Forever Fantasy Online

<i>I received an advanced reading copy from the authors in exchange for an honest review.</i><br /><br /><b>Excellent characters, an engaging story and geek humour. What more can one ask for?</b><br /><br />Forever Fantasy Online is one of my first LitRPG novels, but thanks to the powerhouse couple of Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach, it will not be my last. I will start by talking just a bit about my experience with RPGs as this will provide some context for my review. While I had been quite a geek during my younger days, my RPG days (via books and PC) ended over two decades ago, and I did not have any exposure to multi-player online RPGs. Neither have I been in the anime scene to appreciate the inspiration of this trilogy, which is a hugely popular anime series called Sword Art Online.<br /><br />Notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed reading FFO as <b>Aaron/Bach have crafted an engaging story with excellent character development</b>. It is also a pretty fast-paced narrative which hit the ground running right from the very first chapter where our main protagonists, Tina and James, are already logged on to the virtual reality world of FFO when the environment suddenly became real. The story alternated between the two siblings' POVs as they both struggle with the brutal reality of survival with no inventory, no interface and hostile non-player characters who are no longer constrained by the rules of the game. On top of that, of course, they can feel pain, get hurt and have a high chance of dying for real. <br /><br />With the MMORPG backdrop, one can expect a lot of action scenes which befit usual gameplay, and FFO does this very well. Tina aka Roxxy, a stonekin knight, is the leader of a group of players making up the roles of tanks, healers and damage dealers. The battle scenes are written so vividly that even for one with not much knowledge of MMORPG, it did not take long to understand the roles of the different character classes and how they fit into a raid fight against a boss. Don't worry though if you have even less knowledge of all these RPG terms and think that HP stands for Harry Potter or perhaps that brown sauce from the UK; the book also contains a glossary of terms to assist the uninitiated. <br /><br />All that aside, great action scenes and nerdy stuff can only carry a story so far. It needs good characterisation. Rachel Aaron has demonstrated consistent proficiency in this area with her Eli Monpress and Heartstrikers series, both favourites of mine. Now it seems that the Aaron/Bach team has carried on with the tradition of putting forth likeable individuals with distinct personalities and personal demons into a roiling cauldron of almost impossible circumstances, thereby <b>shaping character growth most compellingly</b>. My personal favourite is James because his arc carries more emotional resonance as compared to Tina's. There are also loads of great supporting characters who helped framed our main protagonists' development throughout their respective storylines.<br /><br />Aaron/Bach's writing style is efficient and unembellished. This is a quality which I have always appreciated as it does not distract; making it easy to get immersed in the story. In short, if you are looking for <b>a riveting and fast-paced read that also has a good dose of geek humour to boot</b>, I recommend picking this title up.<br /><br /><i>You can purchase a copy of the book from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Forever-Fantasy-Online-FFO-Book-ebook/dp/B07D8QTWJM/" rel="nofollow noopener"><u><b>Amazon</b></u></a></i><br /><br /><i>You can also find <a href="http://novelnotions.net/2019/03/28/forever-fantasy-online-ffo-1/" rel="nofollow noopener">this</a> and my other reviews at <a href="http://novelnotions.net/category/book-reviews/tss-reviews/" rel="nofollow noopener">Novel Notions.</a></i>

I have been a fan of the Heartstriker series for a while and I also happen to love LitRPG, so when I heard that Rachel Aaron was co-writing a new LitRPG book I was stoked! Then I heard that it was going to be a “stuck in a video game” storyline and I immediately became nervous. Of all the plotlines in LitRPG “stuck in a video game” is my least favorite by a wide margin. I considered myself totally burned out on them, and I was very concerned that although I’m a fan of Aaron’s, I still wouldn’t enjoy this book.<br /><br />YAY for being wrong!<br /><br />I listened to the audiobook, and although it wasn’t voiced by Vikas Adams, it was pretty good. I had to speed it up though, I usually listen at 1.5x but I was at 2x for this one.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The book does start out by feeling stereotypical and I was so worried, but it started to diverge from other litrpgs at around 15%, (in respects to how the characters dealt with their situation, and in some of the world-building).