Various Thoughts

The All I Got is This Stat Menu series, by J.J. Ackerknecht, is interesting for not being escapist. While the protagonists do almost always win, it’s almost never without significant cost; while they get free power from a leveling system, leveling is both restricted and capped fairly low besides; though they save the world, the various ‘old world’ authorities tend to be shortsighted/selfish assholes who marginalize them.

It’s a highly well-balanced mix of elements that works incredibly well… mostly. The one discordant note is the central romance, which feels very much tacked on, as though the author only included it because it was expected. On a more personal note I was incredibly aggravated by the way the main protagonist instantly caved to the unreasonable demands of yet another power-mad control freak at the end of the third book (only saving grace is that it doesn’t look like that situation will survive contact outside the Sol system).

RavensDagger‘s Magical Girl Crystal Genocide novel has the same energy as Dead Tired without any of the intentionally bad dad jokes. Which is to say that it’s fantastic in all respects. Particularly notable is that it works perfectly well as either a stand alone story or the start of a new series.