Plotless

Mindless RPG isekai with no direction. Bored out of my mind. This might have been a new thing back in 2014 but doesn't hold up today.

5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Not for people who are expecting a 4.5 star book

What disappointed you about AlterWorld?

If you're just looking for a fun story about a bunch of people stuck in a video game, and aren't too particular about quality, then you'll probably enjoy this book. If you're just looking for a fun read, go ahead. AlterWorld isn't necessarily awful, just sub par, but I was expecting A LOT more given the book's 4.5 star rating. So this review is really for people who are expecting a story that reflects the stars it's received.

Characters were flat and predictable, with nothing particularly special about them. Dialogue was cringe-worthy at times. The story itself doesn't do anything out of the ordinary either, and the writing is at about a high school level (to be fair, the author is very young). I don't understand why this series has such high ratings–it's average at best, and is completely undeserving of the 4.5 stars. Getting thrown into a video game world is an interesting (albeit overdone) topic, but the author could really benefit from developing his character/plot development skills, and could ESPECIALLY work on pushing his writing skills further.

27 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

One Of The Best Books I Have

(I am not going to give a synopsis of the story because you can look at the description and the other review and get some good ones)
These days it takes a lot to get me to really rave about a book. I have over 400 books in my audible library and I have listened to almost all of them because I have a long commute almost every day. I bought this book on a whim, not expecting much out of the idea of real life mixing with a video game. I have read books before where a human mind gets trapped in a video game, or where people bring video games into real life, and other compounds of the two. This book, however, surpassed them all.
I have some background playing video games. I am a bit of a gamer now (on steam) and played World of Warcraft as a teenager for a couple of months before I realized that it was sucking my life away. But I have never forgotten that time and the fun that I had on that MMORPG, going on raids with other players, leveling up my character, joining a clan and deciding which stats I wanted.
As such, the my inner nerd had a nerdgasam about an hour into this book and I haven't looked back since.
There was a time, about three hours in, that I thought that although this was a fun book, it was not going to be very deep as far as themes and character development. I couldn't have been more wrong. The book and the series that follows (I am on book three right now) deal with some very heavy themes indeed, from life and death, to government involvement in personal life, to revenge, to rape, to the concept of eternity, to slavery, to greed, to what makes things right or wrong... The list goes on and on. It has been a while since I listened to a book that did such a good job of involving deep ideas while still moving the story forward in an such an interesting way. The main character also kept my interest all of the way through while continuing to change and grow as a person and as a game character.
The narrator for this book is also excellent.
One other thing: I figured out part way through that this book was translated form Russian to English. The translation is flawless however, as can be seen from the fact that I didn't even realize it for quite some time.

89 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Fanfic

This felt like a fanfic, serialized into many parts for best monetary advantage. I was uncomfortable with the cigarette and torture sections. I wasn't all that convinced over the way perma-mode seems to keep going while the servers are down. All in all, mediocre.

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Sci-fi VR Story

Who wants to read every single step about playing a frigging video game? Way too much detail!

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Quest Failed! Did not find a story in AlterWorld!

What did you like best about AlterWorld? What did you like least?

Best - the potential of this world. The narrator.
Worst - absolutely no story to bind it all together. Complete mishmash of unrelated random quests and battles. If you like watching other people play video games you may enjoy this. I sometimes do, but I didn't this time. If you want a story you may not. Even the living characters felt like they were video game characters, which is somehow ironic.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Not this series...

What does Michael Goldstrom bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

A superb storyteller, he more than once prevented me from moving to my next book.

Do you think AlterWorld needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

For more random unrelated quests? No.

7 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

No challenge for main character

This is pretty much a guy telling you a perfect dream of his. The main character lucks into dozens of unique and powerful buffs for lack of better word. He also always has a perfect solution for things or thinks of bypass/hacks that evidently no one in the ~23 million previous players thought of... It's an easy listen but the sheer lack of struggle makes this terrible. Also there's no real plot, just escape reality (done in first few hours) then play the game

15 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

An interesting tale but not for everyone

First, this is an interesting fantasy. It reminds me a bit of the Matrix (movie), the Otherland series by Tad Williams (books), and Ready Player One (book and soon to be movie). It's that crossing of virtual and real worlds that many readers find interesting.