<br /><br />There are two main characters, a brother and sister named James and Tina. We get to see two totally different scenarios where players have been trapped inside a video game turned reality.<br /><br />When the game goes haywire the brother and sister are in different locations. Tina was on her way to a raid when it happened and she’s with a large group of people auditioning for her guild. All around her people started dropping to the ground writhing in pain and unable to cope with an overload of sensory input. All at once, every player in the game lost contact with their sign out screens, their inventory, their entire interface for the game was wiped out and things “got real”. The geography and structures in the world expand, what used to take 4 hours to cross the entire map will now take days or weeks. Tiny yurts with nothing in them have expanded into family-sized dwellings fully decked out with furniture and living supplies, while castles have gone from big to enormous. The game essentially went from being a caricature of a fantasy world into a full-blown reality.<br /><br />Tina is stuck between a rock and hard place, she’s trying to get a giant group of people up and moving away from the boss fight – but they are so bewildered and half of them don’t believe what’s going on or understand the true dire circumstances they’ve gotten themselves into. The demons and skeletons and every other baddy in the game have now turned sentient. They don’t just meander around waiting for you to go up to them to start a fight, they aren’t stupid, using the same predictable moves over and over again either. There are also no more respawns, no more unlimited consumable items, and casting takes much more mana than it did before – everything has become harder. Tina’s mission is to get everyone to safety, but to do that they have to cross days worth of wilderness full of things that want to kill them.<br /><br />James finds himself in a very different situation when the change hit, he was out in the middle of nowhere in a small village of cat people all by himself. What he realizes very quickly is that every NPC in the game hates the Players. Unbeknownst to the Players, the NPC’s have been fully cogent during what they refer to as “The Nightmare”, where they were forced to re-live the same days, the same torments, the same deaths every single day. They knew the whole time that they were being controlled by an outside force, and they completely aware of what was happening when they were killed by fire, skinned alive, possessed by demons etc. The cat people want James and every other Player dead, they want revenge, and James is now surrounded by them. He has to earn their trust by helping them deal with an onslaught of problems. He tries explaining to them what a video game actually is, where he’s actually from, and why he knows so much more about their world than they do. He’s already completed the quests in their area, and those quests are now running wild without players to “solve the problems” of the villagers. Certain areas where people used to level up are now swarmed because every “quest” happening at once.<br /><br />What I really loved about this is how much struggle the two MC’s go through when trying to adjust to the fact that they’re in a video game. I just read another LitRPG ‘stuck in a video game’ book and the MC was like “ok, I guess I’m in a video game now”. There was no struggle with the improbability of their situation, there was no thought of home, it left the character feeling very flat. In this book though, everyone is reeling from what happened, there’s a lot of character development and it makes this book stand out from the rest. I read a 3-star review saying the characters didn’t grow much, and that’s true – but this book also takes place over several days. I’d honestly say it’d be less realistic if the characters had some kind of massive growth and change in their personalities over that short of time period. The cahracters I felt did have much more depth than is typically delivered in this genre – there was a lot of development and foundations for them to grow in later books.<br /><br />The struggle wasn’t just emotional, either. They had to adjust to all of these new bodies, James is now a cat person and he finds himself completely fluent in their language, despite not knowing it before. Tina’s character is a giant rock person, so when she first is dealing with her new body she’s falling over herself, grasping things too hard, and found it difficult just to move around. There are very interesting implications about fundamental changes each race has as far as persona/sexuality. A side character points out that he’s no longer attracted to humanoid female forms and really loves fish people now – as his character is a fish person. There’s a lot of thought that went into how very different a video game and a reality would be, and how hard it would be to adjust if you truly “became your character”.