but that doesn’t lessen his interest in it. So this mystery has large potential for the series and I wish that Flint had spent more time developing it in this opening novel.

Over all, there’s tons of potential in this book, but Flint never fully takes advantage of it. For example, the first third of the story where he really needs to grab the reader’s attention is fairly slow moving. Winter is learning the mechanics of the game, but instead of showing him fighting and investigating as a new super, Flint skips most of this and spends his time showing the problems Winter has rescuing a cat from a tree. I’m sure this scene was supposed to be humorous, but it just didn’t work for me. The only other thing of interest that happens in these opening chapters is that Winter learns that a villain named Atmosphere knows his real world identity (which is a secret because his inclusion in the game is part of a top secret government experiment).

I should point out that it was quite obvious who Atmosphere was from the first time his name is dropped, and that his identity doesn’t make any sense. Clearly Flint understands this and has wrapped it into the larger mystery of who arranged for Winter to be downloaded into the game to begin with.

The pace picks up quite a bit when a new villain takes over the gaming world in an apparently unplanned revolution. Dark Cosmos cuts the game off from the outside world so that none of the players can log out, meaning that eventually, unable to eat, the bodies of the players will starve to death. Dark Cosmos offers the players two options to save themselves—kill him (which he claims is impossible) or bring him the low level Winter. Naturally the entire gaming world (pretty much) decides to go after Winter.

This is a great threat that I think Flint should have done more with—harrowing chases, etc. Instead Winter reaches the villain hide out really easily. Here we get some good action as he fights his way to his ultimate confrontation with Dark Cosmos. This last third of the book is by far the best. Yes, Winter continues to be dumb—defeating opponents and then forgetting to finish them off so they can recover and threaten him again, but the overall plot begins to advance. But even here Flint misses a major opportunity to knock his book out of the park. Dark Cosmos has been collecting players (heroes and villains) so he can torture them (because he’s…bad). When Winter needs a distraction at the end of the book, having those players go after Dark Cosmos in a massive powers battle would have been awesome and the (pretty good) battle Flint gives us for the ending could have still been worked in around the army of players trying to bring down the bad guy.

The ultimate ending also left me wanting more. No real progress is made resolving the big mystery of who put all of this in motion by arranging for Winter to be put in the game. Also, apparently no one expects the gaming company to suffer any serious consequences from having almost killed a few million players across the globe by losing control of their gaming system. I would expect every government on earth to start investigating/regulating the company. And I would suspect that a huge proportion of its gamers would never log on again. Saying they have good lawyers to fend off the civil suits seems to me to be a totally inadequate way of dealing with the ramifications of the book.

All of that being said, there’s a lot of potential in this story and Flint’s writing improved the deeper into the novel I got, so I have a lot of hope that the next book will keep getting better.

I got this book free from Audiobookcodes.com in exchange for an honest review.

If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.

[BookLoversLife · Rating 4 out of 5]

The extent of my gaming experience is playing the Lego games with my son, but I've enjoyed other LitRPG books before, and because one of my favourite narrators was performing it, I had to give it a go. And I'm so glad I did because I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

The plot was unique (to me) and easy to follow. Nyle Maxwell is a new cop fresh out of academy and is involved in a car chase on his first day, when both him and the suspect he is following are killed in a crash. Nyle gets his mind upload to the biggest game and is basically living in the game. I actually loved this aspect of the plot because Nyle reacted how I expect people to react when he finds out. The game is a heroes and villains game and every choice you make can lead you to become either one of them. Nyle becomes a hero and the book centers around that.

Not being a gamer, I enjoyed this so much because the author made it easy to follow. I felt like I was learning everything along with Nyle. Even the stats and the whole idea of the game was easy to understand and I never felt lost. I became lost in the world with the characters and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The characters were all well written and developed. I really liked Nyle and his hero alter ego. I loved his side kick and thought he was the best character. He was a chatter box and had me laughing a lot. I'm intrigued about the other characters and am looking forward to finding out more about them. In a hero and villains book, it's nice that the villains are all actually evil but I also really loved the fact that a villain can become good through his actions.

In all, this was a fun, easy and entertaining read and I'm really looking forward to more.

Joe Hempel is one of my favourite narrators and no matter the genre, he always gives a great performance. He has plenty of voices and tones for all the characters and brought this book to life with his inflections and cadences.

I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, kudos to the author for doing a an attempt at a litRPG superhero story but..

I'm afraid it wasn't a great attempt. Even for the dead horse of "trapped in the game" this story was weak. A cop, and son of a judge is made a digital prisoner in a public game after death, and cut off from communication with family and friends...and during the one call he managed to sneak in, he calls his fiance instead of his lawyer or dad?

So the good... No noticable typos, misspelled words, or other signs of "solo publishing."

The critique...
Exposition out the wahoo, and frankly the story was just boring, and the litRPG elements felt bolted on after the fact... When the MC is waving aside 90 of system notifications, and not making any real attempt to learn the rules of the game, you know the author didn't really want to be writing a LitRPG story.

I wanted to like it, prose superhero fiction is one of my favorite genres... But I had to force myself to finish this one, and was skipping pages at a time. I wish the author best of luck but probably will skip the next one. Maybe get a more assertive editor who demands more lean prose and more rewrites?

[Colin Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is fairly common for players to end up trapped in the game world in the litrpg genre, but in this case the author adds some novel flourishes to this idea, firstly the main character is dead and thus he is stuck in the game with it being effectively a form of digital afterlife and secondly the main baddie is an npc that is holding the regular living players hostage by preventing them from logging out either.

