The Cambridge Geek

Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm
James Hunter - Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm

I seem to find myself reading another LitRPG. Well, two is technically only a coincidence. It's only when I get to three that it counts as a pattern. (Oh wait, I'm already reading a third. Damn. That'll be the next review then.)

I'm beginning to realise however, that there's probably a limit to how deep you can go into this genre, without a palate cleanser between them. The fairly constant interruptions for stats does appeal to the gamer in me, but I think I'm reaching the point at which they get boring. That's rather what happened when I read The Gamer.

That does make it a little tricky to possibly try and remain objective when reviewing the second of them I've read in a short time. I'll do my best. (If you're interested, the first was here.

Once again, our protagonist has entered a virtual world (of "Viridian Gate Online"), through the death of his mortal form. However, rather than some hideous accident, in this scenario it's a voluntary condition, because the alternative is to stay in the real world and die as an asteroid hits the planet and wipes out everybody, except for the lucky few who have managed to get into a bunker (which is presumably where they're keeping the servers).

Wait, what?

Honestly, the background to this book is the plot of an entirely different book. It's amazing how quickly the death of about seven billion people is skimmed over to get to the main character (Jack) deciding what sort of boots he's going to wear.

Fair play, I suppose, need something to drive the plot. Might as well go big!

What I found interesting though is that I might have been wrong in my previous review of a LitRPG. I was impressed by the "game-breaking" aspect, where the player had to meta-game in order to overcome a basic conflict in the structure of the game. But here, we have something similar. Is this a genre convention I don't know?

Our protagonist Jack is pulled into the game by his friend Abby, who is one of the developers, (coders, is there anything they can't do?) and so she is aware of the cheekiness that's going on here. Essentially, horrifically wealthy people have colluded with the CEO of the game company to turn it from a Free To Play into a Freemium system. They are all greeted on their entrance into the game by a power-leveling kit, including henchmen and some excellent loot. Plus XP for miles. Osmark (the company) are planning on recreating the feudal system. But with immortal lords. Abby isn't overly fond of the idea.

(The immortality is something I would also like to see addressed. Are we really saying you could grind for millennia without going insane? Has that happened in a book yet?

That sets up this series, and I can see that central conflict being quite powerful, if the author gives us a bit more view of the other characters involved. This is very firmly first person, and I think a few other viewpoints would be illuminating.

Overall though, it's an enjoyable read. These seem to generally clip along at a very fast pace (with no "lag" - zing, gamer joke) and none of it feels unnecessary. I'm beginning to realise that part of the core structure of these is the stats, and this hits the basics reasonably well while introducing a few tweaks. The structures of the genre do tend to bias for characters who are particularly heavy gamers, so we're always looking for the "weak spots". That might lead into some of the predictability of the fight sequences. I think that might turn out to be a weakness of the genre as a whole. I'll let you know after I've tried the third one.

This did hit one of my real bugbears though, which I admit I am utterly unable to suspend my disbelief of. The brain uploading systems (which here run on nanobots, because they're basically magic) work on the "we'll map out all of your brain and digitize it, and then *handwave* you're in the game". This annoys me, because what it's doing is copy and paste. The original consciousness dies off. I'm aware this is just another conventions of the genre, but I'm waiting for a book in which someone deals with continuity of consciousness properly. (Say with cell by cell replacement, which might be a method of ensuring that your subjective experience continues.

Still, I bashed through it in a couple of hours and (after a short break to hit another couple of genres) I'll probably look at grabbing the second.

One for fans of entirely ignored asteroids.

Recommended.

Tagged: Book GameLit Super-science world Novel Print