Infinite power at your finger-tips, but will it be enough?
Following her victory against the aliens in Washington, Anya Nowicki has allied herself with the Department of Extraterrestrial Research and a newly formed organization headed by the shrewd Director MacDougal. Other hosts for the Archive, like Anya, have also joined the DERD, dedicating their time and efforts to honing their supernatural abilities, and searching for whatever aliens remain on Earth.
The hostile creatures known as gnosiphages have gone into hiding, but they have not remained idle. Hosts have been vanishing overnight, along with many civilians all across the globe. Something is still out there, stalking mankind, building its own power. It will take everything Anya has, and all her friends working together, to save the Earth from the apocalyptic crisis rushing towards it.
Content Warning: This book contains strong language and graphic violence.
This is a fantastic follow-up to the first book. It did a glorious job of keeping my attention and forcing me to think about it outside listening to the audio book. The story was maintained between the first book and this one, without losing direction, while also maintaining the cover of genuine curiosity for what will happen next. I am eagerly awaiting the next book to come out.
Characters are bland. Story is very situational and rather boring. If the first one was good for you, this one is okay. If you were so-so about the first one, this is a big miss.
This was a great sequel and I'd say the author is one of the most skilled people writing in the genre today. I'll be the first to say that the first 50% of the book was a mixed bag of enjoyment for me for various reasons, but it ended strong.
I usually don't go too in-depth with character, plot, etc. for sequels since I give an initial breakdown of those impressions with Book 1, but I think I'd like to expand on my first review a bit.
The Characters I wasn't the biggest fan of the characters in Book 1, and I can't really say this book changed that. But, the characters don't feel flat. So while I would probably find it annoying to spend time with them if they were real people, they still felt like people that could exist. The fact that I wasn't overly fond of any of the characters tempered my enjoyment a bit, especially during the slower parts of this book.
The Plot This is what kept me reading. The situation escalated, turned up the tension, provided a few moments for the characters to catch their breath, then threw the next thing at them. Structurally, this was a well-crafted story. I also liked that the aliens resembled more of a "traditional" alien threat in this book as far as their appearance went. While copy machine, refrigerator, and fire hydrant mimics can be unsettling for a moment, they lack the cool factor to approach an action scene with a straight face for any amount of time, at least for me.
TL;DR If you enjoyed the first book, you'll probably love this one. Unless you have a mimic fetish, then you might just wax nostalgic about the good ol' days. I look forward to the 3rd installment of this series to see what's next as the characters likely enter a new stage/phase of scale in the universal order of things.
All I Got is This Stat Menu: 2 It's been two months since the start of the first book. This book starts a month after the end of the last. Various world governments have established special task forces to address the alien threat and gather together those human "hosts" of the Archive. For Anya, the buildup of various bases and public relations activities have been boring, and she's ready for battle. Fortunately for her, the aliens oblige. I was glad the author didn't go the cliche romantic troubles for stupid drama route and also has avoided the evil government trope in favor of solid character development. Lots of fight scenes here, with a satisfactory ending that leaves room for a sequel without an annoying cliffhanger.
One general is dead. Two to go. The hero continues to gather allies and scouts the world to solve the mystery of where the aliens are and where people disappearing are going. Cue the mind controlling aliens and the fight is on. They stop the body snatchers but now they must save a city about to be crushed by the last general. And that includes ungrateful politicians twisting tragedy to vilify the heroes and give themselves power. They kill the aliens on Earth but discover the off world ones are coming in mass with a world ender. So they race to space for an epic finale. They succeed with a price.
A great second installment. It continues with a great pace, addictive story, nice world building and growth, and an awesome narrator
I found myself skimming large parts of this story. The first book in the series was great, but I’m not interested in going further. The whole story really doesn’t make sense. It’s not believable that the aliens attacked in the way they did, but the author needed a way to give the defenders gradual level ups. I was able to ignore it at first, because the progression was really good, but it just keeps getting less believable. This book had a good ending so I’ll just leave it here.
Solid and highly enjoyable sequel to the first book. It continues where the first left off, dealing with the escalation of the alien threat, while also throwing in even more hints about what'd happening off planet. Humanity does as Humanity does, the aliens get downright terrifying, but in amongst it all, there is even a touch of romance. Looking forward to seeing where the series goes with book 3 and beyond.
One of the best books I've read(listened) in the litrpg. Book 1 was great. This. This was amazing, and had one of the most suspenseful, well-written endings I've read in this genre. Only book 2 and this series has me hooked hard.
This is a really cool and pretty fun story. The characters are interesting and likeable, and the pacing is fairly good. The set ups are nice (if a bit long in places) and it's all fairly easy to grasp. Definitely worth a read in you like LitRPG stories.
This was a nice sequel. It had some slow spots, I’ll admit.but not enough to detract from the action. The action itself was a bit confusing (the particulars). But in a way I think it made the action better, as it showed the chaos of battle. Excellent
Wonderful followup to the first book. The background intrigue gets ratched up and thee complexity of the world being built is beautifully put together.
This one is just as fun as the last. It is well written with a great world set up! My only complaint is that it’s now 2:30 in the morning because I couldn’t put it down.