<br /><br />I did not like Tina at all when I first started reading, it’s not that she wasn’t developed, she just rubbed me in all the wrong ways. She’s quick to anger, she’s not afraid of using force to get her way, she’s known for being bossy and she’s pretty relentless with her bitterness towards her brother. It’s clear she’s a type A, pull yourself up and work hard kind of person with little to no patience for those who don’t fall into line with her thinking. As I got to know her through the rest of the book I softened a bit to her, I wasn’t irritated reading her chapters after about the halfway point – but James is my man.<br /><br />James is an easy going but kind of ‘lost’ person, he feels down about himself and considers himself a failure. He doesn’t get much support anymore from his family and feels like he’s not going anywhere in life. He tries his best to help the cat people despite their hatred for him. He’s played the game for many years, and each time he logs in and out of this particular village because it’s a lower level out of the way place, where he’s the only one who spawns there, and he’s begun to think of it as home.<br /><br />Many LitRPG’s have heavy stats used throughout the book, where you’re told each and every time they level up in any aspect of their character, quite frankly I skip those paragraphs because they’re incredibly boring to me. Thankfully, this book took a different approach and got rid of the health bars, stat bars, and all of that in favor of something more nuanced. James is a level 80, so he’s capable of taking a beating from a ton of lower level mobs without taking much damage. He’s not able to tell specifically how much health he’s losing, but he knows that in certain areas of the game he will “out level” the general NPC’s and in others, he needs to watch his back.<br /><br />This is a long damn review, but honestly the book is 500 pages which is considerably longer than most LitRPG’s – there was a lot to talk about ?<br /><br />Audience:<br />* female pov in litrpg<br />* multi pov<br />* litrpg<br />* lots of fantasy elements<br />* in depth world building<br />* lots of action<br />* audiobooks<br /><br />Ratings:<br />* Plot: 12.5/15<br />* Characters: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://13.25/15">13.25/15</a><br />* World Building: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://13.75/15">13.75/15</a><br />* Writing: 12.5/15<br />* Pacing: 12/15<br />* Originality: 13.5/15<br />* Personal Enjoyment: 9.5/10<br /><br />Final Score: 87/100 – 5 stars (highly recommended)<br /> <br /><br /><br /> <br />

Popsugar challenge #48: Un libro acerca de un juego de rol<br><br>This is my first gamer-lit book. I'm not a gamer, but I liked the fantasy of another world reality stuff. This is a know trope about the players stranded inside the game, that I think I see it before in movies?<br><br>I liked the character of James in his inside the village situation, rather than Tina, with her close minded mentality.<br><br>Los hermanos Tina y James Anderson han estado jugando por siete años el juego de rol de realidad virtual multijugador en linea (VRMMORPG) :<i>Forever Fantasy Online</i> en la onda Dungeons&amp;Dragons con magos, elfos, gigantes, bandidos y piratas, monstruos y zombis. Pero mientras Tina -cuyo alias es Roxxy- juega como <i>Tank</i>, con la forma de una suerte de La Mole, una fuerza de choque capitaneando una liga de asalto a calabozos contra villanos adquiriendo habilidades y tesoros. En tanto el hermano mayor, James, quien en la vida real tiene un monton de trabajos parciales viviendo lleno de deudas y frustaciones, se ha decantado por una vida en una villa de <i>jubatus</i> (especie de guepardos hominidos) con magia curativa adquiriendo conocimientos y mascotas.<br><br>De pronto, por un hecho sin explicar hasta ahora, quedan todos atrapados en el juego, donde la muerte ahora es real, y la física empieza a actuar, y los no-jugadores empiezan a actuar fuera de reglas. Ah, y los odian.<br><br>Uno empieza la novela creyendo que va a simpatizar con Tina, quien esta a punto de sacar titulo de bibliotecaria , pero al final terminó cayéndome muy mal. Y terminé simpatizando más con los nativos. Tina es la encarnación de todos los conquistadores en todos lados. Solamente le interesa SU opinion, nunca escucha a los demás y cree ser la única que puede rescatar a los jugadores . Y, para ser bibliotecaria, me extraña mucho que no haya leido algo del 'lore' del juego.