I mostly enjoyed this, though there are a couple of caveats and "heads up" you might want to consider before putting this title in your shopping cart.

<> There is a great deal of game jargon and acronyms. Some of that is explained but not all by a long shot. Unless you have a background in playing online games (as many people do these days, I guess) then you may well find yourself a bit confused.

<> The author appears not to be native English speaker. While his command of English is actually pretty impressive, there are a few slang terms and idioms that are... well, just off. An editor could have fixed this but this book may not have been through that process. In any case, if that kind of "issue" irks you, you may want to stay away from this title.

<> The main character is Russian. That's no problem for me. In fact, I found it intriguing. But if you're expecting a main character of a "certain" nationality, it's good to know this up front.

All of that is, at least for me, just falls into the caveat category of "make sure this title is for you." On the other hand, I found the main character's malleable moral stance annoying. He portrays himself as taking the moral high ground, and indeed does sometimes manage to do so, but over and over again gives into greed and clearly has issues with revenge. Given that this takes place in a "reward based" MMPORG, greed and revenge seem like they're predictable components. But personally, I found the discontinuity of what the main character saw in himself, and the actual choices he made more than a little off putting.

All of that said, I did listen to all four books in this series. It was entertaining in the same way as watching over someone's shoulder as they play a video game can be entertaining. I wouldn't want to do it all the time but its novelty didn't wear off. I ended up enjoying listening to most of this series so far.

If you're a gamer, and enjoyed it, then there's a good chance you'll get a bit of a kick out of this series.

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Sophomoric

What would have made AlterWorld better?

The writing style was immature. The author frequently introduces scenes with over the top characterizations hinting that the fight is unwinnable which the character proceeds to mundanely win anyways. The book feels like a male fantasy scribbling.

It also ends in the middle of the story with little if anything resolved.

Has AlterWorld turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. This book feels poorly planned and executed, which probably reflects the writer rather than the type of book.

What does Michael Goldstrom bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The reader is competent and expressive. He has to work with the writer's exaggerated narrative, though.

21 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Great idea, poor execution

Any additional comments?

I enjoy the litRPG genre, and Rus has some great ideas, but he does not have the writing skill to properly execute his vision.

Players permanently stuck in the game (usually by choice) can influence the state of the game, and the possibilities of that influence are endless. His depiction of the game is a dream MMORPG where the players have control over the world.

However, the potential is heavily overshadowed by repetitive phrases ("my inner greedy pig..."), antisemitism (small, but it comes out of nowhere and makes no sense), and sexism. There is a female love interest, but I hesitate to even call her a character. He vainly attempts to give her a backstory, but ignores it for most of the book. She has no personality and barely any dialogue; her only purpose is to have sex with the main character.

The book reads more as a collection of events/moments rather than a cohesive plot. There is a vague idea of the direction of the story, which is quite interesting, but he barely moves that plot along and instead gets lost in wish-fulfillment moments and sub-plots.

The story lacks one of the most important, core elements of a fantasy novel: worldbuilding. I am interested in the lore and setting of the virtual world, but other than saying it is large, he does not describe the place. I have no idea what the world looks like, if there are multiple continents, or where the dark lands are.

From a game perspective, he does not say how many races or classes there are, so his character choice does not have the impact he wants. There is supposedly a war between light and dark factions, but at times it is not even clear if the dark side includes player characters. He chooses a dark class with a light side race, but could he have chosen the same class for the dark side? In my experience with MMOs, his description of being the only player to create a character the way he did, to be truly unique, is unrealistic and difficult to believe.

I finished this book because I was intrigued by the potential, but I will not be continuing the series. It's unlikely that his serious writing flaws will improve as the story continues.

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile