Bookish Wednesday: The Sparrow by Edward Brody

This week for Bookish Wednesday I’m back with the second book in the Eden’s Gate series.  It’s The Sparrow by Edward Brody!

Plot Synopsis: After accepting the fact that he will never know his old reality again, Gunnar looks forward to building a new life inside Eden’s Gate. It’s time to form a guild, gather resources, and earn the acceptance of the Edgewood inhabitants. If only things were that easy… The dark elves aren’t thrilled about having humans in Edgewood, the mine isn’t vacant, and you can’t form a guild without at least a few guild mates.

Plot: The plot of this entry is much better than the first, mostly because it’s not full of Gunnar acting like a complete ass. That isn’t to say he doesn’t pull off some immature stuff occasionally, but it’s much better than the previous book. The book also really builds the world much better, letting us get to know Eden’s Gate in much more detail.

Characters: We get introduced to quite a few new characters in this entry, mostly Dark Elves. They are a pretty interesting bunch, and definitely not a stereotypical Dark Elf of modern fantasy.

Overall: A solid entry in the series, much better than the first entry.

Bookish Wednesday: The Reborn by Edward Brody

This week for Bookish Wednesday I’m covering another LitRPG series. It’s Eden’s Gate Book 01: The Reborn by Edward Brody!

Plot Synopsis: When Gunnar Long logs into into the first fully-immersive virtual MMORPG, he finds himself in a new world filled with magic, mystery and adventure. However not is all as it seems as the creator of the game, Rupert Winston, decides to close off the world’s exit to make the world a true reality. Now trapped in the game and separated by an unknown distance from the one person who he cares for who logged in at the same time as him, Gunnar must make some tough decisions…

Plot: The plot of this book is okay, there are some moments where I really wanted to throttle Gunnar, but overall the story was good. It’s not super amazing, but it’s not bad. There are some seriously overused tropes that were used, trapped in the game etc. However the take on those tropes was interesting enough for me to overlook it for the most part. I won’t say it’s the best LitRPG book I’ve read, because that’s absolutely not the case.

Characters: Like I said above, Gunnar made me want to throttle him sometimes, mostly because he acts like an ass. There are multiple reasons why I dislike Gunnar, but he does get some very needed character growth over the book. The rest of the cast is great, with Adeelee probably being my favorite character of the lot.

Overall: A decent LitRPG, better than some (Unbound Deathlords I’m looking at you), but not as good as others like Awaken Online.