The Way of the Clan Book 1

by Dem Mikhaylov

A world full of adventures, ancient mysteries and monsters hungering for your demise. A world where anyone can achieve their greatest dream, and become who they wish – a successful trader, a wise anchorite, a brave warrior or a battle mage who can control disastrous elemental powers. But don’t expect that the path to your dream will be simple! The path to the top is long, if ever you can reach it.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Virtual Reality, Role Playing Games

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 6, 2015

Reviews

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually picked this up some time ago but...not to moan I've been stressed a bit more than usual of late and really couldn't recall anything about it. So, I restarted it.

I'm glad I did. here we have another case of no real redeeming value to human-kind other than some light entertainment and a story well told. I find that I greatly enjoy the rather new genre "litrpg" if the books are at all done well. Note that my shelf is tagged "rpg-fiction". It actually predates litrpg as a genre.

Again we have a young man who's life has hit the proverbial reef as he's out of work and facing life with about one month before unpaid rent etc. Then he's thrown a lifeline in the form of being paid to play a totally immersive MMORPG that he's really good at, spends all his spare time in (as you crawl into a capsule and are in the game. Great...except for one thing. He can't play the extremely high level character he's put so much time and effort into building. No he must delete that character and start over as a "noob" building a new character from level 1. He must meet someone in the game support them in a tournament and then be part of a quest he's told virtually nothing about. There are several seemingly unreasonable requirments to all this...but hey. He needs the money.

And of course he'd rather be in the game than most anywhere else anyway. Now he comes out only to eat, drink and sleep a few hours.

How many of us would do that if these games existed and we could I wonder?

Anyway, excellent read...in other words good book. I recommend it and plan to move right on to the next.

Glad I came out of my "funk" and gave it a chance.

Recommended, enjoy.

[Autumn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am still reading this book. The idea, the characters, the setting... great! The delivery? Gods... the author desperately needs someone who can decently translate and an editor who knows basic grammar technique and punctuation. I can only read a few pages at a time before I am tearing my hair out on those counts.

Edit- finished. I might put the next book on Mt. TBR, but I am not rushing out to grab it.

[Jürgen Ruck · Rating 4 out of 5]

LIT-RPG currently my favourite. Apart from the translation, this one is almost as good as D. Rusm who is currently the best one available. If you ever were into MMORPGs this is definitely a fun read!

[Lazybee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, horrible translation.

[Steeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good russian import

The first chapter did almost everything it could to to push me away from the story - as it painted the picture of an underwhelming MC, crushed under the weight of mediocrity that I had little interest in...To say nothing of the occasional weird translation choices, and typo. I soldiered on, and after paying my due by suffering through that difficult beginning, finaly started to enjoy the story, which grew from strength to strength until the end. An excellent litrpg with a lot of potential. looking forward to the next book.

[GaiusPrimus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Somehow I think I got a version that someone that spoke English had gone through and fixed some of the more blatant translation mistakes and idiosyncrasies.

This hovered around the 2.5 for me but I rounded up since I did enjoy it.

Interesting story nonetheless, will pick up the next in the series and see where it goes. I don't think it's something to invest in long term though.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

i liked the book, but it has some serious grammatical mistakes that makes the book less enjoyable and even annoying to read at some parts. over all its good, slow paced but with the necessary kick to put things into motion.

[Nick Martel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story but poor translation

Even the most basic editing could have greatly improved the word selections that were often completely wrong. Thankfully this doesn't interfere with understanding the meaning much, and the underlying story is pretty decent for the genre.

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tried to read this book on two separate occasions. The translation is horrible. Couldn't get past it.

[Mayjori NoneYoBusiness · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story is great, but hands down the worst translations ive ever read.....

Ever known a Russian (or similar Slavic language) who's English is really, really bad, as-in can barely communicate, but just enough that you can sorta understand them? That's the quality of this translation. The only reason i was able to make it through 3 books was because I have had alot friends and acquaintances that speak English this badly, and through experience, I got pretty good at interpreting what they were trying to say. It's like one of these buddies read out loud in English the Slavic version of this book and someone wrote down word for word what they said.

I desperately wanted to finish this series, but finally got too frustrated and quit.

[Lukas Lovas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, another good LitRPG. Not quite a gem in the genre, but definitely enjoyable and fun.

There is one thing, I'd like to point out though - the name of the book and the series. If I understood the concept, the name of the series is usually the same for all books within the series, and the name of the book should be individual and unique within the series. However.....

The Way of the Clan Book 1 (World of Valdira, #1)
The Way of the Clan Book 2 (World of Valdira, #2)
The Way of the Clan Book 3 (World of Valdira, #3)
...
You see the pattern here, right? I mean...what the hell?

