Welcome to the Books section! Reading is a hobby I enjoy most nights before sleep. I read around 30 minutes a day exclusively on my phone/tablet, at the lowest screen brightness and invert the color so a black background and white text. It works really well for falling asleep. Below you’ll find a list of books I’ve read, and I will add in my personal thoughts and ratings.
If I read something terrible, why give it a rating or link here? I want only quality items for you all to enjoy. The exception to this rule will be if a specific book mid-series isn’t very good, then it will reflect in the scoring but not remove the series as a whole.
I will only be doing scores for books after the first in the series. This will be to inform you of the quality of the book, while not providing spoilers. A more detailed description of the type of series will be included with the first book. You are either going to like and start the series, or you won’t. There is no sense in spoiling anything afterwards. Just know that if a book shows up here, then it is at least worth starting the series.
*Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I only recommend products I have tried personally and recommend to you as a potential consumer.
Currently Reading:
In the queue:
- The Stork Tower Book 7
- Awaken Online Tarot Book 3
- Viridian Gate Online Book 6
- Viridian Gate Online Book 7
- Level Up Book 3
- Ready Player Two
Books & Series reviewed on this Site:
- Alpha World
- Awaken Online / Awaken Online Tarot
- Chaos Seeds
- Cradle
- Ender’s Game
- Level Up
- Life Reset
- Mistborn
- Ready Player One
- The Stork Tower
- Underworld
- Viridian Gate Online
Alpha World
Gamer for Life
Alpha World Book 1 by Daniel Schinhofen
Score: 7/10
Faced with a choice of life in prison, or long term immersion in a virtual world, Seamus picks the latter. Join him as he works his way through the system one day at a time. His game character Alburet is a summoner and gets “really close” to some in game NPCs. This book sets itself apart from most other LitRPGs in that late in this book, and the rest of the series parts are mild erotica. Don’t read if you don’t like that sort of thing.
Awaken Online
Awaken Online: Catharsis
Book 1 by Travis Bagwell
Score: 10/10
**Read this book, seriously just do it. This book got me into LitRPGs through a combination of great writing, engaging story and “can’t put it down” action.**
Jason, a student who hates the world, joins a new computer game called Awaken Online. His parents ignore him, fellow students pick on him and overall he is not enjoying life. But once he joins Awaken Online, he finally feels freedom to do what needs to be done to meet his end goals. The game is custom tailored to every player with quests, skills and abilities. Life within the game is hyper-realistic, and Jason soon finds he is turning into more of the villain than the hero. But every good story needs a good villain.
Awaken Online Tarot
Awaken Online: Ember
Tarot Book 1 by Travis Bagwell
Score: 8/10
Finn is the husk of a man he was long ago. After losing his wife to a freak car accident that he could have prevented, he goes from legendary AI programmer to barely functional introvert. This separate story follows Finn 10 years later as he makes his initial journey into the world of Awaken Online at the request of his daughter. The story takes place in the game city of Lehab, a cruel place where mages are pitted against one another through a grueling competition. Mages are tested, the failures stripped of their magic through a painful process, but even the successful have to be always on guard from attacks from within. How can Finn succeed in a place like this?
Chaos Seeds
Cradle
Unsouled
Cradle Book 1 by Will Wight
Score: 8/10
Power is gained by following paths and controlling the world around them. Most everyone has their path, but Lindon is deemed as Unsouled. His clan thinks the Unsouled are near worthless, and to be one is great shame. However a visitor from another land helps teach Landon that everyone has a path to follow, and through much determination, even an Unsouled can become something special.
Ender’s Game
Ender’s Game
Book 1 by Orson Scott Card
Score: 10/10
Before it was a ruined by a movie, it was a book. Ender’s Game represents an amazing read, I would arguably say my favorite single book of all time. Children, put against each other in a quasi-dystopian future where humans are racing to save their planet from an alien race nicknamed the “buggers”. These aliens had attacked and nearly defeated humans before the story begins. Now Ender Wiggin enters battle school and must continue to outsmart his fellow cohorts as he attempts to succeed. Battle school trains children to become commanders of the space fleet. But things aren’t always what they seem and by the end of the book you will love and appreciate the way the book brings everything back together. The story continues on in multiple books, all of which are worth a read but none were quite as amazing as this.
Level Up
Re-Start
Level Up Book 1 by Dan Sugralinov
Score: 8/10
What I like about this book series is that instead of the main character going into the game, the game interface, character stats and quests come out to the real world. This is an interesting twist since the entire story takes place in Russia.
