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abeckstrom's review
3.0
This review is for the audiobook version of The Builder's Sword read by Gary Furlong.
This was my second foray into LitRPG and I was more entertained this time around. The storyline flows pretty well and used the mechanics and tropes of the Fantasy RPG PC-Game effectively. I thought the story was decent enough.
What stopped me from rating this higher was its portrayal of women (even demonic women). They are little more than objects (literally) to be acted upon and directed for (the protagonist) Arthur's pleasure and convenience. There was some unnecessarily sophomoric humor that I could have done without as well.
Gary Furlong does an adequate job with the narration. He seemed like he could be Arthur Curry (the titular Builder, not Aquaman).
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
This was my second foray into LitRPG and I was more entertained this time around. The storyline flows pretty well and used the mechanics and tropes of the Fantasy RPG PC-Game effectively. I thought the story was decent enough.
What stopped me from rating this higher was its portrayal of women (even demonic women). They are little more than objects (literally) to be acted upon and directed for (the protagonist) Arthur's pleasure and convenience. There was some unnecessarily sophomoric humor that I could have done without as well
Spoiler
(phallic donuts, really?)Gary Furlong does an adequate job with the narration. He seemed like he could be Arthur Curry (the titular Builder, not Aquaman).
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
xaryon's review
1.0
I have never read a LitRPG before, and if this was my first dive into it, I think I would avoid the subgenre. This read as more of a guidebook to a video game than an actual story. The concentration on individual stats were became more of a distraction and took away from the actual story. The idea was decent, but the execution wasn't there. I could also tell that it was self-published due to all the grammar errors that I found while reading the story. I gave it one star, as I couldn't finish it as I became bored with it rather quickly.
ibri's review
Not finished and I don't know whether I will finish it but I wanted to say something before I forget it. To describe the book until now in one word I would call it lazy. Cramming a game system on a non game world is nothing I am a fan of (even if I still read some litrpgs) but can be excused as a genre conceit. Though I think it is done in one of the worse ways here. Also there are some game elements put into a real world that I am less tolerant off, an actual taunt skill just makes little sense though I guess it can be handwaved with magic and the item ranks and that the demotion can influence the item value like that are a tad weird. Anyway why I call it lazy? For instance Black smith lady says she was demoted to rank 6 next chapter his skill shows him a demotion to rank 5. Come on it has been one damn chapter. Then she says this when he wants to look at her stats "It probably doesn't seem like it but you are reducing me to ones at zeroes ". She touched her hand to her chest "I am more than the sum of my stats"" the demon world doesn't seem to be at the tech level for people to play games at pcs why would she bring up ones and zeroes, yes they have some connection to the human world but that is not enough for that to be a natural comment. Also she professes non knowledge of stat systems, skill trees and stuff. Of course she might be hiding knowledge but still.
Then the way the world was cleared from male demons. The darkness just creates a plague that kills all male demons and only the male demons? Seriously that is how you get rid of unnecessary elements for harem building? By giving your enemy the ability to just wipe out half the enemy species and for some reason only half? Maybe later a reason is given why they would not just use a plague that wipes out all their enemies, maybe I will see if I read on.
And then there is Gwen just giving him control of the village. So that he can use his ability might make sense at first glance as a reason. But the system already considered him sufficiently in control so there was no real reason to really declare him the leader. Just continue leading the village and if the skill stuff makes trouble later on because he isn't actually in control of the city handle it then. Her just shrugging and handing him control of the town she ruled a thousand years at least just seems lazy.
In general the world building and character interaction just seem low effort. Though looking at the number of books from the author he probably really is just mass producing stuff.
Then the way the world was cleared from male demons. The darkness just creates a plague that kills all male demons and only the male demons? Seriously that is how you get rid of unnecessary elements for harem building? By giving your enemy the ability to just wipe out half the enemy species and for some reason only half? Maybe later a reason is given why they would not just use a plague that wipes out all their enemies, maybe I will see if I read on.
And then there is Gwen just giving him control of the village. So that he can use his ability might make sense at first glance as a reason. But the system already considered him sufficiently in control so there was no real reason to really declare him the leader. Just continue leading the village and if the skill stuff makes trouble later on because he isn't actually in control of the city handle it then. Her just shrugging and handing him control of the town she ruled a thousand years at least just seems lazy.
In general the world building and character interaction just seem low effort. Though looking at the number of books from the author he probably really is just mass producing stuff.
bookbandit's review
5.0
I really liked this book. Nothing crazy happens here. If your looking for intimate scenes, skip this. There is sex in the book, but it's more implied that actually expanded up. The story is solid and there is some character progression. There are no ground breaking moments and the story is pretty predictable. This is def a LitRpg in its fullest and it does have its quirky and fun moments sprinkled throughout the book. Some of the scenes feel shoehorned in to create tension and the pacing is pretty fast. But at the end of the day this is a rather enjoyable book. I bought the rest of the series after reading this.
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