Description
You know those times when you’re surrounded by a squadron of bloodthirsty ninjas, your back is to the wall, you’re down to your last heart container, and all hope seems lost? In situations like that, it’s important not to panic, to take a deep breath, and to remember that even if you do shuffle off this mortal coil, by the laws of Etheria you’ll shuffle right back on it again.
Meet Tasha, a couch potato with no accomplishments to her name. That all changes one fateful day when she gets sucked into the world of Etheria. Here, in this world of adventure, she can become the strong person she’s always wanted to be.
After rescuing a princess from ninjas, one thing leads to another, and before she knows it, she’s drawn into a massive quest to save Etheria. With friends by her side, Tasha must figure out who she really is.
This is a LitRPG/RPG Gamelit novel with stat progression, video game mechanics, and narrative spreadsheets. It features heavy satire and the kind of silly over-the-top situations you might expect in a 16-bit video game.
No velociraptors have been harmed in the production of this novel.
Phillip –
I requested this audiobook from Audiobooks Unleashed and have voluntarily left this review.
I recommend the book. The main character, Tasha, is transported into an SNES game world inspired by Zelda and MMO’s. In it, she learns she must complete a quest to prevent the world from being destroyed. Along the way, she meets good friends, fights monsters, levels up in her couch potato class, and finds that her experiences change her.
I really enjoyed the humor and laughed out loud at various parts. I liked the pop culture references and found the story to be engaging and fun.
RJ –
Compared to some LitRPG titles this one is fairly tame. It tugs at my mind as a sort of YA LitRPG, if there is such a thing. There is a decent story contained within and it’s a humorous ride for the most part. The game mechanics are there, along with the character stats including some unique classes and skills reserved for this story alone. Leveling, grinding, saving the Princess, and other quests are the meat and potatoes of this first volume. Other sub-plots are discussed or hinted at; such as the mission Ari and Pan are involved in, or the elemental orbs which must be collected to satisfy a world-event quest. Each of those may be an additional volume in their own right. The MC Tasha is genuine, sincere, and fun to follow. The narrator, Sarah Sampino is quite good and supplied an excellent performance. I enjoyed this tale and look forward to more of the series. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Ryan Pascall –
I had no idea what to expect from this book, after all the title suggests a comedy story or parody and so I’ll start by saying I was very pleasantly surprised.
The story follows Tasha, a down-on-her luck young woman working for an awful game development company and feeling stuck in a rut but, with the arrival of a game cartridge from her late father she finds herself dragged into the game in a wonderfully considered Jumanji/Tron style.
What I really liked with this book was the system was a brilliant mashup between Zelda and more advanced, later games which introduced skills and abilities. This led initially to simple slash combat but then added abilities and skills to expand on the combat but retained lots of recognisable items and abilities. Additionally, the fact she retains her phone adds a fun element to her couch-potato class and I found the NPCs’ reactions to this very amusing and it really helped to flesh out the characters. And speaking of the characters, the story includes one big twisty-surprise midway which I did not see coming and really impressed me considering the impact it had on the ‘party’ dynamic.
Special kudos have to be paid to Sarah Sampino who, not only voices every single character in the book, does the #1 acting job for Slimon the Paladin who’s ‘raspberry’ language was an absolute joy to behold. Aside from Slimon she did a wonderful job of making every character seem an individual and the accents she chose for them all suited their personalities absolutely perfectly (I absolutely adored Trista the fairy and really hope she returns in later books in the series).
So if you want a book full of excitement, comedy, memorable characters and some of the best voice acting ever heard this is the book for you. Thoroughly excited for book 2 🙂