Xeal and friends continue their journey to the top of Eternal Dominion. However, as Xeal searches out potential leaders for his guild and bolsters its ranks others are moving as well. Will he and his guild weather the storm or will they lose their footing and be stopped before they can even really begin.
Yes I begin to introduce romantic complications in this book, yes Alex’s/Xeal’s relations will become more complex and integral to the plot of this series as it goes on. No I will not be writing any smut scenes, I will setup things and skip all the details, my 73 year old mother reads these and yeah enough said. I hope you all understand that for Alex/Xeal having a meaningful relationship was something that escaped him in his first life and this time around he is going to try to make it work sometimes a bit to hard.
As a child I did not read unless Pokémon cards count. It wasn’t until middle school when my mother played a trick on me, she got me entranced in the Harry Potter books. She would read the first few to me before switching to reading me a chapter and leaving the book out for me to read if I wanted more. Thus started my love of reading, at least in part. I still didn’t go out of my way to find books to read and after high school I could count on one hand how many books I would read each year. Life continued like this for over five years before I was hooked on an anime and searched out its light novel. This led to the phase where I was reading at least a couple books a month to now where I have gone through over 300 books in the last year.
Now I am putting my own work in to the world while following my own mantra. To write for yourself or you will never love what you write. When I first started to put my ideas into words I was surprised to find that those I shared it with loved it. This led me on to the road of putting out my own book for the world to see. Thank you to everyone who has or will help and support me in making this dream a reality.
This author carbon copies the theme and main plots of this fantasy-VRMMORPG series (The Great Thief 2015, Taming Master 2016, The King's Avatar, and others), but does not explain most of his strategies or actions, (just because the main character Alex, went 20 years back in time), just because the author didn't have anything better creates a 4 on 1 (50,000 players versus 1,500 players from his FAE guild). Two "best friends" (girls) in the team that Alex is part of in the game, fall for him at the same time and decide to share him (because Alex is "mature" and "determined" now), just because the author wrote it so. At less than 150 pages, this is a very very very short light novel series. So much so, all six of its volumes could probably fit into a book or two. This second volume continues to place the name of the person saying the dialogue, when there are multiple people talking (which is very positive). Other than that, the author does not consider how all the past 20 years knowledge is changing the present alternate reality world. Does not go into social media, does not go into the game company and the design or the use of Artificial Intelligence, does not describe in detail the gaming world, the competitors or the main characters. I do not know if the author is careless or lazy. I do hope that one of the Asian authors he plagiarized from sues him though.
Book 2 is, for better or for worse, pretty much the same experience as Book 1. The writing is still a lot more like a description of things that happened rather than getting to experience things alongside the character. And it's still riddled with missing punctuation and grammar issues. In particular, the author is using "to" instead of "too" almost every single time.
On the plus side, things finally start happening. Unfortunately, one of them is a romance subplot that is currently in yellow flag territory for me and might lead to my eventual dropping of the series if the author wastes too much time or energy in that direction.
This story is only enjoyable for me at the moment since it's what I'm in the mood for and it's quite short. But it's still not giving me any reason to separate it from the average gamelit out there. I think what I'm really waiting for is when the MC and his guild actually start facing serious opposition. Everything is a bit too easy at the moment and the story doesn't really do a great job of making those moments enjoyable since all the characters are so flat. I'm still here reading the series, though, and that's more than many can say.
I would probably recommend this series to your average gamelit reader because worst case it's alright, but you might also enjoy it a lot.
It's not too bad when it's just about the game and building the guild. When the author attempts to write about people and relationships the story is neither believable nor bearable.
This is clearly self published KU LITrpg. it's fairly weak on the litrpg parts just really giving us levels when there is so much more. There are a decent number of glaring mistakes grammatically and a few incorrect names, but it's not terrible. overall I'd rate the grammar above average for this type of book.
This book feels very streamlined and fast paced. I enjoyed it and felt that it worked. it definitely doesn't get stuck in the minutiae of writing. One of the best examples to me is that instead of writing Dan said or Dan responded or even Dan shrugged we'll see (Dan) after a quotation.
the characters have depth though even in this short book; because it focuses strongly on character development. We get dynamic fully developed characters with minimal descriptions but lots of dialogue. It most reminds me of reading plays. maybe not Hamlet, but perhaps more of a Merchant of Venice feel.
Now due to some of these stylistic choices that makes the story feel somewhere between a novel and a play, I could see the unappreciative being too offput to enjoy the story. There are a few rough points but overall its a good book to read on kindle unlimited or even to pick up for a few dollars.
A great continuation to a great series that i am stanting to get very attached to. The plot was great and it will be interesting to see ther fallout from the events in this book as the series moves forward. The characters were good too and i even liked how the relationships have progressed by the end of this book. I will say the one complaint i have in this book is that i didn't like the beginning of the main relationship in this book and that all the RL problems that were brought up were ingored right after but as i said i did like how it progressed so i'm not too upset about it. Overall a very fun ride that i will be continuing with for as many books as i can get my hands on. 8.5/10
I hate the fact that there are only 2 books in digital print
Okay I'm going to apologize for not rating the first book with 10 gold stars....I loved it so much I just downloaded the second book and immediately continued on with Alex's (Xeal's) story. I like the fast pace with just enough detail to let me get a picture of what is going on. Please continue...okay...how serious am I...I just purchased these two books...instead of just using prime.... Great storyline....write more!
If you liked the first book then you will like this even more, plenty of fighting for our intrepid hero and friends, some world building and even romance. Less time in the real world more in ed but it makes for a good story, i found it like empire strikes back a great book but the next book is probably going to ramp up even more.
