Andrew Rowe (1)

I sure feel like I'm on fire! This is my 9th SPFBO 2017 review!

I wanted to see what the hooplah with this book is because it's currently fighting to win the SPFBO contest (apparently it's just a few decimals away from Where Loyalties Lie, a book that I haven't read yet). I haven't read any of the semifinalists, (Senlin Ascends doesn't count because it was from the 2016 contest), so this was another reason why I wanted to read this book pronto.

After finishing the book, I can see why a lot of people enjoyed it. Is it the best SPFBO book ever? Considering I've only read 10 books out of 900, I haven't read enough books including those from prior years to be sure. But I am surprised that a LitRPG which isn't one of the classic fantasy genres to be gaining so much love.

Now, onto a basic premise of the plot. Corin is a member of a lesser noble house that only a few generations ago was granted that honor due to prior military feats during an ancient war. Corin is snarky and a pretty smart bookworm that doesn't mind cheating his way out of a puzzle. He's also emotionally detached from people and feels uncomfortable when asked for life coaching advice. After his older brother Tristan who was a natural prodigy fails the Judgement test (aka... an optional but expensive and very dangerous test for citizens of Valia but reaps big rewards mainly the chance to be bestowed with a magic granting ability from the goddess Selsys), Corin's family is torn apart. His brother presumed deceased, his mother leaves the house to enjoy the military life and his father reproaches Corin's flaky combat skills.

He isn't fully sure he's up to the challenge of the tower, but what the hell, we are thrown into the action in the very first chapter where he starts his rather... unconventional judgement. The first 10% of the story is awesome and a thrill to read. I don't play RPG games (at least not the ones these kinds of books are inspired from), so the dungeon puzzles were unexpected. After some rather... odd decisions and perhaps getting someone very angry, Corin sort of stumbles into an emergency exit and gets an attunement...

The fun of a huge portion of the book is how Corin tries to find the positives out of being awarded with a sort of engineer/toymaker magic. His father became furious that he wasn't "good enough" for a more combat oriented ability and awards a likely half-sister that was supposed to become his bodyguard named Sera as a new member of the family. She was granted an interesting monster manipulator ability but it isn't until later in the story that we know about the full extent of her abilities... Corin and Sera eventually form a nice brother-sister bond.

I also liked the personalities of the troupe of friends that Corin makes during the novel, each having a different ability that complements with his own. I wouldn't like to spoil too much of them...

Now, onto the bad. A lot of readers didn't seem to like the middle of the novel. That would include myself. Hurling similarities between Lorian Heights and Hogwarts aside, the book is initially about survival. Corin's brother is either dead or at the very least, imprisoned in the tower. Corin's father took him away from school and trained him relentlessly in fencing with strange mana blasting weapons called dueling canes 3 years prior to the first chapter. He's a bit behind in learning scholarly rune identification classes and interpersonal relationships. He either passes the judgement or he dies.

When he oddly enough succeeds in a rather strange way with a so-called "inferior" attunement, he has to start magic university. The stakes of death are dropped and now his worst problems are to rekindle lost friendships with childhood friends Sera and Patrick, pass his grades, and to make some money as an impoverished 1st year university student. What? Did I hear the word poor? This is one thing about this book that I couldn't understand. Yes, Cadence is a lower tiered nobility house, but they must have enough mojo to afford some books. I mean, come on! Okay, so Corin's dad is just one step away from disinheriting him, but his poverty still seems rather odd.

As if lowering the stakes during a huge portion of the novel wasn't enough, I couldn't understand the scope of Corin's ignorance about apparent common world knowledge. Being ignorant about Hogwarts worked well in Harry Potter because the protagonist was raised by muggles and out of his closest friends, Hermione was just as a n00b to the magical world as him and Ron came from a family of very poor social standing to be fully up-to-date with everything that wasn't related to international quidditch tournaments. However, Corin was born into nobility and his parents were reknown duelists. The idea that he hadn't even heard of a monster dueling competition (which seems to be a common activity for nobles in his nation) made me slap my face.

The middle of the book is filled with so many of these plot holed scenes (for story convenience) that the belief factor fell from the roof.

The final third of the novel picks things up and the ending is pretty good. I did however groan when we discovered the identity of the real bad guys (it seems like good and bad guy is sort of a grey area in this novel). So many secrets pulled out of the magician's hat that I wondered if parrot and bunnies would come forth as well.

Maybe I'm being too judgemental of this book because it reminds me too much of that mega hit anime/manga series Hunter x Hunter. The initial arc is the hunter exam and they also have a tower spiral quest. While I did enjoy the tower chapters of this book very much, the entire Hunter exam arc was better. Why? Two characters: Hisoka and Illumi. Nuff said. Didn't hurt that Killua grabs a criminal's beating heart just out of spite. This book on the other hand seems tame to the bone.

