Review: Wild Era

Title: Wild Era: A LitRPG Progression Epic

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0F3HK8892/

Author: David North

Rating: 2.9/5

Comments: Another one that I finished but regret it.  Mr North has a tendency to have his protagonist operating in an effective vacuum and do a lot of navel gazing. Unlike his Guardian of Aster's Fall (this series is set in the same universe) the protagonist has very few connections or really anything to humanize him.  He is entirely self contained and fully realized as a person, so there's no real character development to be done.

BORING

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: Guardian of Aster Fall Book 7

Title: World Seal (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 7)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CG15JTYB/

Author: David North

Rating: 3.5/5

Comments: I have been having issues with this series since book 4, when the family aspect began to dwindle away, and at this point the family gets mentioned maybe a double handful of times per book.  Characters that we expected to have a significant role in the overall story in early books don't even get mentioned. Meanwhile Sam is routinely punching above his weight class, despite there being an extremely limited number of beings that are actually higher tier than him.

And then we have the navel gazing.  It's gotten worse.  I was regularly skipping paragraphs, and significant chunks of pages.

At this point I'm invested in this story and I will probably finish the story, but I don't find it nearly as satisfying as the early books.

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: Guardian of Aster Fall Book 6

Title: Echoes of War (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 6)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BYVW3ZTJ/

Author: David North 

Rating: 3.9/5

Comments:  I am going to summarize my frustration with this book in one sentence.  TOO MUCH NAVEL GAZING.  I mean honestly, there are chapters that go by with no character interaction, just Sam contemplating the way the universe works and how he can accomplish his goals.

There's some great story elements here, and great characters, but he needs to USE them, not just mention them in passing.  Atley is woefully underutilized.

I hope the next book does better.

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: Guardian of Aster Fall 5

Title: Path of Stars (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 5)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BJZFJ9D5/

Author: David North

Rating: 4.7/5

Comments: I will honestly say I started reading this with some trepidation.  What I loved about the early books in this series was the interaction between Sam and his family.  At the end of book 4 Sam heads off into the Void by himself.  About the first quarter of this book he's effectively solo and there's a fair amount of navel gazing.  Once you get past that, and he finds other people, things get interesting.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, and I am really looking forward to book 6.

 

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: Astral Threads

Title: Astral Threads (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 4) 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B4KQYS3K/

Author: David North

Rating: 4/5

Comments: I really enjoyed books 1-3 in this series because an important part of those books is the protagonist's relationship with his family and friends.  This book has a much reduced role for them, and a lot more of the action is in Sam's head or solo.  I found the story less charming than the others because of that.  Book 5 could be a make or break book for the series.

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: Moonlight Relic

Title: Moonlight Relic (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 3)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09W7BQB41/ 

Author: David North

Rating: 5/5

Comments:  Last month I reviewed the first two books of this series and loved them both.  This being the third book I had high hopes for it, and I'm happy to report it came through and met those expectations.

Lots of stuff happening in this book and well worth the read.

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: Battlefield Reclaimer and Aster Fall

Title:  Battlefield Reclaimer (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 1)

 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09CLKKF48

Aster Fall (Guardian of Aster Fall Book 2

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HJF498B/

Author: David North

Rating: 4.7/5 and 5/5

Comments: This book was biggest surprise I've had since War Vixen Bride.  It just kept popping up on my recommended list and I kept skipping over it until I didn't.  And I'm glad I didn't.

There are two things that really kept me with this book and its sequel.  The first is that creative ways that the protagonist finds to explore and innovate ways of using his magic.  Since he's the only one that has it, pretty much everything he does is based on "let's try this".  The second is the exceedingly rare way the author uses the protagonists family.  Rather than just being plot flags to attract misfortune, they are fully realized and useful characters the family dynamic is downright heartwarming.

These have my unreserved recommendation.  If there was one thing I would change it would be to make them not Litrpg, but even that mechanic has been folded into the narrative in an almost useful way.  Far better than most treatments of it.

I was rather surprised that I had reviewed another of North's books and didn't like it after reading these two.  I guess he learned something about pacing.

Bedroom Activities: None

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Review: River of Fate: The Jade Scripture

Title: River of Fate: The Jade Scripture (Book 1)

Author: David North

Rating: 2.8/5

Comments:  This story is painfully slow.  I would estimate at least half the book is solitary mental monologue aka navel gazing.  Then you throw in a bunch of info dumps (I skipped 5 pages of description of the difference between charged and uncharged artifacts.  No exaggeration, I counted.).  Honestly if he would cut out all of that, it's not a bad story but it moves so freaking slow that even the occasional POV jumps did not appreciably slow it more than it already was.

Really can't recommend this one unless you like "traditional" cultivation stories where most of the action is in the protagonists head and the only real challenge he faces is getting his brain in order.

Bedroom Activities: None

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