AlterWorld: Play to Live, Book 1

I ended up buying this on an impulse after a friend of mine repeatedly nagged me (albeit good naturedly) to pick up this book. As anyone who has ever read a book based on a friend's recommendation goes, this can sometimes be unpredictable simply because everyone's tastes differ. I have to admit, I liked this book a lot more than I expected I would and I ended up finishing this within a day. It's not a perfect read, but it is a fun one.The book's appeal will largely depend on how you, the reader, respond to video games. As the novel is set within a MMORPG, there is technical jargon liberally sprinkled throughout the book. There is a glossary for very new readers, but part of the fun of the book (at least for me) played heavily on my own experience with video games. It was almost like reading a novelization of a Let's Play to a certain degree, a comparison that's not exactly accurate but somewhat close. It's definitely in the vein of similarly themed works like Sword Art Online, .hack, and Log Horizon, however the difference here is that by large the people "trapped" in the video game are there by *choice*. This brought up an interesting plot point because I'm sure that every gamer knows *someone* that would willingly live in a video game if that were possible.As stated above, this isn't a perfect book. There's some obvious wish fulfillment going on here since Max/Laith tends to have a lot go his way, but it's not to the point where it'd be overly obtrusive or ruin the book. It's pretty much done in a good natured way, playing on every gamer's fantasy about what it'd be like if they stumbled into the same scenario.In the end I really think that only gamers will truly appreciate this book, although that's not entirely a guarantee - reading about someone playing a game isn't to everyone's tastes after all, which is why I've compared it somewhat to watching a Let's Play. Some of us will devour hours of LPs while others just scratch their head and shrug, not understanding the appeal. I have a feeling that this will be the same, although I don't think that disliking LPs would necessarily mean that you'd dislike this book.

A well balanced book that treats the subject of leaving Earth permanently and living in a different world with the gravity it deserves. Not all authors get this right, some are very flippant about having people with a lot of stake in Earth just go and off themselves over a game. I'm far from the most optimistic about human nature and even I don't think that little of others. This is something you do intentionally when it's the best option, the only option, or you just don't have a stake in the world at all and this book acknowledges all of those points. Most of the permas are either the terminally ill or wounded war veterans, people who didn't have a healthy life on Earth anyways. The protagonist is in that former group.Overall the main character is sick of Earth's crap but once he has a better life he relaxes and enjoys it. It helps the devs are quite careless and left several different self powerleveling exploits open. I won't spoil that much of what happens, only that he seems intent on both getting the life he couldn't have on Earth, and taking advantage of his abilities so that he could be the warrior he couldn't on Earth.Just one thing though. What is with the tobacco? The game has booze so it's not that and it's certainly not politically correct. Is this just some cultural thing where smoking is really Serious Business?Final point: With all of the NPCs serving out some prime BS with a side of buzzword soup I expected a lot more, so much so that after such sterling reviews like that I almost removed a star because the offensive content I was promised wasn't actually there. I wasn't aware that a man taking pride in his own country and believing that females should look and act like women was a remotely controversial point of view and calling it one sounds like a them problem. The fact this is actually a common mentality is both the reason why escapism genres like this are so popular and why people can seemingly never get off this rock fast enough. This book offers a very pragmatic and thus accurate take on how the government would react.

I really loved this book which probably deserves 5 stars however I only gave it 3 since it is let down by this series, the first few books are amazing all a great read that makes you keep reading and reading until you are going through the entire series. However the problems occur in the later books which feel rushed where things seem to occur and then get left and other things dropped in as if we are supposed to know what they are or happens and conversations and promises fulfilled that we never even knew about. One of the glaring errors is with the switching of one of the characters names and genders which adds further confusion. It is a read shame as with a bit more time spent filling out the books and checking for errors all of them could have easily been 5 stars.With all of that it is still a good series and well worth a read.

There are not that many LitRPG with any length to them; so a 7 book series is nice. These are a great set and I enjoyed the whole set. I have only a couple of minor criticisms: there seemed to be too many characters towards the end who took important roles who did not seem to be developed and some plot lines seemed to be overlooked or omitted by the end of the book. I would still recommend them though and didn't want to drop a star for minor concerns.

A great LitRpg novel. Great premise and execution. The Russia point of view is enlightening in a western skewed genre. Recommended.

my 1st trip into the litrpg books and for me still the best series ive read, i have reread them a few times now and loved them all every time

This is one of the best series out there. You don't have to be a "gamer" to completely entranced by the story.