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Tournament of Titans
It's a Battle Royale!
Vash Daniels was born without arms or legs, and his family is a dysfunctional mess of outcastes in a post-war corporate-authoritarian society.
However, he still loves life and living, and he wins a high-end cortical modem in a contest. With it, he's able to enter the MetaVerse and have fun with his otaku father.
But when tragedy strikes and his already precarious life falls apart, Vash must enter a guerrilla battle royale-style eSports tournament known as the Tournament of Titans just to survive. As a first-timer, he must progress through the Noob's Tournament: the lowest tier, but one which still rewards the winning 3-person teams with $10 million, more than enough for Vash to save his family and himself.
This won't be easy, for ToT requires all entrants to be level 80— and he had only started playing a few hours prior. Even worse, he has less than a month to meet the challenge, which will require him to sacrifice all his time and energy during a time when his mother is weakest and the corporate-run state hounds them for every last penny. And even if he achieves this titanic goal, he will face off against players who have spent years practicing to pass the Noob's Tournament, who have mastered the ways of the game and are just as eager to stake their claim to riches.
To the world, he says, "Bring it on."
As part of an experiment, several passages totaling roughly 4,000 words (out of 112,000 words total) have been generated by OpenAI's text synthesis network, GPT-2, but have been edited for greater unity and clarity with the narrative
Vash Daniels was born without arms or legs, and his family is a dysfunctional mess of outcastes in a post-war corporate-authoritarian society.
However, he still loves life and living, and he wins a high-end cortical modem in a contest. With it, he's able to enter the MetaVerse and have fun with his otaku father.
But when tragedy strikes and his already precarious life falls apart, Vash must enter a guerrilla battle royale-style eSports tournament known as the Tournament of Titans just to survive. As a first-timer, he must progress through the Noob's Tournament: the lowest tier, but one which still rewards the winning 3-person teams with $10 million, more than enough for Vash to save his family and himself.
This won't be easy, for ToT requires all entrants to be level 80— and he had only started playing a few hours prior. Even worse, he has less than a month to meet the challenge, which will require him to sacrifice all his time and energy during a time when his mother is weakest and the corporate-run state hounds them for every last penny. And even if he achieves this titanic goal, he will face off against players who have spent years practicing to pass the Noob's Tournament, who have mastered the ways of the game and are just as eager to stake their claim to riches.
To the world, he says, "Bring it on."
As part of an experiment, several passages totaling roughly 4,000 words (out of 112,000 words total) have been generated by OpenAI's text synthesis network, GPT-2, but have been edited for greater unity and clarity with the narrative
383 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 30, 2019
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3 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 5, 2019
Reviewing this book as part of an ARC
Very very mild spoilers ahead
What I liked:
I absolutely adored the determination of the main character, Vash Daniels, and yes his name is a reference in universe to the anime character, Vash the Stampede. Actually you can see an anime inspiration throughout the entire book, and the closest approximation I can get is to the sheer hype building you see in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This is a story built around overcoming the odds.
For the most part, the pacing is great and the real life sections are just as good as the game ones (if not better, because I found myself wanting to see more of the outside world).
I also like a side characters, including the edgy badass who winds up having a secret party side.
The actual "gameplay" was fine, even interesting because of certain built-in glitches that experienced players have to learn how to exploit. This made the game feel more like an actual game I could play some day because anyone who's ever played a video game knows they're filled with glitches that can be used to break the game in your favor.
What I disliked (but not really):
There are two things I disliked but I don't feel they warrant a lower review score.
1- After the story gets going, the pacing is out of control. This is because Vash has to go from level 1 to level 80 to get into the tournament, and the reason why I can't take points away is because it's implied all he did was grind for weeks on end, and repetitious grinding is the WORST part of litrpg novels. I don't review many because I was so turned off by the few I read at first (hence why this was an ARC) because the whole point of the genre is about growth and you need grind to grow, but I hate grind whenever it appears and so the genre just isn't typically a good fit for me. The story skipping the grind (in about 5,000 words total) is a plus in my book, and it has an actual narrative reason to be this way. This is so rushed that it actually affects how the rest of the story plays out, which means it was meant to be this way and changing it would change the story for the worse.
