nagginboutbooks's review
4.75
I’ve been a Critter since episode 20 of Vox Machina, tuning in every week for 3-5+ hours to see what shenanigans these nerdy ass voice actors get into during their Dungeons and Dragons game. I’ve cried through their resurrections and laughed so hard my sides hurt and I was crying.
I knew when they released a nonfiction about the history of the players and the family/company they build I had to have it. As a long time critter I was still able to find facts and trivia I didn’t know about the cast and behind the scenes. I do feel like it things were missing, they could have talked about the departure from Geek and Sundry and the behinds the scenes of them moving and building their own company, and they could have left out the bit about Brain W Foster. I filled the book with annotations with tabs for each cats member and fun trivia if I need my fix of these nerdy ass voice actors, Vox Machina, or The Mighty Nein.
abigcoffeedragon's review
5.0
This is a great read for any Critical Role fan.
You get some background on the players and the creation of the characters.
You get some funny stories and you get some serious ones.
This is only the story so far. I am sure there will be another book in five years to tell more of what has happened since this book.
You get some background on the players and the creation of the characters.
You get some funny stories and you get some serious ones.
This is only the story so far. I am sure there will be another book in five years to tell more of what has happened since this book.
arcanistaxel's review
5.0
As someone who can't get enough of Critical Role and its castmembers, this book was an excellent fix for my addiction.
First of all: the book is gorgeous. The design fits Critical Role perfectly. The fantasy vibes are strong and all artwork is absolutely gorgeous. It looks like a book a shady merchant would ask 30 gold for, but it would totally be worth it.
A fan of the show already knows 90% of the contents of this book. The book does not tell you much news if you've watched both campaigns and the channel's related shows like Talks Machina and Between the sheets. But I'd be lying if I said I did not enjoy reading it all again. Reliving some of my favourite moments and characters was such a joy.
I was still at the start of watching campaign 1 when I started reading, and although there are MANY spoilers in the book for Vox Machina, I didn't mind. I found the first campaign very hard to get into, but the book made me more familiar with the characters and what was going on. And for CR being a show with 3-4 hours of content every week, there's still so much unspoiled things to enjoy, the character interactions and some of the casts greatest jokes, so being spoiled for the overall plot did not affect me much.
As read and watched on though, I skipped some pages about the end of the campaign. It was described in much detail what happened and by now I am so invested in Vox Machina that I want to leave the ending relatively unspoiled.
The book is about Critical Role, but I believe it is an ode to the fans, the critters. Time and time again, the cast expresses their gratitude to the fans, their genirosity and kindness to them, but to charity efforts moreso. It's evident that without the endless support of the fans, this book wouldn't even exist. The cast knows this full well and takes the opportunity to show how thankful they are.
All in all I am a proud fan who will shove this book in anyone's willing hands, because it is so wonderful to be a critter ❤
First of all: the book is gorgeous. The design fits Critical Role perfectly. The fantasy vibes are strong and all artwork is absolutely gorgeous. It looks like a book a shady merchant would ask 30 gold for, but it would totally be worth it.
A fan of the show already knows 90% of the contents of this book. The book does not tell you much news if you've watched both campaigns and the channel's related shows like Talks Machina and Between the sheets. But I'd be lying if I said I did not enjoy reading it all again. Reliving some of my favourite moments and characters was such a joy.
I was still at the start of watching campaign 1 when I started reading, and although there are MANY spoilers in the book for Vox Machina, I didn't mind. I found the first campaign very hard to get into, but the book made me more familiar with the characters and what was going on. And for CR being a show with 3-4 hours of content every week, there's still so much unspoiled things to enjoy, the character interactions and some of the casts greatest jokes, so being spoiled for the overall plot did not affect me much.
As read and watched on though, I skipped some pages about the end of the campaign. It was described in much detail what happened and by now I am so invested in Vox Machina that I want to leave the ending relatively unspoiled.
The book is about Critical Role, but I believe it is an ode to the fans, the critters. Time and time again, the cast expresses their gratitude to the fans, their genirosity and kindness to them, but to charity efforts moreso. It's evident that without the endless support of the fans, this book wouldn't even exist. The cast knows this full well and takes the opportunity to show how thankful they are.
All in all I am a proud fan who will shove this book in anyone's willing hands, because it is so wonderful to be a critter ❤
haljonesy's review
4.0
It was a delight to get background stories about the cast of Critical Role. I've been a Critter for several years now, and I don't think I'll ever tire of listening to these folks tell stories.
I listened to the audiobook and Mary Elizabeth did a fantastic job narrating! I also own a physical copy so I'll be able to go back and look at all the pictures and art that I had to miss listening to it.
My only critique of the book is that it's very obvious the author is a fan. It's almost over-the-top in its attempt to sell the cast as amazing people. Which they are, I'm not disputing that, but it felt heavy handed at times, like "they give to charity AREN'T THEY THE BEST PEOPLE EVER??" Yes they are, but calm down.
I listened to the audiobook and Mary Elizabeth did a fantastic job narrating! I also own a physical copy so I'll be able to go back and look at all the pictures and art that I had to miss listening to it.
My only critique of the book is that it's very obvious the author is a fan. It's almost over-the-top in its attempt to sell the cast as amazing people. Which they are, I'm not disputing that, but it felt heavy handed at times, like "they give to charity AREN'T THEY THE BEST PEOPLE EVER??" Yes they are, but calm down.
danilanglie's review
4.0
This was a treat, and a great coffee table book to have if you're a Critical Role nerd! The thing that stopped me from giving a full five stars was that there were portions of the book that felt a little self-congratulatory... like, I know the author was interviewing them and writing her own positive spin on things, but there sure were about a thousand references to how generous and kind and charitable the cast is, and how they're so humble, too, it's really all about how great the *community* is, guys! I'm not saying this was terrible to read or turned me off of the book altogether, but there were a few eye-rolls sprinkled in for me.
My favorite parts of the story were the deep-dives into the various characters and plot elements of the actual campaigns, going through and learning about character creation, and seeing the maps of Exandria, which were actually quite helpful in reframing some things about both campaigns in my mind, as to where exactly different events were happening!
Another small ding against this book is no fault of its own: they couldn't really get into the flaws/failures of the brand very much. I'm not saying I wanted a whole gossipy session where they spilled the beans about Orion Acaba's exit or how things went down behind the scenes with Geek & Sundry... but beyond mentioning some quirky events early on that now wouldn't happen (Travis missing a session to catch a Marvel movie; the cast eating during the streams), they didn't really talk about when things went wrong. Like the Kickstarter, for example. It's this great story of how the cast completely underestimated the support they might expect from their legion of fans, and all their stretch goals were obliterated within hours. But also... there's a story there about management, about how they had to scramble to reframe the project, about how their own research failed them hard when they started off. And there's controversy to the fact that they've now partnered with Amazon, that the fan-funded project is now in the hands of one of the biggest streaming services in the world. There was no nuance to any of this, no real mention of it. And I'm sure that's partially for legal reasons, and I'm not saying I wanted this book to be a "tell all" of Critical Role's "seedy underbelly"... I guess maybe I was just looking for a more nuanced take on some aspects of the show's journey, on occasion!
But overall, I had fun reading this, I learned something new about the cast and their characters, and I'm just as in love with this nerdy-ass group of voice actors as ever!
My favorite parts of the story were the deep-dives into the various characters and plot elements of the actual campaigns, going through and learning about character creation, and seeing the maps of Exandria, which were actually quite helpful in reframing some things about both campaigns in my mind, as to where exactly different events were happening!
Another small ding against this book is no fault of its own: they couldn't really get into the flaws/failures of the brand very much. I'm not saying I wanted a whole gossipy session where they spilled the beans about Orion Acaba's exit or how things went down behind the scenes with Geek & Sundry... but beyond mentioning some quirky events early on that now wouldn't happen (Travis missing a session to catch a Marvel movie; the cast eating during the streams), they didn't really talk about when things went wrong. Like the Kickstarter, for example. It's this great story of how the cast completely underestimated the support they might expect from their legion of fans, and all their stretch goals were obliterated within hours. But also... there's a story there about management, about how they had to scramble to reframe the project, about how their own research failed them hard when they started off. And there's controversy to the fact that they've now partnered with Amazon, that the fan-funded project is now in the hands of one of the biggest streaming services in the world. There was no nuance to any of this, no real mention of it. And I'm sure that's partially for legal reasons, and I'm not saying I wanted this book to be a "tell all" of Critical Role's "seedy underbelly"... I guess maybe I was just looking for a more nuanced take on some aspects of the show's journey, on occasion!
But overall, I had fun reading this, I learned something new about the cast and their characters, and I'm just as in love with this nerdy-ass group of voice actors as ever!
book_of_kell's review
4.0
I loved it. It was fun and it moved along quickly. The art was amazing, as expected. I literally gasped when I saw the picture of the Chroma Conclave. I think the anecdotes were well chosen and the cast contributions were very naturally integrated. I laughed out loud a lot, which is always a plus for me!