3/5 stars
Synopsis
Warning! This section contains spoilers, if you would like to avoid these spoilers, jump to the review below.
The book started off with the main character having flashes of memory. The main character eventually figured out how to absorb things around him, and he started building a cavern around him. A creature named Nettle found him, told him he was a dungeon core, and started teaching him. Nettle was a bone sprite. She helped the main character, Lich, construct a dungeon.
Some goblins went into the dungeon. After that encounter, Lich was able to level up. Nettle went and got some stuff for Lich to absorb, while Lich reset the dungeon.
One of the things Nettle found and brought back was a gheist (a ghost who knows it’s dead) trapped in a tube. Lich absorbed the tube and freed the gheist. Lucy tried freeing the gheist but wasn’t able to and the gheist ended up trapped in the dungeon.
The new dungeon was reported, and adventurers swarmed it.
More groups went through the dungeon, and Lich upgraded himself. One of the groups that went through started talking about a plot to destroy the dungeon core (and destroy Lich in the process).
A guild that eradicated undead heard about the dungeon, and went to go destroy it. Lich overheard them talking while they were in the dungeon and discovered they were working with the person who killed him years and years ago. He was angry, and also discovered that a “specialist” was going to come to destroy him. The “specialist” arrived, and it was one of the goblins from the beginning of the book. Except this goblin had been given super strong magic by the person who killed Lich. So he was able to easily waltz through the dungeon.
The specialist goblin accidentally killed his brother who was in the dungeon with him, and fell apart. But then the evil guy possessed him and Lich and the evil guy fought. Then Lich did something that made his soul gem crack, but the attack also destroyed the goblin puppet.
Review
I had a difficult time understanding the point upgrade system. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my difficulties with numbers, or if the author didn’t make it clear enough. Either way, it was confusing.
The ending of the book didn’t make sense. The goblin who was the bad guy’s puppet, throughout the book, had disparaged his brother. I honestly thought that he hated the brother. But when he accidentally killed his brother, he completely fell apart. When the people who were fighting him had a chance to kill him, his sister begged for them to not kill him. Again, this didn’t make any sense to me because he and his sister tried to kill each other multiple times throughout the book. It felt like the author was trying to insert emotion into this book, but the setup for the emotion was backwards, or opposite, what it should have been.
I didn’t like how often the character point of view changed. It frequently changed from Lich to Nettle to the bad guy to the goblin puppet to the sister to the gheist. I felt like there were too many shifts. It was disorienting and annoying.
I had a hard time reading the things Nettle would say. She seemed okay at the beginning, but by the end of the book she was really nasty to the gheist. I didn’t understand why. Maybe because she didn’t like bards? And the gheist was a bard? I don’t know. Her animosity towards him was really annoying because I didn’t see any reason for it.
Lich was an interesting character. Yes, he was not able to move or anything like that, but he was still able to interact with things. It was nice because I felt like the story was actually told through him and his actions rather than him just observing what people around him were doing (the main character in Tree of Aeons did that and that book was so hard to get through). Lich’s personality was…unexpected. I expected him to be more evil, because he was a Lich in his previous life. But no, he was polite and helpful. It felt a little weird to me.
I felt like the ending was rushed. The book was mostly just Lich upgrading himself, all the way to about the 85% mark. And then suddenly the book changed, and he had to fight for his existence. I didn’t feel like there was enough build up for the ending. It seemed too abrupt.
I thought the concept for the book was pretty cool. I just wish it had a little more depth to the conflict. One thing I would be interested in seeing would be if the next book provides more information on Lich, and his background. The book implied that he was a good guy, but a lich is generally portrayed as evil. So I would be interested in seeing if the next book provides more information on Lich.
Fireheart Books 