Synopsis:
Karl is worse than a newb. He doesn’t even like role playing games. Still, they did give him a choice: totally immerse or die.
Now Karl is on his very first adventure into the gaming world of Bridge Quest. It’s a world so real that it’s hard to tell the difference between NPCs and the players; where tastes, smells, sounds and experiences are so vivid you forget you’re in an artificial world. Except for those pesky popups and stats charts, Karl discovers he’s having more fun than in real life. He even gets to kill orcs, gnolls, trolls, and goblins, and then hang out with gorgeous women.
And the best part is that he’ll never die…at least that’s what they told him.
Unfortunately, there is one significant drawback – there’s no coffee.
Review: Bridge Quest by PDMac 9/11/20
Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this audiobook free of charge in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
With so many LitRPG books on my radar, I was drawn to this one due to the idea that the protagonist is a n00b and knows nothing about video games, which I think is something I've not seen before. Aside from this, the whole 'terminal disease' angle to explain his situation is a little common now but, with the success of the LitRPG genre, original ideas are becoming a rare thing indeed.
The story itself is pretty original. While science attempts to find cures for the players' cryogenically frozen bodies, the players are logged into a fantasy world consisting of islands, all of which are separated by bridges which require certain measures to cross to the next island.
Our protagonist, Karl, is ex-military and as such is a no-nonsense, serious kinda chap and this does lead to his character being pretty unlikeable. Not due to anything he does but purely because he's just a little boring. A lot of the fun of LitRPGs is in the players excitement and wonder over what they're seeing but Karl seems to treat it like just another day on the farm and lacks any real sense of adventure in his demeanor.
Through this, his initial adventure across the starting island, Karl and his fellow players (all of whom have terminal illnesses) join forces with Karl assuming a leader role due to his military history and what follows is a pretty mediocre journey journey across the island, with pretty repetitious battles and a severe lack of fun throughout.There is some light harem thrown in but this feels very much like 'ticking a box' in the story planning.
The Narrator, Marc Szewcyzk, does a good job or reading the tale and instills as much excitement as the book allows but both a lack of variety and a sub-standard recording makes the whole experience very flat.
Being just 11-chapters long, and ending on a pseudo-cliffhanger, I was happy I read the book as there were a few 'real-world' moments that caught my interest but overall it was a very mediocre tale with an average performance which really did very little to impress.