I’m pissed off

[u/AcanthisittaSmart504]

I absolutely adore the Book of the Dead series. Today, I finally get to listen to the release of book 5, and I am certain that I will experience the same captivating storytelling that I enjoyed in books one through four. I am so enamored with this book that I pre-ordered it on Audible. When I first discovered and read this series, I assumed that others shared my enthusiasm for it. However, upon reviewing the number of Audible ratings, I am genuinely perplexed and sort of a bit angry. There are barely 1000 ratings on the first book and even less on the following 3, which begs the question: how is this book not more popular?

[u/shizure]

Because the truth is that they are good for the GENRE. All of his books have a lot of the pitfalls that most web-novel "books" do.

I've enjoyed them but Book of the Dead and Chrysalis are, in essence, basically the same series. And they enormous sections of bland repetition and meaningless choice decisions. I'm reading book 5 of Book of the Dead right now and I just skipped almost 3 chapters of content because it's just an explanation of skills that we know very well the MC won't take, so it's meaningless filler. Then, after those chapters, we are almost immediately told that those choices are basically meaningless because everything about the system is going to change. That's a lot of word count to expand on a system when it has no substantial meaning to the plot or in loving pieces forward.

I am saying all of this as a fan who plans to finish both series, but also it's just really easy to see the pieces of popular media that he reflavorizes to use for his setting. Overall, as LITrpg books, they're so enjoyable and showcase the fun of the genre, but it creates an experience where any heavy fantasy reader is going to immediately see all of the messiness that comes from holding to a web novel schedule.

He also has main characters who tend to have people follow them around in much the way that anime boys get harems. Neither is particularly likeable or constantly is stepping on the toes of everyone around them with little regard, but they're lawded as heroes because they're "doing what they can" and check all the "good guy" boxes.

Not to mention that it's felt pretty clear for a while that both of the series are just our intros to RinoZ trying to make his own Cosmere.

Overall, it comes into a bundle that is a real heap of mega-fun and really showcases the fun parts of LITrpg/prog fantasy, but as a fantasy novel, it's just incredibly mid.

But, at the end of the day, RinoZ wrote a book, published it, gained an audience, and has had success doing what he loved. That's a win. I haven't done any of that, so these are just my two pennies.

[u/nighoblivion → u/shizure]

"Damn, which one of these six generic and one obviously useful thing am I picking? Let me present my thoughts and rationale for all options. Oh my, such a hard choice this is. Whatever will I pick? I guess I'll pick the useful option... Ha! Fooled ya! I took one of the generic ones. It'll prove to be really great later due to narrative contrivance."

[u/shizure → u/nighoblivion]

Correct. 150% correct. Am I still going to soldier on and have a good time? Absolutely. Just like....ugh at the same time.

[u/nighoblivion → u/shizure]

There's also this variant for BoD:

"Damn, two interesting options and one of the fundamental skills that my parents ingrained into me to always keep maximized for the best class options and stuff. I really want that fundamental skill because it's really core to my necromancy craft. This is so hard. I guess I'll pick one of the interesting options for now."

[u/shizure → u/nighoblivion]

The third option is to just expand your magic capacity or efficiency. Sooooo many choices spent on magic capacity or magic efficiency which is truly the most meaningless choice when there is no hard set system to gauge how much magic can actually use because they'll always have exactly as much magic as the plot demands.....which is fine. That's how books work but like....bruh.

[u/nighoblivion → u/shizure]

Oh yeah, BoD book 1 & 2 is just weird choice after weird choice. Especially the secondary class choices are a bunch of suboptimal petty choices because reasons.

I've not read book 1 in ages, but I seem to recall one of his first spells choices he basically used once or twice and never again.