2- It's way too brutal to the main character. I like underdog stories but this one felt close to being unrealistically harsh on poor Vash. But the story embraces how harsh it is by ACTUALLY SHOWING THE REALISTIC CONSEQUENCES. Too often writers of pulp fantasy and sci fi will have their characters pushed to the brink and then past it and then shrug it off with a wry smile and cold jokes with an emo moment thrown in there to boot (or they make their characters "go insane" from the trauma by using the worst stereotypes of neurodivergent behavior rather than any truly respectful exploration and understanding of mental illness). The Daniels family in this story react exactly like how you'd expect a family being torn apart by the world would and it gets wickedly dark at some points because of it. I won't spoil one thing because of how unbelievable it was, but the main character does something that is so outrageously badass and also heartbreaking just to get to the tournament that I was almost crying and it really shows the desperation. This makes his successes feel more cathartic. You're ROOTING for Vash to win, and that's the absolute BEST thing you could ever ask from a protagonist.
What I wish was expanded:
The tournament itself sounds fun, but it feels like it could use a bit more structure. Some of the rules of the game feel like they were made for the story itself rather than to make sense for any real life e-sports tournament. In the story, 45,000 people are fighting in big arenas but you could only be in a team of 3. Beyond this, there aren't that many rules, and that causes the game to become a lot more hectic and chaotic. I'm a believer that what's entertaining in a story should ALWAYS take precedence over what's "realistic", but since there's a "to be continued" mark at the end of the book, I hope that the author will dive more deeply into it in the future.
The backstory is interesting. It's very strongly implied (and maybe outright stated at two points) that this is set in a post-World War 3 America almost 20 years after a war with China. Vash himself has no arms or legs (and the story even has the courtesy to give the medical term for this) because of radiation poisoning before he was born. Many other players are said to come from ruined cities. Despite this, the world isn't a post-apoc hellscape because apparently most of America's nukes failed to launch and both countries took each other out. As a result, a global dictatorship arose and is very politically incorrect and hyper-classist to the point that Vash himself is legally an 'outcast'. There's a social credit system to keep people in line and oppress outcasts, and Vash's is nearly at zero all because of his parents (one of whom is strongly implied to be a Trump supporter before the war). The highest caste can do just about anything, even lie about their origins for sympathy and look into your thoughts at any given time. This is the tip of the iceberg of what feels like a very fleshed out world with detailed hierarchies. But because this is a litRPG novel that has to focus on video gaming, we don't explore it anywhere near enough. I'm DEEPLY impressed that I was able to glean as much as I did though, especially since the first 10% of the story had scenes that were set entirely in the real world but only following the Daniels family in a ratty trailer out in the rural boondocks. Their poverty was largely shown rather than told. Most litRPG with real world sections make it much more obvious by having their poorer protagonists live in big dystopian slums, so this was the first surprise of many. This story knows what the cliches are and also knows how to subvert them.
There's some problematic language here and there, but yet again it works to the story's benefit by showing you just how much society has regressed (as well as why certain social victories that have been won have to ALWAYS be fought for with no assumption they'll remain). Thankfully, Vash is guilty of only one minor slip up and he's respectful about it.
If more litRPG came swinging with this level of quality, it would become a genre worth respecting on a large scale.
To recap:
The story itself is very good. The game the story is about also sounds fun.
My two biggest problems with the book are also two of its biggest strengths, which is a big reason why I give it 5 stars rather than 3 or 4. Parts that would otherwise sink more poorly written stories are used to this story's benefit. And the setting is top notch, ESPECIALLY for litRPG. I'm as interested in this setting as I am for the world of Ready Player One.
I didn't notice any spelling errors, but it's possible some are there. And the formatting for a few things is just a tad wonky (mainly color choices in text boxes). The lowest I'd give this story is a 4.5/5. I hope we get more quality on this level from this author in the future.
The last thing I want to note is that the book was allegedly co-written by an artificial intelligence with roughly 4,000 words having been generated. I couldn't tell. So either the author writes as well as an AI or AI is more advanced than I believed, and I'm leaning towards the latter.
Very very mild spoilers ahead
What I liked:
I absolutely adored the determination of the main character, Vash Daniels, and yes his name is a reference in universe to the anime character, Vash the Stampede. Actually you can see an anime inspiration throughout the entire book, and the closest approximation I can get is to the sheer hype building you see in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This is a story built around overcoming the odds.
For the most part, the pacing is great and the real life sections are just as good as the game ones (if not better, because I found myself wanting to see more of the outside world).
I also like a side characters, including the edgy badass who winds up having a secret party side.
The actual "gameplay" was fine, even interesting because of certain built-in glitches that experienced players have to learn how to exploit. This made the game feel more like an actual game I could play some day because anyone who's ever played a video game knows they're filled with glitches that can be used to break the game in your favor.
What I disliked (but not really):
There are two things I disliked but I don't feel they warrant a lower review score.
