Scan barcode
A review by raj_page
The Crafting of Chess by Kit Falbo
5.0
I dived in this book without knowing that it is book 1 of a series.
I loved the book and before talking more about it, I want to voice my complaint. I've a staunch belief that book 1 should never end in cliffhangers.
The ending is a borderline cliffhanger. Will give it a 5 star regardless.
I loved the economy aspect of the game. And I always love crafting stories.
[b:The Two Week Curse|40715131|The Two Week Curse (the realms, #1)|Michael Chatfield|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1530687432l/40715131._SY75_.jpg|63328800] made me fall in love with characters who are spending hours doing actual work in order to attain greatness. But in the Two Week Curse, and the subsequent books, the protagonists are nowhere near the best in the world. But they are just genius who bring knowledge and experience from their world to this new world.
In this book, the character is just hardworking in a world where everyone is playing a game. Plus he is polite. And more than his knowledge or experience, his politeness is what helps him more often than not. He becomes one of the best crafter in the world by the end of the book. But here comes a dilemma, what next? If he's already so good at crafting, it seems really difficult to think that the story has any scope to progress in terms of crafting and will have to give it a backseat to other aspects of the story. This is something that can make it or break it for me. Let's see how the writer continues it in book 2.
Another aspect of this book was the strategy. Not really as much as I expected. It is similar to [b:Ritualist|38739408|Ritualist (The Completionist Chronicles, #1)|Dakota Krout|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1519519880l/38739408._SY75_.jpg|60326764]. The character gets lucky. Learns lot of things which just happened to be the things he needed to win later. Oversimplifying it but that's the gist. Right skills right time.
The last aspect of the story that I enjoyed a lot was the real world. Ritualist had just skipped it more or less in the start. Also, if there's such a great game, there might be developers too, right?
They need their story too, right? Another book that handled this perfectly was [b:Catharsis|31211994|Catharsis (Awaken Online #1)|Travis Bagwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1469407765l/31211994._SY75_.jpg|51865807].
Overall, there were so many enjoyable things in this book. Looking forward to book 2.
P.S.: This is a very clean LitRPG. We need more of these.
I loved the book and before talking more about it, I want to voice my complaint. I've a staunch belief that book 1 should never end in cliffhangers.
The ending is a borderline cliffhanger. Will give it a 5 star regardless.
I loved the economy aspect of the game. And I always love crafting stories.
[b:The Two Week Curse|40715131|The Two Week Curse (the realms, #1)|Michael Chatfield|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1530687432l/40715131._SY75_.jpg|63328800] made me fall in love with characters who are spending hours doing actual work in order to attain greatness. But in the Two Week Curse, and the subsequent books, the protagonists are nowhere near the best in the world. But they are just genius who bring knowledge and experience from their world to this new world.
In this book, the character is just hardworking in a world where everyone is playing a game. Plus he is polite. And more than his knowledge or experience, his politeness is what helps him more often than not. He becomes one of the best crafter in the world by the end of the book. But here comes a dilemma, what next? If he's already so good at crafting, it seems really difficult to think that the story has any scope to progress in terms of crafting and will have to give it a backseat to other aspects of the story. This is something that can make it or break it for me. Let's see how the writer continues it in book 2.
Another aspect of this book was the strategy. Not really as much as I expected. It is similar to [b:Ritualist|38739408|Ritualist (The Completionist Chronicles, #1)|Dakota Krout|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1519519880l/38739408._SY75_.jpg|60326764]. The character gets lucky. Learns lot of things which just happened to be the things he needed to win later. Oversimplifying it but that's the gist. Right skills right time.
The last aspect of the story that I enjoyed a lot was the real world. Ritualist had just skipped it more or less in the start. Also, if there's such a great game, there might be developers too, right?
They need their story too, right? Another book that handled this perfectly was [b:Catharsis|31211994|Catharsis (Awaken Online #1)|Travis Bagwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1469407765l/31211994._SY75_.jpg|51865807].
Overall, there were so many enjoyable things in this book. Looking forward to book 2.
P.S.: This is a very clean LitRPG. We need more of these.