Bookish Wednesday: Soulkeeper by Brian Simons

This week for Bookish Wednesday I’m covering another LitRPG, if anyone wants to recommend another genre to me, please by all means leave a comment below with a title suggestion and it’s genres. It’s Soulkeeper, Book 01 of the Travail Online series, by Brian Simons!

Plot Synopsis: Coral joined the immersive virtual reality video game Travail Online because her waitressing job, like so many other jobs, was automated by a growing robot workforce. She starts as a Seamstress, hoping to craft useful clothing in-game to sell for real life cash. The game, however, has other ideas…

Plot: The plot of this isn’t really amazing. I won’t spoil anything, but this has nothing really new going on for it, just a mishmash of various plot devices that are commonly used in both the Fantasy and LitRPG genres. Now this isn’t as bad as Unbound Deathlords, but it comes pretty close. The only thing preventing me from really tearing into Soulkeeper is the fact that the author didn’t try to write about and characterize Depression in a completely bullshit fashion, among various other faults that Deathlords had.

Characters: The cast of Soulkeeper is pretty boring, we’ve got a stereotypical Ice Queen, Immature Adult Asshole, Glutton and finally a Noob. Really, this cast is so generic that I’m not even going to bother saying anything else.

Overall: This is barely above trash bin material, but there are worse books to read. Just not very many.

For those who like: Mediocrity, Fantasy, LitRPG, Generic.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Manga Monday: It’s My Life by Narita Inomushi

This week for Manga Monday I’m doing a Quick Review of a series I stumbled across recently. It’s My Life by Narita Inomushi!

Plot Synopsis: Astra L. Doomsday, former captain of the royal knights has finally achieved his dearest wish: To retire and use his savings to get his very own house. But not long after finally arriving to his sanctuary, a young girl crash-lands into his house. The girl is an apprentice witch, and seems to mistake Astra for someone else.

Plot: The plot is hilarious, and very light hearted. Considering that I’m writing this post two days after the US Presidential Election I was ecstatic to laugh for any reason. Nevertheless I was very pleased by how good the story is, it’s not super original, but it’s still warmhearted enough to make me enjoy myself for the few minutes it took me to read the first chapter.

Characters: Astra is a great male lead to this series, while Noel is pretty clueless albeit in a cute sort of way for a child. They are really the only characters we get introduced to in this first chapter, I don’t think the small fry characters we meet will show up again. Probably.

Art: The art is wonderful, and fits this series very well. It could be a bit more well defined in the movement shots, but overall I love the artwork.

Overall: I’m going to give this the go ahead for now, as the story looks pretty promising.

For those who like: Comedy, Fantasy, Action, Laughing, Interesting Plots, Great Lead Characters, Awesome Artwork.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.