If I could compare Attunements vs Nen, I prefer Nen, hands down. The system is much more refined and I liked the whole array of different abilities from summoners. I myself would personality-wise be an Emitter due to my irrational nature or an Enhancer... While Kurapika sort of cheats and can have temporary access to all 6 types of Nen, most users only have free access to their dominant type for the rest of their lives. With proper training, they can obtain some enhancement from the other Nen varieties, but the ability will never reach 100%. I also like it that the stakes with Nen are higher. Do you want to be Kurapika powerful? Accept the risk of falling infirm with a fever at best and certain death at worst. Just look at what happened to Gon at the end of the Ant saga...

As for this novel, I think it would be fairer to compare it to another SPFBO LitRPG book: Dybsy. The book unfortunately hasn't gotten the attention it deserves and in my personal opinion, it's a better book. The stakes are higher, the plot seems to flow much better without a subdued middle part and it has bitcoin jokes. That alone gives the book extra points in my book. If you liked SAM, you'll probably enjoy that book as well.

All in all, while SAM is faulty with a bit too many plotholes than what I'd like, it has a compelling plot and I'll likely enjoy reading the sequel novel whenever it comes out.… (meer)

I sort of struggled with this book. I was vastly excited when the author posted the eye watering cover for the long awaited sequel and didn't wait a week after its release to snag a copy.

Now, if you haven't read Sufficiently Advanced Magic, you should brush that up before reading this one or else, you will feel really lost. That said, most of this book focuses on the aftermath of Corin's second visit to the spire with several new challenges he has to face, primarily, to find a way to heal his sister that ended up with severe injuries that inhibit her magic (she can no longer speak which adds more tension to the story), and the mysteries behind the new magic on Corin's arm that nobody seems to know what it does.

After realizing he's started to pack up a long list of enemies, Corin and Sera have moved into the house of their new ally Derek and have formed an alliance with the enigmatic but friendly foreign swordsmater Keras. Marissa and Patrick continue to play a consistent role as supporting characters during the story as the small group of magic apprentices have to finish their first year at Lorian Heights Academy.

There's a lot of good subplots in the novel, primarily Sera's ordeal and the tiny tidbits the story hints about Keras and his unique magic that can make even a visage tremble in fear. We also get to enjoy learning more about the different attunements of this little world.

The bad thing is that... the sequel repeats one of the main pitfalls of the first book which is that it not only has an insufferably slow middle, it enhances the slow part of the story on steroids and the book doesn't really begin until the 60% point. Yes, there's some good chapters with character backgrounds and world building, but 70% of the first half of the novel is Corin taking time off in his bedroom, reading an interesting ability in a book such as jumping real high or blasting mana from his hand without the need of a dueling cane that explodes in contact with many types of augmenting mana. Learning a new side ability which proves to the reader that even a supportive role in duels as an Enchanter is more flexible and thus, interesting as the first book implies; but when your book spends around 30% of the book with just slight variants of the exact same thing without really advancing the plot, then you have trouble.

Corin also has a rather uhh.. flat personality. One scene he's studious, another he shruggs his shoulders that he is going to get an average grade in a course, he feels really uncomfortable when people touch him, but he opens up to Cecily who is a person he's had a troubled past where it seems like their long awaited reencounter is all stars & butterflies. Very inconsistent. And no, his character doesn't develop much at all during the book. I personally didn't mind the parts of the story that hint he's sort of bi curious.

What I did find to be annoying is Corin's utterly condescending tone when he almost mocks Keras regarding Sheridan's self-professed asexuality. Apparently, people that worship the Wydd visage are sort of quirky and either think they are both young & old or both male & female but not physically like Wydd is, just in their minds. I found that chapter to be both too preachy for my taste and sort of out of touch with the rest of the society of the book where trains are still a novelty and it's socially okay for parents to beat the crap out of their children even in other people's homes if they have enough political power.

Worse, if you plan on choosing to add a self professed asexual character, maybe using a plural pronoun would confuse a lot of readers. They/them might be grammatically correct, but it still confuses you. I think the writer could have been better off inventing a gender neutral pronoun given the book already has other unique words such as resh. I tried to settle my mind into a train of thought that Sheridan had dual personalities to make reading the plural pronoun easier. If having an asexual character was supposed to be a super groundbreaking plot ploy, it isn't that novel to me. CLAMP's famous manga that was written in the early 1990's "X" features a villain named Naraku that was a bioengineered angel of death that was created in a secret lab. Oddly enough, I actually liked Sheridan's character a lot.

The world has a lot of promise, and while this is Corin's story, I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been told through Sera's POV. Andrew seems to write far more interesting and complete female characters and Sera not only kicks butt, she shows her moments of doubt during the book when she realizes she might have been left with permanent injuries for the rest of her life. Patrick is just... sort of there and while he seems like a nice person and his sorcery is starting to show promise, he doesn't seem to work as a particularly good retainer. Corin seems to save him everytime.

I'm not sure if I'll read the third novel whenever it comes out. I might give it a chance if the reviews state the sequels don't have endless slow chapters or perhaps focus a bit more on other characters. Still, I can see why a lot of people oggle over this series and if you don't mind novels that take seemingly forever to start off and characters that somehow beat overpowered enemies without having any deaths, you'll probably be hungry for the third book.… (meer)