I really really loved this book.

It follows the story of Van who is a gamer in a world where total immersion in the game has become standard practice. Pods can be bought which allow you to disappear into the game for days at a time, where you feel pain, emotions smells etc etc its extremely realistic to the point where the game becomes real life, and the real world becomes a distant memory. Van plays by screen however, and dreams of having a pod and gaining pro gamer status so he can be sponsered and earn money to get a better standard of living.

The C.I.A. start to investigate the game because gamers have been found dead inside the pods, and they send in an undercover agent called Sang to play the game and hack it from the inside to find out its secrets. They hire Van to be a guide for Sang in the game to teach her the rules and how to access higher level areas. Van is a level 79 player and is very experienced and eagerly agrees to do it as they promise him that he can have the swanky pod at the end of it. The caveat is that he has to go in as a newbie player, and they have to play the game from the beginning.

What Van and Sang find out is that Sang hates gamers, has no respect for the rules of the game, and causes more trouble for Van than he could of ever imagined. Plus he is bought into the direct attention of the creators of the game who hold deep secrets that could affect the whole of humanity and the earth as a whole.

I fell in love with this book, it is in the same vein as ready player one by ernest cline and despite the fact that both stories are very different the genre is familiar to me. It is also in the same vein as Artemis by Andy Weir. Both of which i loved. If you love scifi you will love this, if you have ever been consumed by a game like World of Warcraft for example, you will gel with this book instantly.

In the blurb it said that the author wrote this book in 2 weeks. Thats just insane, the level of detail in this book is astounding, no idea how he managed to do it frankly, but he has my utmost admiration and respect. I loved it so much i got the 2nd book in the series immediately.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the author for an Arc of this book.

A bit cheesy at times but a fun, light read all the same. Technically well written, with an interesting storyline.

This one almost ended up on my dnf list. I felt I was trudging through it and I think the only reason I was able to get through it was becasue I had my phone read it to me while I was at work.

I didnt know if it was a police story, a gamer story or Spoiler an (deleted)

There's a very small part of me that wants to know what happens next, but I dont think I care Quite enough to actually read the next one.

Things flipped around so much at times I had a hard time knowing were I was or what was going on.

I didn't know what to expect from this book. It was definitely more enjoyable than I anticipated be. I think that the LitRPG aspect is very interesting. The statistics are inserted into the text.