Humanity is facing its greatest crisis yet, and there is only one frontier left for them to explore. Join John as he travels through time and space, though not together, to save all that he holds dear. There may also be a good deal of escaping reality involved as well. You have been warned!
F*** this is a harem book. FYI Miller, lamp shading the harem (if you did it right) wouldn't have helped much, but the CONSTANT references to it is almost worse than the harem it's self.
The biggest problem with this book is that the series here seems to have really lost the plot. I realized about half way through this overly long book, that I don't have any idea what the point of any of this is. He isn't building up to anything, the last big revelation of the series happened at the end of the last book, and there isn't any big bad they are going to have to deal with. It's just some character bamfing around in space.
Anyways, as usual, there are some good ideas sprinkled through this book. Leaving the game entirely and starting up a kind of Star Trek type exploration could have worked, it was even somewhat interesting at first. If it had a plot line and an editor chopped about half the story away, it could have been good.
Initially I thought the strongest part of this series was Millers world building and systems, but that's quickly becoming more of a detriment. It's all just becoming so messy. There are no hard rules of what is and isn't possible. If the main character wants something, he gets it. If the author wants something, he just has them do it. There's no sense of progression or scale or limits. It's just a giant mush of the authors ideas and ESPECIALLY fantasy's.
The series is ok up till this book. It's a little shallow, the system seems to have no limits, it's really unbalanced and the MC does things not in line with his own stated goals all the time, but it is a Litrpg so it is still ok. The biggest problem is that all the girls are hot and not much else.
In this book it goes all the way into harem land. Small spoiler: When his slime turns into a porn star (his words), he thinks it's sexy that she is calling him papa and she is asking him to ride her I could not read any more. The world is going to end and half the book so far has been about tits and "womanly bits". We have one sexy bird, a sexy druid partner, a sexy robot and now a sexy slime? Not to talk about all the hot and sexy shopkeepers and 70% of all the people he meets? How about some actual persons as side characters? I dare anyone to come up with any personality traits of his female characters other then cute, likes fluffy things, stupid or anything else not super stereotypical. Maybe the robot has a sliver of personality.
I am so tired of litrpgs that either has male characters or dolls. Not a single female person, just objects to get erections from.
I wonder if the writer have ever met an actual female.
I have read some reviews that sais it is taking this serious topic half-hearthedly. I think that is not a problem: the little puns, the easy going style makes it a good read and it makes a reader at least smile. You can truly enjoy it, from the first page to the last. The reason that this is not a 5star for me is that sometimes the narratives are too much. But that is for me, you have to decide it for yourself
The penultimate novel in the World Seed series, Expansion, manages to simultaneously build off the first two novels while setting the stage for the fourth and final novel. Miller develops our characters while telling a more sweeping and engaging main story.
If you've enjoyed the World Seed series so far, Expansion will most certainly continue that trend. After some revelations at the end of the last book, we see John Hulett AKA Falenel and Co. attempt to prepare the galaxy for what's to come. For starters, him and his druid friend build a spaceship then jet off into the stars to seek out their first alien race to help; the Elves. I won't say much more to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that Miller draws the reader further into this fascinating setting he's created. John and his party are determined to help as many alien races as they can armed with the knowledge from the future setting of NeoLife.
Stats, skills, and leveling continue to play a large role in this story cementing it as LitRPG. Miller does a lot of fun things with his "game world." I particularly continue to love the main character being a blended class of druid and technomancer. There's much development for the other characters as well though.
The one biggest hot topic about this book is the borderline-Harem aspect. I will say that the MC is in a "throuple" (three person relationship). It actually is handled fairly well and respectively; and Miller writes his women better in this book. In closing, if you can accept that aspect of the novel and have liked the series so far i>Expansion will be worth the time to read.
This book is largely a training montage, sporadically interrupted by an action scene.
That said, there's quite a bit of plot progression, though events on Earth are largely in the background. The harem fantasy elements are lampshaded, but still present. Good character development and decent game/world development.
Recommended for the strange people (like me), who find training montages and explicit game elements entertaining.
The main character is tremendously irritating. I have a feeling that the author is writing litrpg in order to hide the fact that his characters have no meaningful growth. While the MC is certainly more powerful than he was at the beginning of the first book, by the end of Expansion, he's still the whiny, self conscious, half wit.
The first two books were decent and the game mechanics kept me interested. I liked the real world content but man the Harem content went way over board just in the first couple hours. I stopped after considering how long 18 hours left really was. Its like the harem undertones took a front seat and i just dont want to do it.
Loved it,but you need an editor who can correct your word usage. Words may sound the same but they are not always spelled the same. There were a lot of grammar issues like that, otherwise I would have given it 5 stars.
I’ve been enjoying the series. It’s simple, direct and entertaining...at least as an audiobook. If I have one complaint...PLEASE stop using the term “smirk” to describe characters when they’re smiling, grinning, sneering, sniggering or leering. Try a synonym.
I really liked the storyline. I did enjoy how it continued to build up on previous book without making it boring. Some of the fights in the dungeon were unnecessarily graphic. He could have done it without the tentacles details. That seemed a little immature.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is a solid 3.5 stars for me. The world is interesting and the magic system is unique. I think the author explains the world well and it is fun to discover how the world works with the MC. The audiobook production was also great.
Cons: -There are no callbacks to previous books. I read book 2 about 2 years ago. I was confused for the first few hours of the audiobook. I could remember the basic premise, but the finer points of the magic system were lost on me. I also couldn't find a good plot summary online to remind me of the precious books. Reading this immediately after the previous book is recommended.
-The harem aspect was not gratuitous, but it was still there. Any recommendation requires that caveat.