Reviews

Nascent by Tony Corden

tondola's review against another edition

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4.0

Well developed and rounded plot, you feel inside the game with Leah.
It's a bit of a shame that she is all powerful and able to solve every quest and challenge. All players occasionally die and have to respawn, or at least run away to attempt things more than once. A bit more realism would have added to the plot.
I want also to know more abour Gèng, I think I will look into the next book

orbital_exegesis's review against another edition

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3.0

It's okay, the dialog is a bit rough, and even if you ignore the inciting incident, the MC has absurd luck. Still there's enough fun stuff, if you think you'll enjoy it go ahead.

jennicer33's review against another edition

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1.0

Ugh... geeze, I'm going to write a review. Bleh, I hate writing reviews, but dear reader, I must warn you. This is a play by play book about gaming. There is no story here; only next she killed three more ants and got these points and treasures.

If you're looking for cool AIs, this isn't the one. The AI in this book is a mostly ignored digital note taker with all the sparkle and charm of Wikipedia.

If you're looking for story, this isn't the one. This is written out score sheet of wins, wins and more wins of the main character, an uber Mary Sue and all the stuff she got from her wins, wins, wins, wins, wins, wins, wins, wins....

This is dreadful. If you want to read about adventure games, see Ready Player One. If you want independent, functional AI, see the Murderbot Diaries.

... and the typos. Mr. Corden clearly has fans, so why doesn't he get 4 or 5 to proofread for him?

DNF at 67% because this is clearly going nowhere.

goldenringlets's review

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it's difficult to pick this up and keep reading every single time

wolkenfels's review against another edition

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3.0

interesting mix of in game and out of game storyline.
Big in "loot whoring". (means lot of loot from monsters and pages of stats - i like that stuff. ) Of course the MC is way overpowered but nice heroine anyway.

joew82's review

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5.0

One of my number one favorite series and all of this Litrpg genre. The way it weaves the story between real world and several virtual worlds of virtual future is singular.

sirwilhelm's review

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5.0

What a future Cordon has created here. It is both dystopian and utopian and is a wonderful story with much more room to grow. It creates and asks wonderful and troubling questions about AI and how we are to use them, both as people, rich or poor, and as governments. One of the plots that is created shows a very scary but I think realistic situation that will need to be carefully looked at in our own world in the future.

This story/world is vast and I expect a lot from the next books. 9/10

ibri's review

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4.0

I will just write about the first three books together. The first is quite good and I recommend it among litrpgs it does stand out, the next two are still decent (honestly they are retroactively driving my impression of the first down). The MC is likeable and interesting enough, and I am fond of AI companions. Some good fight writing too imo, more so in the first book before she gets a bit too imba. And the books mostly know not to dwell on uninteresting parts. (Also not to over do it with printing every single ingame notification like some litrpgs do, there are still plenty though.)

Now as with many litrpgs it reminds me not so much of someone playing an MMO but of someone playing a table top version of an MMO with an DM/GM with severe monty haul tendencies. 90% of her game time is spent on one quest or another where she was the very first person to discover it and she gets loads of loot for it (and that is from the first levels the loot doesn't seem to have much scaling with levels just look what she got before even reaching level 10 that staff should not be handed to a new player), and it gets glaringly obvious when translated to real world money because the amount of real cash she makes in a month from a game is plain absurd who is exchanging all that cash for virtual currency?

And this series has the same problem other litrpgs going this route have, making her special has limits and if you do it the wrong way the rest of the gamers just seem to carry an idiot ball. Like in book three where she solves some time limited quest on her first try and is the first to succeed. Thing is the quest is well known and people can try several times, she did nothing that nobody would have tried over the time, yes the average gamer is not all that great at solving such things but the best ones are and can be supremely persistent. For that matter she gets many thing by talking with enemies and while many players wouldn't, you know there would be some playing diplomancer style in a setting where you can not only make bets with dungeon bosses but outright convince them to ally with you under the right circumstance. It suffers a bit from trying to make her special instead of just talented and determined.

But damn I would like to play the game.

Edit: Looked ahead a bit in book four (even if I won't read it properly at this time) what she gets in that book is just going too far you should have to plot specifically for something like that. That is the problem, she is a skilled fighter and smart so being successful is fine but getting as much as she does needs more justification to not feel like the world just hands her stuff, it needs long term planning instead of just somehow ending up there. And I am starting to like the MC less. I think it will be a while before I read book 4 probably, gotten tired of the series.

harmony's review

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4.0

Leah comes from a very poor community, and at age 16 is able to get a basic AI chip implant to join virtual society. Lucky for her, a series of minor mishaps lasts to her reviving a much more capable AI than the one she was supposed to get. It's partially through the AI's guidance and advice and partially due to her conscientiousness that almost as soon as she logs into a virtual game to earn an income, she begins to discover quests long hidden and map areas that have gone unexplored. Balanced with virtual university, Leah begins to build a solid reputation and make friends in her new environment. This is probably the best LitRPG I've read and I'm looking forward to continuing. Excellent story, solid and relatable main character, and a fun fantasy world to explore PLUS an interesting real life to return to.