I liked the second book. Hopefully next boom ill be out soon. Reading the afterwards author plans some fixes on grammar. We won we until book 5 so hope he has books I the pipe line
The first book was fantastic and this one kept it rolling. The time jumps were well explained and filler was removed in an excellent way. I feel this this story had places to go and I look forward to seeing them.
I'm enjoying this series to the extreme. If you enjoy gaming and or a book that keeps your attention at all times pick all of these up. (Up to book 2 so far)
I have really enjoyed the first to books in this series and am looking forward to the next one. I like the !if between character development and action, as well as in game and IRL story lines. Highly recommended.
Was this a perfect book no was it a good read yes. The characters need more development as I kept losing track of who was who. I will read the next one
I’m really enjoying these books. I like the genre and this series is well done. A great way to spend a winters evening or just a lazy day. Although I do wish the author would write faster!
Traction is the second book in the Eternal Dominion series by Bern Dean.
This massively scaled battle was so amazingly exciting to experience. I'm only a little upset that there wasn't much in game/with NPC relationship building forays due to all of the player drama. It feels as if the speed of viability for his future plans in lopsided, given how heavily IRL focused most of his strides for improvement were in this book.
I hope Valhalla decides to ally with FAE. It would be the smartest decision. And also open up the viewpoint for this series more often. While I have minor concerns that Abysses End's management will truly be able to hide their subsidiaries and screw over our dear Alex, I hope Geiter won't transition into an enemy down the line.
Where was all of the gameplay involving his family? The fact that we know they have characters without any insight into their actual game play is annoying to say the least. Even if it was merely starter player drivel that we had already experienced with Xeal, it adds layers to the story. Enriching the overall experience, and is honestly one of my favorite aspects while reading, especially in LITRPG'S.
Lastly,, still trying to decide how I feels about the relationship blooming between Sam and Alex, as well as Nicole and Alex. At least it's not a harem.
This book is .... Interesting. The first half was a lot like the first book. But then the author took some VERY strange choices in terms of character development, and in my opinion did it poorly. Some relationship stuff that was more cringe then charismatic. It really was a drastic change from the good part of the series is, and and since I felt like it was poorly done really through me off. Then the last part of the book lacked a lot of structure and just seemed to bounce around a bit too much trying to do too much at once. Still I guess would recommend, but maybe only if you have kindle unlimited
I care if its written poorly, and boy is this badly written romance. I skipped ahead past the dates when it was still super jilted writing, but then when thats still the focus and the way the sister acted was weird as hell I decided the middle of the road litrpg book isnt worth dealing with situations like this.
This is a presentations using a ton of spreadsheets. Just sitting in a meeting room listening to someone drone on and on about figures. The battle at the end was at least an attempt at real story. The writing was very choppy and disjointed. The introduction of a relationship aspect is just absurd.
4.25 stars. I enjoyed the expansion of the world. I also enjoyed that there was conflict in this book vs the first. However I was also happy that Alex was able to pretty well dominate the threat. On audiobook it is a bit difficult to keep track of all the characters especially with how many were Introduced in this book. Casmir, Amser, and Takeshi are all great add-ons in this book. Tenbris and Abysses End guild are just annoying enough that it feels nice seeing them get comeuppance. Also on audio I didn't realize the guild name was FAE all caps so going through a print to get names and spelling it made the comment about "look at my guild name" all the more important. I do hope Tenbris gets a "bridge dropped on him" at some point as I don't like him as a secondary antagonist long term. I understand AE guild will probably be the long term antagonist so he can get his revenge against them and eventually take them completely out but I don't need them as the main conflict in every book. Overall I am enjoying the story so far and even though there is a start of a harem I am ok with it as it is not the main storyline and isn't weird and graphic and overly "14 yo wish fulfillment" type writing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Books too short. Specially as it’s just quantity and not quality, ie waste of money.
I quit 1,5 h in book 2. When the MC and girl naturally talks about how every caster/healer needs to worship a god and off course you need to have sex with players or npc to get benefits! I had a feeling it’s gonna be a harem and a bad one at that. Check the bad reviews for later books.
The MC feels like a robot and off course is a SJW. I just don’t like him and he feels boring.
The spell system is not showing and the there is no progress, which is what I like not about litrpg.
Story is mostly about building a guild and business and you also get a hint it’s gonna be political. I don’t like books like that , so if you like them maybe.
Continuing story of a man given a 2nd chanch to redo 20yrs of gaming (or was it 40) I'm enjoying the world building, character development and the story line. The fights and full scale battles are written in a way that makes good mind movies. The only awkward part of reading this one was the romance parts. The internal thoughts mixed with the external conversions are a bit hard to follow. You don't always know who is talking.
***spoiler alert **** Have to wait till the next book to find out A. If it is a polygamous or polyamorouse situation B. if it's going to continue well or end in failure.
Before my review , I'd just like to say that this is not a haren story and anybody who thinks it is is either incredibly naive or a total prude , the MC has a romantic interest in two of his teammates end of story. The book itself is as good if not better than book one , FAE keeps on growing , the plan for world dominance continues and they kick some butt. Looking forward to book three
I must say I am enjoying the story so far. My only real issue is the game they are playing is a bit generic VRMMO and doesn't really stand out in a way that makes it special but the characters are solid and unlike the translated Chinese/Korean books dealing with similar topics of main characters that travel into past selves with vast knowledge of the game I like how this main character is pretty much winging it for the most part.
Loses a star for not being a stand alone book. You have to have read book 1 to understand this book. Story holds true and really pics up speed at the end.
I have a plot point of contention. I can understand the bad guys losing but it makes no business sense that they would double down on trying again. Even if at a later date. I would think they would take the rest of the world and do battle with our heroes there.