[Joseph B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel has a pretty well fleshed out game world, an engaging story, and a protagonist who is relatable... but unfortunately it is bogged down by a sloppy translation and odd grammar. At every turn this story is hard to enjoy because the prose just doesn't flow well, I fault the translator for this. An odd word choice every sentence during an action scene really started to rip me from the immersion of the story. However if you can overlook all this, you'll find a fun first entry into this series.

[Kirtil · Rating 2 out of 5]

another lackluster litrpg.
I am starting to form a prejudice against russian litrpg writers.
Nearly all of their heroes are opinionated, all powerful (even when they a beginner, even when they do not know anything about gaming), and women magnets. Oh and it seems both heroes and their writers have pretty flawed views of women in general.

At least here the character is a veteran of the game; just with a fresh character.

[R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really rather interesting.

The translation is HORRIBLE. I'm surprised by how poorly they've done with it.

HOWEVER: the idea behind the story has merit, and remarkably the Engrish (yes, look up the term) in this at times works. Its soooo bad its like dubbed kung fu, humorous by accident while still entertaining.

I'm looking forward to the next book.

[gordon musgrave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good story but bad writing

This could have been a good book the story was there but the editing was not I tried to finish it but could not ,there is a lot of mistakes in the writing ,got to the point it was takin away from enjoying the story,if the writer could get the grammar problems fixed I would recommend this book

[Troy Oldert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better...

The intro states that this is newly edited and thus version 2. The original version must have been straight out of Google translate. Readability gets three stars. As for the story, it deserves four stars.

[Muhammad Gibran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea but the author really need to revised the novel translation. bad format.
I hope its get better in the second book.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

May have been a decent book but has such a bad translation that makes it very hard to read/enjoy.

[Timothy whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a LIT RPG book i found it easy to read and had some real character development. Many times the story line is for the YA crowd but this book was a slightly higher level of writing.

[Chris Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough one. The book is a pretty standard LitRPG, but it's an older one so that's to be expected. The story is pretty good, as it goes, but very simple. That Russian world view is on clear display as well. The issue with (and part of the charm to be totally honest) this book is the translation...

So, the translation is quite bad. Not, "run it through Google translate and publish the results" bad, but close. To be clear, the book is entirely understandable, but is anything but a smooth read. Though not constant, the syntax is regularly jumbled in a way one would expect talking to someone who knows English but isn't entirely fluent in it. Russian idioms and sayings are translated verbatim, which, while interesting, doesn't always make sense. Something I took to doing towards the end, was taking the odd word choices they made and using, google translate, to try to figure out the original Russian word. For example:

"Food intoxication" should be "Food Poisoning" - отравление - could mean intoxication or poisoning
"Call a snake" should be "Summon a snake" - вызывать - could mean call or summon
"Build a Bush" should be "Create a bush" - создавать - could mean create or build
"A strolling trader" should be "A wandering trader" - бродячий - could mean wandering, roving, or strolling
ext.

I found it amusing. More interesting was the new words I learned from this book, namely:

vituperating - blame or insult (someone) in strong or violent language
phlegmatically - having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition
Pernickety - (No not Persnickety) - fussy / difficult to please

Neat.

Anyways. If you want to read a Russian translated book that FEELS like a Russian translated book, this is the book for you.

[Travis Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this Series, a great read

[Wolfgarr · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. Overall the book itself was pretty good. The thing that made me want to give this story 1 star or less was the abysmal editing/translating. I think if you were to have google translate it you would probably get a better result. There are parts that leave you shaking your head and thinking WTF?

Ok. That said. Decent book.. shame about the translation/editing... and its not just this book..Same issue with book 2.

If you can handle the poor editing/translation then i recommend reading this. If not ...well you will just go away frustrated.

[Patrick Duffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it .. was a great read loved the gameplay elements and everything you included would recommend to anyone looking for a good gamelit book to read...

Side note Fuck Amazon for banning you. hope you can keep publishing your books somewhere looking forward to day I can read Valdira series again.

[Tom Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story, mediocre translation

I liked the book enough to finish it but the poor translation would cause me have to stop reading and figure out what the author had originally wrote as opposed to what was written.

[Heather (Hammie) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of the story was good. I found the writing hard to follow smoothly in a lot places, perhaps due to translation, as well as many grammatical and type errors. This made it hard to get as immersed into the story as I would have liked.

[G M Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good LITRPG

Good LITRPG book. Started out needing some work but as it went was a good read. Looking for next in series

[Chris Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book, brings you into the game and the reality of gamers! sweet story line with lots of details. The translation is a little off at times but still a very good read!

[Dee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Translation

The translation is so bad that I got a headache trying to understand simple dialogue. I don't know how you could realistically enjoy the book as is.

[Zhuu Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acquired taste. Lacks editing.