<br><br>Scowling, Tina reached up to scrape some of the dried silver blood off her temple. Anders had been right on a lot of levels. Being Superwoman was cool, but now that the reality of not being human had set in, it was unsettling. She’d never paid attention to the game’s lore beyond what she needed to run dungeons and beat bosses. She’d chosen a stonekin because they made good tanks, but beyond that, she knew nothing about her race. For all she knew, she didn’t need to eat at all. <br><br>El libro sacar a relucir aspectos de humanos y sociedad, que parece una moderna no muy distinta a la actual.<br><br>Los jugadores que quieren ser otra persona, como cambiar de sexo, o ... burlarse del resto sacando ventaja de ello como "NekoBaby".<br><br><a href="https://postimages.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1562994362i/27819120._SY540_.jpg" alt="5897b6ce3710d" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><br>Y es claro que el elfo-ninja-asesino y mejor amigo de Tina "SilentBlayde" guarda un doloroso secreto aparte de su crush por ella.<br><br>James , en otra parte del juego, se encuentra en medio del odio tras ochenta años de esclavitud segun los de ese mundo, y debe encontrar pronto una forma de sobrevivir poniendo juntos sus conocimientos del juego y un poco de diplomacia.<br><br><i>“Our world returns to normal, and we are able to move once more,” she said. “But we know not how or why we were imprisoned these last eighty years. We know not where the ‘players’ of the Nightmare came from, where they went, or if they’ll return.”</i><br><br>El problema es que se enfrentan todos, habitantes y jugadores , a lo que parece ser una fuerte ofensiva masiva de los No-Muertos y del Once-King. :insertar musica de nigromantes:<br><br>La historia pasa desde el escapismo de los personajes jugando en realidad virtual, la enfermedad que esto ha desarrollado.<br><br><i>Like most FFO players, James had heard plenty of horror stories about the VR-induced mental disorder. People with Leylia’s suffered from random involuntary waking lucid dreams. The smoking gun was when they couldn’t wake themselves up during an episode. No matter what they did, they were trapped in the delusion, moving in reality just as they did in the dream. Like sleepwalking but a thousand times more dangerous, because people with Leylia’s had no way of knowing what was real and what was a hallucination.</i><br><br>Termina la historia en un 'continuara' de un cuasi cliffhanger.<br><br>Esto esta pensado como una trilogia y hasta ahora hay dos libros, y voy a buscar ahora el siguiente.

I picked this up as part of a reading challenge to read a litrpg novel. I went in with an open mind but unfortunately this just wasn't the book for me. I think the litrpg aspect could have been more exciting and interesting if there was more dungeon crawling or questing. Instead the characters spend a lot of time yelling at each other and arguing and I just didn't enjoy that. I almost gave up on this book pretty early on when there was an almost rape scene and while it was dealt with it still left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't like Tina at all and I found her chapters to be incredibly frustrating. James was a more interesting character and I found his parts of the book to be intriguing. Unfortunately that wasn't enough to keep me interested. Every time I put the book down I struggled to pick it back up because I just wasn't interested. If I didn't need this for my bingo square I wouldn't have finished it.

I figure I should at least drop my weighted ratings in if Im going to be too lazy to write reviews:<br /><br />Plot:9/15<br />Prose:3/5<br />Character:15/15<br />Setting:15/25<br />Dialogue:8/10<br />Enjoyment:30/30<br /><br />Total: 80/100

WHY WOULD YOU END IT LIKE THAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!<br /><br />I listened to this one on audio, and I have to say that the narrator, Josh Hurley, did a fantastic job. He really brought all the characters to life, giving each of them their own voice. Sometimes I forgot it was only one person telling the story! For me, that’s a mark of a great narrator.<br /><br />Oh man, this story was a lot of fun. I experienced so much nostalgia from my World of Warcraft days while listening to this book. It had all the common elements from games like these, but felt especially reminiscent of WoW. I appreciate the constant sense of danger our characters find themselves in, this really helped keep the book on pace, but I do kind of wish we’d gotten to see some aspects of these games that are built in for a little silliness and fun other than just raiding and leveling up. Like an auction house, or a fair…stuff that might not have to do with advancing your character. Or even a character or set of characters set in a PvP loop would be interesting. (Especially if it’s like WoW’s capture the flag…that could be fun.) Anywho.