Good read overall.

Overall I liked this book, and more so as I'm assuming this is the first series of books the author has done. I can certainly see flaws in it, but I'll cover those at the end.

Firstly, I liked the characters overall. They are pretty well-rounded and distinct from each other in their personalities. The story is nothing ground breaking in terms of LitRPG, with it revolving around aliens - or perhaps ancient humans - changing the earth so that mana is a growing force in the world. Along with the change to people in that they can level skills and spells, if not personal stats. The magic/skills system is quite a good one and not one I've seen used in other LitRPG books so far, and revolves around gaining stones off strong monsters that can be used to slot into a skills tree to gain spells or abilities.

All that is fine and works pretty well on the surface. I wasn't a huge fan of a very over-powered MC, as in my opinion if this was a reality then every other human on Earth would be doomed due to the fact they wouldn't have enough powerful people to stand against the monsters - certainly not early on. Quite literally none of this lot would make it without the MC, so what hope would the rest of Earth have?

Book could do with editing better I thought. Two books down and still he has a Captain giving orders to a Major like he out ranks them. Major is a higher rank, and this is one of a few things that might have been, or should've been seen.

My only other real issue was the level of intelligence. Authors should not keep telling us a character is smart when they in actual fact act like a total moron. I liked that he called the MC intelligent and had him be socially awkward as this can happen with smart people. Smart people usually think faster than your average person. I have a high IQ myself and so can say you tend to see things faster than others, or see things they don't. The MC just makes glaring blunders I don't see a smart person making, or at least not quite as many. Anyone one can make mistakes, but thoughtless ones I don't expect.

For example, you have a place full of people that is safe from monsters. You know something is wrong with the place but you know you need that places node and four others. An intelligent person would see potential consequences of action here and the main character doesn't even consider it for a second. He also gets a ton of neon lit signs about who is against him but he doesn't see any of them. Or ones he does see he does nothing about. Heck, one of his group has abilities and skills that make him the perfect spy, but he never uses him to get to the bottom of those glaring issues. Even as the book concludes an enemy totally and utterly outs themselves in one sentence and it just goes right past the MC's brain. If I can see EVERY darn thing that happened in that last chapter including picking what the gift was for then it annoys me supposedly smart characters miss all of them utterly.

Either write smarter plots that aren't so blatant or have the characters be dumber and more likely to be duped. If a reader can see the plot, the villains actions with the same information the character has and they aren't even asking questions, it can be very frustrating as the reader.

Anyway, you might not find the same issues bother you, and overall they were only mild annoyances, but enough for me to take a star off the review. Still a good enough read for the genre and I enjoyed it.

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I like this series

I see some negative reviews, but I really enjoy the series. The magic system is unique, but as long as you don't sprain your brain trying to fully understand it it's fine. Like time travel, don't think too hard and just go for it. Characters are well fleshed out and interesting as is the apocalyptic world in which it's set.

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Love this series

I really enjoy Xander's series and look forward to book 3 even if it looks like it might be a little bit

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one hell of a book

It's a book that you will listen to again
an again good story very engaging a great performance

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Loved it

When is the next one please? This series are one of my “keep forever” runs. More please!

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5 star

as good as if not better then book 1 , usually moan it ended too soon tho .

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2 people found this helpful

Truly enjoyable

I really appreciate the light humour of this book. the characters are likeable as well and I want the to succeed. cannot wait until the next book.

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Great Follow Up

After the 1st one i was pretty excited how this one would go so with Daniels narration talent and having liked the books i was not disappointed with how the new characters we meet in this one work out.
The overall story is a bit past this series ARC i think but this iteration of Earth should have plenty of chapters in it.
The action scenes and how our red mage takes it all in makes for good listening and this is a decent length i find.
My only complaint is that i know I shall have to wait ages before the next one as the follow up isn't even out yet in book.

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Another excellent sorry

Xander does it again another great story base development and growth abound in this book.

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