The setting for this book is a superhero-based game where your actions in a starter quest assign you to either the heroic or villainous faction, while also designating your base class too. While the former worked well, the latter didn't work quite so well as the way that the main character basically levelled his character in an entirely unconnected manner just made you ask why the starter quest hadn't been improved over the many years that the game had been running.

I have listened to author books being done by this narrator in the past and have found his performances to be good ones, serving to enhance the book in question and this one is no exception with another well done narration.

Overall, an entertaining story, interesting ideas and a good narration combine to produce an enjoyable audiobook to start this series.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

[Pablo García · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although main character, Nyle Maxwell II, aka Winter, has "player stats" the author really doesn't describe the characters well (physically, emotionally, etc.) and doesn't really create a game like system, or world-building describing the economic, social, political, religious, etc. systems in place in this "game-like" world. Author doesn't really explains why, main character's brain/memories were downloaded by a top secret project/game company without the main character's consent or his family's knowledge. So, a lot of plot holes. No maps, no inside illustrations, just the main character has upgrades/updates of his game-like stats. Story is flat. Because nobody asked main character whether he would like to continue his existence in a game (like-world), the readers aren't really invested in the story. Each chapter is on average about 5 pages long, so story more designed/written for a manga-like comic, than a light novel or fantasy-litrpg-game-like story series. Author doesn't have any other "players" in the game, so, main character "winter" interacts with NPC's (Non-player Characters) (supposedly inside the game).
Needs a lot of work (re-editing) to make it interesting and worthy to read. I do not recommend this book or the series.

[Stephen Manning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars means I really liked the book and I will read it at least on more time in the future.

Why did I like the book? The characters were fun, the system was interesting and I look forward to how Mr. Flint will build upon it in the future books. Overall there wasn't anything that sticks out that I didn't like about the book, but at the same time there was nothing about the book that made me fall in love with the book. It certainly wasn't average, its a nice book to date but nothing I would want to commit to for the rest of my life as it were.

Why didn't I five star the book? I like to reserve five star reviews so that they have meaning. A five star book is something that I'm going to not only reread more than once but will become a staple of my library that I will continually go back and read over and over, they are also books that I can reread instantly after finishing a book and greatly enjoy the story told.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were enough interesting (if not terribly original) elements to this story that I managed to finish it. That was in doubt at some points as there were character issues that nearly drove me off. First, the MC. He was painfully inept in most fights, stopping to gape at things, banter with teammates, and multiple times when he just gave up and waited for death/respawn until saved by some deus ex machina. If I'm going to read a book like this I want MCs who are switched-on, and this guy just wasn't.

The second major character issue was the MC's sidekick. I understand the concept of comic relief, but this guy was too much, and in the story too much. Bloody annoying is my appraisal, and were it me I'd re-roll that position. I say all of this in hope that the author may take some of it to heart, but as it's my subjective assessment I don't expect too much.

The writing quality and general grammar were good, but IMO it needs editing to remove filler and tighten up action scenes.

[Tariq Manji · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does NOT live up to its potential

Wonderful concept and strong(ish) infrastructure, however the story is majorly let down by stupid characters and the writer losing track of all the plot devices and current states of affairs (e.g. is he absolutely terrified, or a little afraid? If the ability is passive, how can it all of a sudden be activated? If level 10 offers 100% increase to strength and reportedly allows a person to lift an entirely full plane, how come at level 1 with a 10% increase to strength the power allows a person to lift up only a car?) Overall the book contains a lot of promise at the beginning with interesting game dynamics such as the hero and villain systems, however the characters and plot progression fail to portray an immersive story and reading actually becomes difficult due to the constant befuddlement the reader faces frequently throughout the story.

[Toula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audio book review
This audio is perfect for those that are into games . Listen to this audio and close your eyes and imagine your taking part in the game along .
The Hero goes right into the game and like 98% of gamers think they will never loose . The hero has a companion that is with him . They both try their best

Joe Hempel was fantastic. He really got you into the audio . His tone and voice was strong , clear and strong

[Brad Cypert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't find any of the characters particularly relatable, and most of the NPCs felt fourth wall breaking, which really bothered me. I specifically remember Dark Cosmos referring to the use of Winter's and Cyclone's abilities together as a "combo power" instead of a blizzard, which is what it was described as previously.

However, FunkyFresh94 saved this book and I'm likely going to pick up the next in the series in hopes of finding more about him.

[Brad Theado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun twist in the genre. Had issue with the premise just a bit. Players gets stuck in their game devices and we are expected rob believe that they can live for three weeks without water? Three days maybe. Other than that I enjoyed it.

[Scott Shjefte]

Comic book type role playing game. Lots of magic like battles. Purchased this edition on April 10, 2021, from Amazon for free., from Amazon for free. Read Kindle book using Alexa audio asset. Mistakenly read volume 2 first.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Little rough

Little rough around the edges some, specifically when having dialogue but a well devised plot and I'm a sucker for ice powers

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book that follows Niles a police officer killed in the line of duty, given a new life in cyberspace.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Not your typical litrpg

[Avalon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book, but could've been better if the hero wasn't as smart a brick wall.
Some things he didn't know about the game, are named exactly like what they are.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it!

I found the story fun and the characters likable. I happily recommend this book to anyone who likes this genre.

[Jackson]

Nyle Maxwell is dead. So why can he still see and hear? All his questions are anwered

[Cody Clouser · Rating 3 out of 5]

so many spelling errors and missing words, and Cyclone (aka Cy) is insufferable and absolutely fails as comedic relief