<br /><br />One of the things that I thought was interesting about this one, besides of the mystery of how they’re all trapped in the game and how things work differently or the same as they did before they became their avatars, is the characters themselves. The characters in this one…some of them aren’t particularly likable. In fact, I found the main character of Tina aka Roxxy, to be fairly annoying at times. And yet, I still rooted for her! I think, in part, because I love some of the side characters in Tina’s group so much, like SilentBlayde and Frank. (I love Frank. I want to be in the Frank Fanclub.) I liked James quite a lot. You definitely get the sense that this is going to profoundly grow his strength of character outside of the game as well, if they can ever return to normal.<br /><br />I like that there’s a major mystery that needs to be solved (like how they got trapped) and other mysteries that may just be interesting to unearth (like who some of these people are outside of the game—SilentBlayde for example). Aside from that, I enjoyed the world-building and the various in-game cultures that had to be made ‘part of the game’ and then fully realized once things became ‘real’. I especially enjoyed all of this through James’ story much more than Tina’s.<br /><br />If there is one downside to this book for me, it’s the length. The audiobook was nineteen hours and twenty-two minutes. NINETEEN. I am not all that familiar with LitRPG yet as a sub-genre, but I feel like that’s long for this type of story. That being said, I do think there was enough action to keep things going and even though it was long, it was very fast-paced. It very easily could have gotten bogged down, especially as it is very dialogue heavy, but I feel like the book avoided feeling too heavy and the plot kept moving forward.<br /><br />Well, okay the only other negative is something that happens pretty early on in the story, an incident that is condemned but then the character is shown to be somewhat redeemable. I kind of question their redeem-ability to be quite honest, but I’m willing to see where the authors go with this character’s story arc.<br /><br />Overall, Forever Fantasy Online is a pretty fun book and especially enjoyable to listen to. I think having some experience in gaming enhances your experience of it as well. I’ll definitely be listening to the next one once it’s released, and not just because this one ends on a giant cliff-hanger.

This was my first venture with litRPG. In fact I had never heard of it before this book. I read this solely based off the reason I loved Rachel Aaron’s Heartstriker series, which you should read immediately if you like urban fantasy. <br /><br />The game forever fantasy online is a popular role playing game. It uses virtual reality (think ready player one) to give a full immersion experience. Tina is an expert player and is getting a group together to raid the dungeon and beat the unbeaten last boss, the Once King. <br /><br />Her brother James is also a great player, but he prefers the fun and more beautiful levels instead of beating the last level. His personal life outside of the game is sad and disappointing, he has a strained relationship with his family, a dead end job, and is in debt up to his eyeballs. <br /><br />While they are playing, a glitch happens. Everyone playing the game gets pulled into the world of forever fantasy online for real. They are turned into their avatar. This is frightening and surreal for everyone, at first they don’t think it’s real. But they soon discover death isn’t cheap, the villains are much smarter, and the non playable characters have a lot to say about their slavery for the past 80 years. <br /><br />I loved this book. I have never played a MMO or RPG, so the book does a good job of explaining roles to people like me while not slowing it down too much for people who play the games. <br /><br />James was my favorite character. I loved his story and his character growth. Tina wasn’t a bad character but she is difficult to like. She’s a bit bossy, and she’s called out on it by her fellow guild members frequently. I think she will be better in book 2. <br /><br />This book did get preachy toward the end, with James negotiating a treaty between two clans. The heartstrikers series had this problem too. It’s a good lesson, but at the same time, it feels like a lesson instead of a natural situation or conversation. <br /><br />I loved the gender roles that were explored. Some players have an avatar of the opposite sex, and while it is humorous, it also is explored in a serous manner. Some characters have avatars that aren’t human, and it was interesting to see the changes. <br /><br />I’m looking forward to the sequel.

