I was actually fairly certain I was not going to jibe with the humour of this book, but it actually won me over fairly easily. Did not see that coming. Did not see a Lot of this book coming. Where to even start. 

So, while the LitRPG thing isn’t new to me, this particular setup, where people are forced to run a dungeon as actual people forced into a game that’s like D&D (but is more like a weird pastiche, really) is kinda new to me. There’s lots of scenarios where people are forced into games, but the Running Man games, Hunger Games, overlayed with the game elements, I don’t know, feels somewhat novel to me. Mostly because the comedic elements come from the Powers That Be having studied humanity and, with their own creativity, functioning much like our own post-capitalism, manage to churn out a game that is tailored for public consumption, while also being a satire on creativity and how stupid main stream culture is because of how these things function.

Throw in a talking cat named Princess donut and a meat head with a heart of gold and you’ve got a really, highly readable and entertaining, pacy as hell, weird ass book. It’s extremely commercial in its prose and never really manages to put together something more than really simple prose work. And in this first book I wouldn’t say there’s much character work to speak of either, although I hear it has a surprising amount of it later on. 

It’s a solid first effort and I’ll continue with it to see how it develops. Cliffhanger ending with Carl and Donut having to choose their classes. I gotta admit, I’m curious. 

P.S 
As a nerd, it did bug me that magic missile is weirdly lasers coming out of donuts eyes in this. And yes, it could just be another nod to the pastiche, and the aliens just co-opting culture for amusement, but like, scorching ray exists and it would make more sense. I wonder if he put it in there just to bug people familiar with the D&D, or something?