As an avid RPG gamer with years of D&D, Final Fantasy, Zelda and numerous other games under my belt, I adored the idea of being sucked into a fantasy game.

The story starts on Earth in the mid 90’s in a small town in which nothing ever happens until suddenly Kevin (one of the main characters) gets hit by a car and is saved by a character from one of his favorite video games. From here, the main plot of the story begins to unfold.

I’ve seen other reviews that state that this story’s world is better explained in other novels previously written. I would have to take their word for it as I haven’t read anything else by Baxil and with the exception of a few exposition heavy moments, Baxil does a decent job of explaining the world as it pertains to the characters. I actually enjoy reading this before his other novels as it allows me to feel like these characters and have a sense of "What the hell is happening in the world."

Baxil’s use of descriptive text is excellent, even going so far as to retcon a few pieces with questionable or otherwise "sketchy" descriptors. The layout of the site is easily navigable and clean-cut. If there were any gramatical errors, they were easily dismissed, as I don’t remember them.

One of the main beefs that I had with this story is a common one when it comes to stories that deal in multiple viewpoints, and that is that the perspective jumps around quite frequently. Often it jumps in quite a jarring way at times when I feel it should continue with the current character.

The other beef is simply that the sotry does seem to progress slowly. This is a pretty minor beef but it needs to be said for those readers who enjoy fast-paced stories.

Overall, Baxil delivers a pretty solid representation of life in a game with and incredible amount of gaming nuances running the gamut from random encounters and loot, to experiencing your first dungeon-crawl and the thrill that comes from being a level 1 character and beating down an "End Boss" that’s already demolished a small army.

If you are an RPG Gamer you’ll have fun with this story, if not however, you’ll enjoy it, but many of the nuances will be entirely lost on you.

4 of 4 members found this review helpful.
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