Overall I thought this book was okay, the world in this book is more interesting than the main characters. <br /><br />Tina’s side of the story is mostly whining and complaining. I feel like the whole sexual assault thing was a vehicle to explain the mental disorder confusing virtual reality with actual reality but they don’t go anywhere with it. They don’t tell any of the other players the assailant is suffering from it, it wouldn’t excuse his action in game but it would help explain them, sine they ALL thought they were dreaming. So that part felt a bit unnecessary. <br />I also feel there wasn’t much character growth. Tina spent most of the book feeling bad she let people down and didn’t listen to them, so when she had the chance to band everyone together and was pissed she had to give up absolute control to let people have a say it cemented my dislike for her. It showed she never changed despite all she went through. <br />James’s side of the book was much more interesting. The story and npc characters had more to them than just hatred for players. Watching them change and grow made up for some of the disappointment in Tina’s story and is what kept me reading. I will most likely check out the next book but I won’t slog through it like this one if I start to feel disappointed.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Forever Fantasy Online has a lot of firsts a first for Rachel Aaron, it's her first collaborative effort (with her husband Travis Bach no less), and it's her first foray into the LitRPG genre, also it's Travis Bach's debut as well. I was lucky to be given a draft of this book and I also read the finalized version.<br /><br /> The story is set from the viewpoints of a brother-sister duo, Tina and James Anderson. Tina and James are both massively experienced players in Forever Fantasy Online, a game that has taken the world by storm and managed to give an experience that's unparalleled in virtual reality. Tina's avatar is Roxxy, a stonekin person who performs the role of Tank in her guild. James on the other hand is a Jujubatu (a cheetah like anthromorphic creature), both of them are great in FFO unlike their real lives wherein their relationship is frayed horribly.<br /><br /> They both log in at similar times along with many, many others and find out that there's been a snag, suddenly all of their virtual equipment and weapons no longer work as before. They seem to be locked into the game and not only that, the sensations are more life like and none of them can log out. They are stuck in the game and all of their previous conquests are coming back to attack them. Also all the other characters which are present in the game or NPCs (Non Player Character) have a violent hatred towards any and all players are actively wanting to kill any player that they can get their hands on.<br /><br /> This story is a classic LitRPG story wherein we get a spectacular view into the world of FFO and also the things that are occurring simultaneously within both James' and Tina's POVs. The story builds up slowly as the reader shares the same confusion that these characters experience. We also get an idea much quicker than the characters but the world is more unknown to us than the characters. The story is literally into two quests, Tina is trying to save her guild or what's left of it from impending doom behind them. James on the other hand is trying to save his own skin as the Jujubatus are hunting the players. <br /><br />Both of them have to undergo their own struggles and this is where we get to see how they respond to their individual challenges. I must admit amid both the POVs I preferred James' struggles as his self loathing and easy going nature made his struggles that much more refreshing and relatable. Tina on the other hand while having more of the action, was a bit harder to understand. Tina is shown to be a stonekin and perhaps the authors' were more successful than they thought as Tina's POV shows her to be hard and demanding. This however is absolutely needed as you will learn when you read the story. Many of her guild mates dislike her but you can see how she's trying everything that she can to survive and make everyone else survive. <br /><br /> There are a couple of other characters namely SilentBlayde and NekoBaby who are present in Tina's chapters and are quite fun to read about. SilentBlayde is Tina's second-in-command and does their best to make sure that Tina gets all the support she needs. NekoBaby is simply hilarious with whatever scenes she gets and I hope the authors explore her story in the sequels.<br /><br /> The action sequences are pretty epic and feature terrific battle sequences. The action is very heavy in Tina's sections as they literally are marching to save their lives while battling ghosts, zombie skeletons, and many more creatures. James' sections feature more of the world and the magical fights as his quest has him helping an NPC titled Ar'Bati to save his sister. Both these parallel tracks keep the readers engrossed however readers will easily have their favorite. Lastly I enjoyed how seamless this book was, the book was one fine mix wherein you couldn't tell who wrote what section. I love this in collaborated stories.<br /><br />Overall the story expands really strongly and then ends on a solid cliffhanger, which make me want to read the next book The Last Bastion immediately. Forever Fantasy Online is definitely a book for the gamers among us readers, I'm not a gamer so there were some terms that were unknown to me. Thankfully the authors included a glossary which was great for a non-gamer like me. The one thing about the book which wasn't helpful was the book's pace which took a while to get going. Also the reveal as to the major reasoning about the world's status is never addressed and this is a major concern. I'm going to read the next one but I would have liked to know more about the whys and hows of the world.<br /><br />CONCLUSION: Forever Fantasy Online was one of my first LitRPG reads and it was an exciting one. I was intrigued to see how Travis and Rachel Aaron's collaboration would be. It was a solid effort and the story was one which I thoroughly enjoyed. Can't wait for the sequel....

GAMING + one of my favorite authors !!! <br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1440985333ra/16048814.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy">