Book I

Worth the Candle #1

by cthulhuraejepsen, Alexander Wales

From the age of nine, Juniper Smith began filling notebooks with his worlds, at first places of fantastical imagination, but later with each as an expression of some theme or idea that momentarily grabbed his interest. Over the course of eight years, he shared these worlds with his friends through twice-weekly sessions of tabletop gaming. Now at the age of seventeen, he finds himself in Aerb, a world that appears to be an amalgam of those many notebooks, stuck trying to find the answers to why he's there and what this world is trying to say. The most terrifying answer might be that this world is an expression of the person he was back on Earth.

Chapters:
1. Taking the Fall
2. Thickenings
3. Solely Responsible
4. Reave
5. Goraion
6. Cold Comfort
7. Twenty Questions
8. Diamond and Iron
9. Making Magic
10. Sewer Rat
11. A Winding Course
12. Life of the Party
13. Time Out
14. ELEVATOR facts

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction

129 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

cthulhuraejepsen is a pseudonym of Ben Friesen. Ben is a writer and stay-at-home dad located in Duluth, MN with his wife, their son, and cat. Alexander Wales is another pseudonym of the same author.

Reviews

[Петър Стойков · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ролевите игри са доста популярни - и нямам предвид само тия в спалнята. Даже не и компютърните, а настолните - Dungeons&Dragons и всички останали мега разнообразни. На мен не са ми любими, но съм играл няколко пъти. Не е зле, забавно е.

Това, което дори не съм подозирал е колко се вживяват в тях някои хора и колко голяма част от живота и приятелствата им са свързани с тия игри, колко голяма часто от размишленията и личната им философия са резултат от игрите.

Серията Worth the Candle те пуска направо в дълбокото на ролевите игри, през погледа на един младеж, който ненадейно се озовава в реален свят, базиран на измислените от него през годините светове за ролевите игри, които са играли с приятелите му.

Книгата е не само доста дълга (към 3 хил страници), ами и е далеч от приключване и авторът продължава да я дописва в интернет с по една глава на всеки няколко дни.

Освен това, книгата е и може би най-видният представител на стила "Rational fiction", при който авторът обяснява подробно и логично защо и как се случват нещата в книгата, а героите като цяло вземат обмислени, рационални решения, от които не ти се иска да се плеснеш по челото. Което доста кефи.

Въпросният младеж има доста тежък емоционален багаж и постепенно го разопакова с напредване на действието, което може би е (за мен) скучната част от книгата, безкрайните диалози между героите, изясняващи отношенията помежду им. Даже има една част (между 50-65% от книгата) дето практически нищо не се случва, освен приказки, което почти ме накара да я оставя с досада. За радост, после екшънът става по-съществен и действието се забързва.

Това ревю е същото за всички (за сега 8) части от книгата.

[Sterling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea when I started this story how much it was going to effect me. It's gotten me back into TTRPG's, completely derailed my to-read schedule & taken up seemingly permanent residence in my frontal lobe. The writing here is excellent and the characters are far from commonplace. The closest thing we have to an archetypal character would be Juniper, but his heroes journey is far from the standard.

This is my only lit-rpg experience so I had only a vague expectations, but this has likely ruined the rest of the genre as the quality and content here seem impossible to match. Book one is incredible and likely my second favorite of the series so far. It's hard not to gush without spoilers, but seeing Aerb through Joon's eyes was an incredible experience.

[Daniel Bowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read up to book 4. Although there are reviews present for the following books, I can't find those books anywhere on Amazon, even though Goodreads says they are out. You might want to check on this before starting if this is a problem for you. The Goodreads entries say that all the books were released in January of 2021. They may be out there somewhere, but they appear to be hard to find and may be non-existent as of February of 2026 when I am writing this.

There's a lot of dialog between the main character and others - too much in my opinion. Dialog gets used as a little bit of an information dump, though it's done fairly well. The main character has some advantages, but is not overpowered. The prose and grammar are good. Overall it's fairly well written.

The books are a little bit "woke". The protagonist is an atheist from Earth, though his atheism isn't a major theme. His friends on Aerb (the fantasy world) seem to share his low opinion of the Bible and all things Chrisitian, however this does not appear to be a major theme in the books so far and it only pops up a few times so far. The personal morality of the main protagonists appears to be liberal by U.S. standards. There is some vulgar language and some moderately suggestive situations, but nothing extremely graphic.

SPOILER BELOW:

By the end of book four, there has been some foreshadowing that our hitherto heterosexual protagonist might end up having some sort of sexual experience and/or romantic relationship with a visually masculine hermaphrodite dwarf. Will he? Won't he? Book four ends with a strong hint in that direction as the dwarf leans up against the main character and announces an interest in becoming pregnant.

[Sergei Bondarenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

После прочтения 45 глав, я заканчиваю с этой сагой.
ГГ посредственный, больше идущий по течению. Женские персонажи зачастую намного мужественнее ГГ. Сам ГГ получает скиллы, за просто так, нет ощущения что он их достоен, что он изучил или сделал это сам. Как в построении ракеты, где ему в голову сами пришли знания для построения. Вообще зацикленность на смерти друга, не вызывает во мне никакого сочувствия. Мне просто наплевать и на ГГ и на его друга. Подруга ГГ (в реальном мире), феминистка, тоже отвергает своим мировоззрением, с нынешней "повесточкой" в голове. Однополые гномы, а точнее конкретный гном - серьёзно? Вообще, нет симпатичных героев. Плюс этой книги в разнообразии, да, множество мест, хорошее построение локаций, отсылка к жанрам, но на этом плюсы заканчиваются.
В общем ГГ не рыба не мясо. На троечку за художественность.

[Sebastian H · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing premise, with enough hooks in its storytelling and a breezy narrative that turns this first, introductory volume into an addictive page turner that I had a hard time putting down until the “End of Tutorial” prompt.

Joo is smartly built up as a blank canvas with enough personality to be relatable, kind of like the best main characters in video games. Which only fits, seeing at how this LitRPG freely takes inspiration from a lot of gamey sources, so it’s right up my alley.

With 8 more volumes left to go and a finale already published (which isn’t always the case with this type of narratives) I’m really looking forward to reading how it all shapes up.

[Wetdryvac Wetdryvac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, though not my usual speed.

[HadexX Severan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually began reading this book when it was on AO3 in 2021 ish, and got to around the end of where book 3 sits in this series.

So while I am indeed reviewing the first part of this series now. We can mark this as the day I began reading this epic series again.