An ordinary Russian guy, Sergei picks a fight in his neighborhood, defending a little boy. Problem is, the guy he's just defeated vanishes into thin air, leaving Sergei to discover he now possesses the ability to turn time around.
On top of that, Sergei can now travel between worlds. He acquires even more mysterious new skills and abilities. And he discovers there're many others just like him in our world.
Sergei finds his own place in the secret community of the Seekers - creatures with superpowers. He even teams up with a few of his new buddies, planning to strike gold in one of the neighboring worlds.
Sergei has no idea that his every step is being watched. He's being shadowed by the Darkest One - one of the oldest Seekers around who'll know no peace until he gets hold of some of Sergei's unique abilities.
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
The cover art makes this novel seem more epic than it really is. That’s not to say there aren’t some nice epic moments, especially the end, but mostly this is a slice of life Real Life RPG story. It’s a Russian translation with very few errors and lots of well annotated Russian cultural flavor.
The main character (MC) becomes a Player or Seeker after accidentally killing some guy he thinks is messing with his neighbor’s kid and then becomes part of this RPG tracked world where he as the magical ability to go back in time a few seconds. The power is used often. The author writes in a bad outcome, then MC rewinds time 3 seconds and we get the good outcome as the MC changes things. It’s not over powered since it is limited to a few charges so no infinite tries. The rest of the game mechanics in the story are familiar: stats, levels, skills, etc.
The story is somewhere between normal urban fantasy and Level Up. Yes, the MC uses his RPG powers and skills in real life, but most of the story is him just earning money going on posted quests and learning about the new system he’s apart of. There’s this sub-story about fate and good and evil, but it doesn’t amount to much till it’s forced at the end of the story. Which by the way has a major cliffhanger of an ending, if that kind of thing bothers you.
Overall, not a bad story but not as good as I was hoping to get from a Real Life RPG kind of story.
Score: 7.2 out of 10