Gamers

by Cambry Varner

Though Sally considers herself an avid gamer, she never indulged in MMORPGs, at least until her stepsister, Darcy, convinced her to give the popular Shadow’s Deep a chance. It was supposed to be an evening of dungeon raiding and level grinding, that is until Sally clicked the login icon and found herself trapped in the game world with Darcy.

With Shadow’s Deep now a life or death game, Sally and Darcy must quickly find others trapped within the game and form a party to survive. NPCs are no longer smiling pixels with scripted lines, but have their own motives and prejudices. And the monsters have sharp teeth that tear and draw blood.

Fortunately, Sally and the party are players, each with their own set of skills and abilities giving them an advantage in this world. They just have to overcome their own fears to tap into the bravery they never knew they possessed.

262 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 19, 2020

Reviews

[Conor Kostick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I edited this book.

I was delighted to get a submission where the main characters were women and were very well portrayed. LitRPG could do with more books like this. Not that gender is a major theme of the book but simply that it's refreshing to get the point of view of smart female characters as they strategise and fight their way up through the game.

The game elements are strong with levelling and skill upgrades. It is a fantasy world where Sally is a rogue and her half-sister Darcy a cleric.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

confusing

This book and premise had potential, but the interpersonal relationships made it feel like a middle grade story with just enough edginess and cursing to make it YA.

I really wanted to like it since it has an all female party, but, I just couldn’t get over how rushed and contrived certain parts are.

So much potential, but the book feels internally conflicted as to what age group it should appeal to. And some of the writing is fantastic. Some of it is bad. Several places that need some editing to clean up, but honestly, it’s far from the worst.

This author has a ton of things they do right, but they don’t seem to fully know or understand how to play to those strengths yet?

If they keep writing I’ll be sure to look into the first book of their next series. Wishing them the best.

[Kupel Yosef · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welcome to the world of Shadow’s Deep. It is full of the standard monsters, bandits, innkeepers, pixelated NPCs (non-player characters) and noobs. However, when Sally, our protagonist, is encouraged by her stepsister Darcy to try out this MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) things stop being so standard. Darcey and Sally are inserted into the game of Shadow’s Deep, and all of a sudden the game becomes a tad too real to our newbie Sally, and even our highly experienced Darcy. Welcome to a once standard game world, but now we have racist innkeepers, sexist dispositions, and dangerous trolls. Where once it was just a sad setback to be killed in a dungeon or by an overpowered player it is now, possibly, life threatening. I do not have all the answers for you, but if you are looking to read about real people with real emotions, thoughts, and opinions as they attempt to survive this awfully dangerous game then you have found the book. No one, especially our main characters, are perfect and they each have their own mental struggles to figure out while they attempt to survive their new surroundings. In this book you are able to look forward to strong female characters, intelligent game play, and the excitement of a new game. I highly recommend this book to all of those who are looking to get introduced to LitRPG and have not found the right book, yet. In addition, Cambry does an amazing job of making our characters make this much more than a simple fantasy game by leaving just enough breadcrumbs to have you dying to get the second book in your hand ASAP! This is going to be going down as one of my favorite LitRPG books of the year due to its amazing characters, intriguing plot, and extremely profound, and yet subtle, approach to commenting on social issues such as racism, self-image, and how we view ourselves in our lives. An impactful and exciting read for all!

[Richard Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, non cliche, well paced - very well paced, you actually have time to just get to know the characters with enough happening to make it worthwhile.

It is litrpg, but it's not got a ton of fast paced levelling.

She's done a thoughtful job of her lead characters and they fit well together.

The setup is unusual and instead of being distractingly similar to others, she avoids the cliche and leaves you with a mystery that is barely hinted at.

If you are a fan of gamer lit/ litrpg, would like to see more female leads and solid character portrayal, try this.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cracking read

A great piece of litrpg that sets the scene for a much larger world. I look forward to reading more from this author.