Hey, @Exiles and others. If you've been interested in Tower of Gates, Hack is currently FREE! https://amzn.to/3dOn4wz Different is good Classic use of RPG with a creative plot line that changes it from more of the same to something intriguing. Nice Read This was a nice light read. I have played RPG for years. I enjoyed references back to them without disrupting story. The use of old style text based MUD games was excellent. I read the other reviews and not sure I have same complaint of multiple POV. This reminded me of Dragonlance novels switching POV and I enjoyed that. Page-turning fantasy fun I think Hack was my first official LitRPG (I'd read some LitRPG-adjacent stuff before), and I really enjoyed it. I felt as if I'd been sucked into the game with the characters and was going on their quest with them but didn't actually have to take part in the fights, which was such a nice feeling, as a gamer. It sold me on the genre and now I'm an LitRPG-addict. Hmm, should have read the directions first. I read the first edition and liked it. This one is even better. The writing and formatting are clean. the story flows well and readability is good. Just enough in the first book to be fulfilling and be craving some more. (I shouldn't have watched a food video before reviewing.) I still find the multiple first person thing a tad strange. I'm excited to see this series get going again. Nice cover Paul! Quite Enjoyable! If you like playing/reading RPG/MMORPG then you should give this book a chance. I enjoyed the story and the fact that the author didn't bog the reader down with too many details. Although I felt the characters could have been a bit more fleshed out, it is still an enjoyable read and I will recommend this to my friends. Wow! The first take of this series was good, but Bellow has made it even better. If you're looking for a LitRPG Saga, this is definitely one to check out. Love the OOC penalties! Wish more LitRPG had that feature! Haha. Overall, great book. Worth your time. Great read Pauls characters are well thought out and the world building is rather interesting. As a fan of the genre, I was not disappointed. The approach to the central idea is interesting and new, as it unveils you are able to see the potential of the series clearly. I had a hard time connecting to Eric, but Sarah made up for It. Overall, Hack is a good entry to the Litrpg genre and the gate to a series with a lot of potential. The book also has great formatting and style. I'm still laughing about the cover...I had seen this book pop up through Amazon's recommendations several times. I hadn't been willing to take a chance on it. The cover is ridiculous. Yes, I know that pretty much every scifi/fantasy book published in the last 100 years has a ridiculous cover, but I went ahead and judged the book by its cover anyway. I did give it a chance when Nick Cole, author of Soda Pop Soldier and co-author of the Galaxy's Edge series recommended it to me. And it was free. The first hit always is. I messaged Nick immediately after I started reading the book, because I was already hooked. This book was just plain fun. I went in with pretty low expectations. I had heard of LitRPG before, and arguably, some books I've really liked fall into this category, it was a pretty hard sell for me. A book about kids playing a videogame? Hard pass. Which is a funny thing to say, since I'm probably close to the target audience for this kind of thing. Both a reader of scifi and a videogamer. Fan of self-published indie works. If I'm not it, I don't know who is. But I'm also kind of picky. I've had about a 50% rate of liking new series and authors I've tried out in 2018. Paul Bellow's Hack made the cut. Now, to the book! Eric, our teenage protagonist, desperately wants to play the virtual reality MMORPG his dad works on. He is desperate for two reasons. First, he is paraplegic; access to the fully immersive game will give him freedom of a kind he craves. Second, his best friend Sarah agreed to help him hack into the game, and he hasn't seen her as much recently as he would like to. The problem is, Sarah invited her boyfriend Josh along. This is a simple setup, and it gives us quite a bit of energy to help keep the plot moving along, and ample opportunities for drama, misunderstandings, jealousy, and what have you. And, of course, the game is much more than it first appears. Secrets and conspiracies abound. Oh, and you can't log out. Eric's dad wasn't just being a jerk about not letting his son play the game. As for the videogame RPG elements that make this genre what it is, such as character selection, leveling, experience points and whatnot, I find it to be a harmless conceit. The characters are kids. They grew up playing videogames, and now they are in a super immersive videogame, so they act accordingly. I suppose it won't be to everyone's taste, but we now live in a world in which you can find a book written to match just about any taste. If you have tastes like mine, and you are looking for an entertaining read, then Hack is worth a look. But I'm still laughing about the cover. Get it FREE! https://amzn.to/3dOn4wz
