Escape from a world of darkness into a magical realm of limitless adventure.
In Starter Zone, Cami kept herself and her younger sister Alby alive in a post-apocalyptic world, facing starvation, violence, and death on a daily basis. Caught by the military and forcefully inscribed, Cami manages to scam the system and they enter the Realms, a Virtual Reality world, as privileged Players rather than slaves. They experience a world of safety, plenty, and magical adventure.
Indeed, magic, combat, gear scores, quests, and dungeons are all puzzles to be solved as Cami continues her epic quest to navigate the Realms and build a better life for her family. But an intrusion from her old life threatens everything she has gained and imperils the entire virtual world.
Time to play the game.
My Opinion: 170 pages, $4.99, Not available on Kindle Unlimited
The best part of book 1 in the series was the post apocalyptic world where water itself was the enemy. Sure there were lots of more traditional threats, but water was the new one. People were inscribed onto water to get them into wetware computer systems. But some systems broke and those now crazed minds joined the water cycle and would try to take over people if consumed. It was cool.
In book 2, that threat is nowhere to be seen. Instead it continues on in the idealism of the end of book 1. The main character (MC), Cami, sends her sister and their pet to school and goes off to the next realm, the traveler zone. There she’s supposed to face greater challenges that shape her as a person and learn about her Fae magic for her race and class stuff. Only instead of facing any kind of challenge, she becomes this half baked pacifist and intentionally tries to avoid conflicts of any kind that might force her to kill NPCs or creatures that won’t respawn. There’s some travel scenes, but it’s mostly boring dialogue and a bunch of non-combat quests.
While there is a small story thread at the end that relates to the real world, it's more of a setup for the next book. Overall, I was just bored for most of this story.
Score: 5 out of 10
Traveler's Zone: A LitRPG YA Fantasy (The Revelation Chronicles Book 2)