Avatar Online Launch

puertorico0597
Feb 27, 2018
3 min read

Hey guys, I know I been behind on book reviews. Hurricane Maria has taken a toll on me and I'm trying to catch up on my projects. However, I had the pleasure of reading the debut book of new GameLit/LitRPG author, W.D. Nix. We became rather good friends despite our age difference and different taste in writing. Anyway, I present you with my review of Avatar Online Launch, the first in what is hopefully much more to come.

Disclaimer: This review will be a bit different as it's a LitRPG book which has additional elements which make it different from normal books.

Story: 85/100 Blurb from Amazon: Mara has come a long way since high school. She is a teacher with a strong will and a fierce heart. She will fight for herself and her best friend Kitty, no matter who tries to hurt them. When she wins the opportunity to be one of the first to play Avatar Online, both of the women are excited until they find themselves trapped with men they despise.

This starts out like a normal day at school for a teacher and I like how that it's a gradual turn towards the game world instead of an abrupt entrance. The flow in the story is natural, so I was able to relate and it eases in towards the game world without being so in your face.

The story revolves around a character named Mara who wins an opportunity to play Avatar Online. To be honest, this trope tends to be overused quite a bit. However, I'm open-minded and decided to go deeper into the book and I was happy I did. Eventually, Mara and her best friend get into the game. They're excited about playing the game and what builds the story is the emotional connection that the characters have. It gives reason to the story and adds a certain emotional flavor that other books lack. There are a lot of good ideas in here, of course, due to the length it reads like it's a bit rushed.

At the same time, this is W.D. Nix's first book, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. The story was great enough that I will be getting his second book.

RPG/Game Elements: 70/100 This is where the book falls a bit short for me. While I'm not a total crazed man for stats, this book did have room to include more of them. This book is rather light on the RPG elements and while that doesn't bother me too much, it might for someone else. As another reviewer said, I too would have loved to see a character creation screen. I'm a total fanboy for creating characters

To be fair the book does take place in a "Beta" MMORPG, so in future installments, the mechanics should be better defined. I can't wait to see that.

Overall take the fact that this is taking place in a Beta version of a video game and you should enjoy it like I did.

Dialogue: 90/100 The dialogue is well executed and at times you can see where the author really added some raw emotion to the story. At times it reads like a well-mastered cutscene in an RPG video game. W.D. Nix got me with the dialogue to the point where I felt that I was in the game talking to the characters or at least rooting for them.

I really hope the author doesn't shy away from the great dialogue. I understand he might want to improve the RPG elements, but please don't shy away from the great dialogue. I want to cry when reading, lol.

Overall Power Score: 82/100 Taking the average of all three aspects, this book is around a B- to a B or 4/5 stars roughly. I'm proud that W.D. Nix has the guts to release a book and it takes alot to do so. The book has a lot of raw emotion in it and overall I enjoyed it. Is there room to improve? Sure, heck even I have room to improve, it's how we learn. I don't blow smoke up people's butts, so this is a great start. I look forward to reading his next book and he even took the time to recommend some authors to check out in his back matter.

One of them is myself, thanks man for the recommendation. That is what it's all about, helping and supporting each other.

So that will do it for this review and if you like to check out Avatar Online Launch click below! It's only 99 cents!