Review: The Two Week Curse

The Two Week Curse by Michael Chatfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4 star review.

This book is LitRPG. I do not like LitRPG. Yet this book kept me turning the page.

The conceit of this book is that there is a virus outbreak. Anyone that gets the virus disappears after two weeks. Their clothes go with them, so disappearances are considered to have an area of effect beyond the person. No one knows where the virus victims end up. Rumors exist of victims becoming much stronger/faster/better in the two weeks prior to their disappearance.

Enter two military veterans working personal security overseas. They get the disease.

After two weeks, they end up in swords and sorcery land. Fortunately, they used what was known about the disease and were standing amidst a stockpile of supplies when they were teleported.

The author gets a whole bunch of things right. He has his protagonists pursue objectives that are unique from the traditional swords/sorcery milieu. They also use teambuilding skills in a way that is traditional from a modern military perspective but unique to a swords/sorcery world.

One hook that kept my attention was how characters with a modern military perspective applied that perspective to a swords/sorcery life. They ended up planning their activities and objectives to maximize their ability to increase their "stat levels". It was amazingly similar to how a person plays a video game to maximize their abilities at each stage of the game.

The dialog and characters are at times somewhat simple, but they are also very believable. While I didn't care for the LitRPG aspect, the characters and the narrative were good enough to keep me coming back for more and more.

On the downside, the author needs a copyeditor in the worst way. There are enough spelling/grammar errors to be troublesome.

Also on the downside, this is LitRPG. You could cut out a tenth of the pages if you skipped over the "leveling up" messages along with a listing of new stats for each character.

If LitRPG and some grammar/spelling errors don't bother you, and if MilSF and Fantasy are your thing, then this book is probably for you!


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Review: Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology

Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology by Ben Galley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The introduction of this anthology is about a short story about how the hero isn't who you expect it to be. In that story, a guy goes from nothing to being the ruler of the world by using his brains to overcome all of the evil people in the world. Evil is gone...good thing, right?

So no one will challenge this ruler of the world because, in his quest to overcome evil, he developed a machine that will end the world with the push of a button. As ruler of the world, this guy is pretty oppressive.

The real hero? Some other person that has a set of wire cutters and access to the button.

Now that is the bones of a pretty good story and a pretty good premise around which to build an anthology.

Sadly, the anthology doesn't deliver. Most of the "heroes" are just looking out for their own interests when the opportunity to act comes along.

The stories were well written, but a bit pedestrian. I was a little over halfway through when I set it aside for something else. I don't plan on going back.

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