1- After the story gets going, the pacing is out of control. This is because Vash has to go from level 1 to level 80 to get into the tournament, and the reason why I can't take points away is because it's implied all he did was grind for weeks on end, and repetitious grinding is the WORST part of litrpg novels. I don't review many because I was so turned off by the few I read at first (hence why this was an ARC) because the whole point of the genre is about growth and you need grind to grow, but I hate grind whenever it appears and so the genre just isn't typically a good fit for me. The story skipping the grind (in about 5,000 words total) is a plus in my book, and it has an actual narrative reason to be this way. This is so rushed that it actually affects how the rest of the story plays out, which means it was meant to be this way and changing it would change the story for the worse.
2- It's way too brutal to the main character. I like underdog stories but this one felt close to being unrealistically harsh on poor Vash. But the story embraces how harsh it is by ACTUALLY SHOWING THE REALISTIC CONSEQUENCES. Too often writers of pulp fantasy and sci fi will have their characters pushed to the brink and then past it and then shrug it off with a wry smile and cold jokes with an emo moment thrown in there to boot (or they make their characters "go insane" from the trauma by using the worst stereotypes of neurodivergent behavior rather than any truly respectful exploration and understanding of mental illness). The Daniels family in this story react exactly like how you'd expect a family being torn apart by the world would and it gets wickedly dark at some points because of it. I won't spoil one thing because of how unbelievable it was, but the main character does something that is so outrageously badass and also heartbreaking just to get to the tournament that I was almost crying and it really shows the desperation. This makes his successes feel more cathartic. You're ROOTING for Vash to win, and that's the absolute BEST thing you could ever ask from a protagonist.
What I wish was expanded:
The tournament itself sounds fun, but it feels like it could use a bit more structure. Some of the rules of the game feel like they were made for the story itself rather than to make sense for any real life e-sports tournament. In the story, 45,000 people are fighting in big arenas but you could only be in a team of 3. Beyond this, there aren't that many rules, and that causes the game to become a lot more hectic and chaotic. I'm a believer that what's entertaining in a story should ALWAYS take precedence over what's "realistic", but since there's a "to be continued" mark at the end of the book, I hope that the author will dive more deeply into it in the future.
The backstory is interesting. It's very strongly implied (and maybe outright stated at two points) that this is set in a post-World War 3 America almost 20 years after a war with China. Vash himself has no arms or legs (and the story even has the courtesy to give the medical term for this) because of radiation poisoning before he was born. Many other players are said to come from ruined cities. Despite this, the world isn't a post-apoc hellscape because apparently most of America's nukes failed to launch and both countries took each other out. As a result, a global dictatorship arose and is very politically incorrect and hyper-classist to the point that Vash himself is legally an 'outcast'. There's a social credit system to keep people in line and oppress outcasts, and Vash's is nearly at zero all because of his parents (one of whom is strongly implied to be a Trump supporter before the war). The highest caste can do just about anything, even lie about their origins for sympathy and look into your thoughts at any given time. This is the tip of the iceberg of what feels like a very fleshed out world with detailed hierarchies. But because this is a litRPG novel that has to focus on video gaming, we don't explore it anywhere near enough. I'm DEEPLY impressed that I was able to glean as much as I did though, especially since the first 10% of the story had scenes that were set entirely in the real world but only following the Daniels family in a ratty trailer out in the rural boondocks. Their poverty was largely shown rather than told. Most litRPG with real world sections make it much more obvious by having their poorer protagonists live in big dystopian slums, so this was the first surprise of many. This story knows what the cliches are and also knows how to subvert them.
There's some problematic language here and there, but yet again it works to the story's benefit by showing you just how much society has regressed (as well as why certain social victories that have been won have to ALWAYS be fought for with no assumption they'll remain). Thankfully, Vash is guilty of only one minor slip up and he's respectful about it.
If more litRPG came swinging with this level of quality, it would become a genre worth respecting on a large scale.
To recap:
The story itself is very good. The game the story is about also sounds fun.
My two biggest problems with the book are also two of its biggest strengths, which is a big reason why I give it 5 stars rather than 3 or 4. Parts that would otherwise sink more poorly written stories are used to this story's benefit. And the setting is top notch, ESPECIALLY for litRPG. I'm as interested in this setting as I am for the world of Ready Player One.
I didn't notice any spelling errors, but it's possible some are there. And the formatting for a few things is just a tad wonky (mainly color choices in text boxes). The lowest I'd give this story is a 4.5/5. I hope we get more quality on this level from this author in the future.
The last thing I want to note is that the book was allegedly co-written by an artificial intelligence with roughly 4,000 words having been generated. I couldn't tell. So either the author writes as well as an AI or AI is more advanced than I believed, and I'm leaning towards the latter.
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