This book was torture... Don't buy!

Number one rule of feedback: Always start with the good stuff!

This leaves me with the only option to once again praise Jeff Hays for his work, as he completely baffles me how he can make so many characters recognizable to me just by using his voice. I would love to hear more from him.

I can’t say the same thing about the author though.

As I wrote before, Arand’s universe was referred to me by a very good friend, who never told me what to read first. I decided to start with this trilogy because the author recommends it himself and for the life of me I can’t understand why…

This book is bad, really really bad…

There is only one real plot left, two if we are being generous, three if we go fishing. It begins in the hero’s private domain with a mop up operation of resistance and that takes time, so much time. Mostly because it is used as a plot device to once again enlarge the harem of Runner and establish now complete male dominance above every artificial female possible.

I understand that this is a story, which is literally set in a Harem Fantasy and I didn’t mind it in the first two books, when it served a purpose. Thanks to his high charisma stats the hero bound useful female NPCs to his party but in this book it is laid on thick, really really thick.

There are only a handful of men left on these pages, one is allowed to speak, most only get last words before they die or get simply slaughtered. By the way the antagonistic god from the book before is now just a footnote most likely because he can’t be part of the harem. He is replaced by a more defiant and attractive goddess, who seems to be a threat.

At this point a short excurse before we get back to the harem part. So far we have three story plots
- The Gods
- The internal politics
- The sci-fi setting
The internal politics are resolved after the first half of the book, it’s not completely unsurprisingly but I cringed hard, when it got mixed up with other stuff and some mentions even managed to get me angry, which is stupid but hey at least it got to me emotionally.

As pointed out in book two, the sci-fi setting was outsourced and is also only a footnote it basically serves now as a plot point that starts the author’s universe. Oh and his real human crew, is mostly forgotten about now, no matter if they are dead, banished or still in game.

The whole God-plot is not completely resolved but it is not left enough for another book. One of the main plot twists at the end is by the way completely irrelevant after a few minutes and only serves to make Runner a complete a-hole. The world building is also a bit shattered by the fact that the map is actually original earth and not really original.

Now the harem… my god…

At this point I have to admit a minor spoiler. The server gets an Update and Runner can now impregnate his harem to have them bear his children and they do… They actually can’t wait to do so, while he pretends he doesn’t want, just as he constantly pretends he doesn’t want more women in his harem and they just keep coming, so eventually he always gives up and welcomes them with open arms.

By the way don’t think that there are any challenges for Runner left, every time something comes up he just “thinks” he is danger, until the whole scenario resolves itself easily, after he finds a new power high.

But back to the harem, I know it’s the genre, I know it’s just a harmless fantasy and no harm is done but I simply couldn’t enjoy this book due to the fact that the harem basically WAS the whole story of the book. Everything else is just build around Runner getting more women and bind them ever tighter to his belt, from time to time quite literally. The final nail in the coffin is the epilog, when his first born basically begs Runner to give all his mommies (every woman in the harem) a big belly.

If this hadn’t been an audiobook I would have put it back on the shelf, as the last 40 minutes were almost unbearable to me.

I am willing to assume that the first 2 books in the series are the standard and this thing is just what happens when a fantasy gets out of control, so I will give the author another chance, after a few weeks or so and I will have to ask my friend for suggestion where to go from here.

All in all, if you liked the first two books of the trilogy, don’t buy this one. Read the synopsis and move on to the next. You won’t like Runner after this one.

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