Into the Pit: A LitRPG Adventure

DNF at 66%. Trigger warning, I was super triggered when writing this.

I muddled through the first book despite it being fairly uninspired and clearly derivative of Dungeon Crawler Carl (at least he admitted in the forward that he literally talked to DCC's author, so that was expected I guess). My complaints then were that the rpg part of litrpg was incredibly lacking. A quest would reward +1 to some stat, a stat which we had never heard of up until this point, and we still, to this day, probably don't even know what it does. I get that the point of this “system” is to be hostile towards the players, but it is like the author was just making up the system as he went along, and there was zero reason for the reader to care about it at all beyond it forcing the characters to do stuff for the author to send them where he wanted.

But even still, I finished it and didn't hate it, and I was willing to read more. Well, this book fixed that mistake. I was already growing bored and tired of the ENDLESS moralizing and monologuing by the main character, Brad. Did you know he was bullied as a kid? Did you know that he almost killed himself because of it? Did you know that a teacher talked to him and convinced him to get jacked, and Brad used that to bully the bullies, only to later regret being such a meany? Did you know he was in the Air Force, and apparently every superior office there was a bully too? Did you know that Brad has to be careful not to “go to a dark place” whenever he loses his temper? Did you know that Slash (his dog) means the world to him, and the very thought of losing him or him getting hurt risks sending Brad into one of those rages?

Well, if you somehow didn't know all of that after the first book, you can't help but pick up on it after every single one of those facts being repeated about a dozen times during the course of this book. Because that's what this book is. Not lots of cool litrpg questing and skill increasing and gaining cool powers all the other stuff common to the genre. No, this book is about Brad telling us those things over and over again, with a couple of incidental things the system forces him to do mixed in (along with a huge helping of Brad telling us just how much he hates this antagonistic system). Sure, maybe the final third of the book that I didn't read turns things around completely, but I don't care, you lost me already.

Now, all of that wasn't enough to make me quit, but it was getting close. The exact point I quit is when Kira, the Strong Black Woman he teams up with, tells an absolutely pointless and ridiculous story that is clearly nothing but the author trying to either virtue signal or somehow develop her character in the worst way possible. Look, we already knew she was strong and independent, and I honestly had no problem with her character. I've said it before, some of my favorite characters are strong females. The Lady from The Black Company is perhaps my favorite of all time. But she's strong because she took it. Which was how I viewed Kira for the most part, up until this absolutely ridiculous “let's generate sympathy” story.

This isn't a spoiler because it has zero to do with the actual story. Apparently Kira had an uncle who was a misogynist (she thankfully didn't use that term, but that's what he was). Her family tried to shelter her from that fact, and when she was around 14 her father had it out with him at a family picnic and ended with the smackdown of telling him to “fucking evolve,” and the entire rest of the family backed her father, telling her uncle what a piece of shit he was. I can only imagine what a day for women's rights that was. But somehow, despite her never telling us how her uncle might have somehow stunted her emotional growth or victimized her or anything, and despite her being only 14 when this verbal beatdown from her very own father took place, and her being I dunno, 30 or so now, and a successful business owner no less, apparently just thinking about that day makes her cry and has made her life oh so difficult ever since. What?? Even if somehow her uncle made her feel inferior as a kid, she literally watched him get the comeuppance he deserved and had her entire family invalidating the way he treated women. Shouldn't that have done the exact opposite of ruining her life? Shouldn't it have empowered her? It is literally the dumbest, most pointless story I can remember reading in a book like this. I feel like somehow an entire segment of the story was left out, because I am just not getting what was so traumatizing about this relative that had very little to do with her life up to that point being a dick, and then getting blasted in front of everyone about it. He never did anything to her specifically that we are told. What am I missing? (EDIT: Is it as simple as the fact that some men still think like her uncle, and that fact alone is enough to trigger her decades later?? That's the only thing I can think of, honestly. And if that's it...suck it up, buttercup.)

On top of that, the clear references to real world political events is just stupid. You're the author, you can do whatever you want, but if you decide to make your characters have opinions about REAL events that I disagree with, then I am entitled to shit all over your book in a review. If I were an author I might be tempted to put stuff in to trigger people like Paul Sating just for fun, but if I actually wanted to make money, why would I risk alienating a large percentage of my potential audience? I want your money even if I hate your politics. Unless my job is actually to give political opinions, why do you want to hear mine, and why do I want to make you decide not to give me your money? I've never understood that with celebrities, movie directors, authors, etc. Is virtue signaling to others more important than making a product that everyone likes and thus spends money on?? Apparently it is. Which is why I stopped watching/purchasing the vast majority of movies and shows that I used to enjoy. And I will never give another even fraction of a penny to authors like this one via reading on KU, much less buying their books.

If you made it all the way to the end of this review, and you honestly don't care about the author saying stupid shit that doesn't need to be there, just read the first part of my review and realize that there are about a thousand or more litrpg books that are more entertaining than this one. You know how they say “show, don't tell” in writing? I view endless, endless character thoughts as the very definition of telling, and that's all this book is. Even worse, they are just the same ones repeated over and over and over. To be fair, the dialogue is usually fine, and I sort of like Slash and the way he talks, but that is about 1% of the total word count in the book. The rest are Brad telling us about how he used to be bullied and then worked out. Shut up.