Phil is an unemployed 30 year old gamer…
Life Reset
Life Reset
New Era Online Book 1 by Shemer Kuznits
Score: 9/10
What happens when you are the head of one of the top guilds in the most popular immersive video game system? Betrayal by your #2. That is the premise of Life Reset, the second in command enacted his plan to take over the guild and all of the power that it entails by turning Oren into a level 1 NPC. With no power and limited functionality, most people would delete their character and start over. But not Oren, he decides to make the best of a bad situation, plotting his revenge against his formal guild with some help from an in game AI who has their own agenda. Follow Oren as he struggles to learn the in’s and out’s of role playing an in game NPC, attempting to survive, learn and grow past his weak goblin stature into something truly awesome, a boss monster.
Mistborn
The Final Empire
Mistborn Book 1 by Brandon Sanderson
Score: 9/10
Vin is a 16 year old thief living in the streets of the capital city of Luthadel. She has survived her whole life on the run with a brother who has abandoned her, and now she works with a thieving crew to try to survive. As she is helping her crew leader, she catches the attention of a mistborn named Kelsier. Kelsier discovers Vin is a mistborn herself and teaches her how to harness the power an allomancy, someone who can ingest and burn metals to gain different temporary benefits related to the body and mind. Pushing and pulling on metal like a magnet, enhancing the senses, increasing physical abilities and the many other benefits await those who call themselves mistborn. The story follows Vin as she works with Kelsier who desires above all else to overthrow the Lord Ruler, the tyrant of the land who has lived a thousand years with an iron fist and is thought to be immortal. He also happened to be responsible for the death of Kelsier’s wife.
Ready Player One
Ready Player One
Book 1 by Ernest Cline
Score: 9/10
Maybe it the nostalgia of being a child of the 1980’s, or maybe it is how the story comes together in a corporate David vs. Goliath scenario, but either way Ready Player One scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. James Halliday is a man who created a future version of the internet called the Oasis, and has recently died. He puts forth a series challenges and anyone who completes these challenges will inherit the control of his company and the Oasis. Enter Wade Watts, a “gunter” who specializes in the Halliday challenges, with extremely limited resources. He is able to crack the first clue after many years of nobody making progress. The race is on and the evil IOI corporation will do whatever it takes to gain control of the Oasis. Wadd Watts and the other gunters must try to save the Oasis before the IOI corporation changes to an overly monetized system.
Underworld
Level Up or Die!
Underworld Book 1 by Apollos Thorne
Score: 9/10
Twenty teenagers are taken from the surface world against their will and thrown into the clutches of a thousand year old succubus master. These players will be given a chance to survive the underworld. Death is permanent here, and they will need to navigate their way through captivity to try to survive. Follow Elorion and the other students as they struggle to gain power which their new master can feed on, or else suffer. Elorion is a blue and white mage, able to both copy other creatures spells and provide healing. Join him and the others as they survive a dungeon not of their choosing.
The Stork Tower
Nascent
The Stork Tower Book 1 by Tony Corden
Score: 8/10
Atherleah Carroll lives in the slums of Brisbane Australia. The slums are referred to as negative tax families, meaning they are subsidized by the government through assistance. It is a rough world and to survive she works with a local gang leader who fights for the other negative tax families. At the age of 16, she is allowed to have a free government Personal AI chip embedded on her head like all citizens. However, instead she is given an experimental Neural Enhancement Chip which bypasses normal control measures as she fights to improve her existance and break free from the slums. She begins playing an online game Dunyanin to earn the money needed to gain an education. Along the way she discovers the local POD facility is run by a rich family who use a virus to take over people with the basic PAI chip and turn them into virtual slaves. Join Atherleah and her fight to improve her situation and free the victims from the virtual slavers.
Viridian Gate Online
Cataclysm
The Viridian Gate Archives Book 1 by J. A. Hunter
Score: 7/10
A cataclysmic asteroid is headed for earth. A small percentage of people are able to shelter deep underground until the surface is again habitable. For the rest of humanity, the only other option is to enter Viridian Gate Online. This process transfers your consciousness over to the digital realm, while your body will perishes. Jack Mitchel decides to use a NexGenVR capsule to make the transition, rolling the dice to not be the one in six that perish in the process. Corruption is afoot as the ultra wealthy buy their advantages in the game and Jack must deal with not only the struggles of survival, but of the corruption too.
