The Greystone Chronicles: Book One: Io Online

I really wanted to like this book because, for the most part, it is well written with minimal grammar and spelling mistakes. However, the story has no suspense or progression. The MC is OP'd from the beginning. With a newbie ability he is able to change the ground into liquid which traps everyone he fights. Ironically, he mocks his opponent as dumb but his own fight strategies are one dimensional. 1) Drop opponent in mudpit. 2) harden mudpit. 3. Rinse and repeat. Not only is the MC OP'd, he is also over protected. He is always in a group with either an ancient godlike wizard or an ancient godlike dragon. MC risks nothing and earns nothing on his own.

party LitRPG comparable to Schinhofen's "Last Horizon". Worth reading, even though the party is way more - and unnecessarily - OP than Schinhofen's one.
Why reset all the characters to level 1 if the author then turns around and throws lategame NPC friends at them? Lost an opportunity for something special there, thus only 4 stars.

Dave. Thank you. There has been one other author who has been able to make me cry, laugh, cheer and weep along with the story I'm reading. You're the second. I now have another book series to look forward to as much as I do Emerilia. I found this book to be very well done, and I read it in one sitting as I could not put it down. You and Mr Chatfield should write a book together. It would be amazingly epic. Thank you again!!!!

This is by far one of the best in litRPG genre. A great in game experience, super back end RL supporting story, a great cast of characters (guildies) we have all known in our gaming experience. I am moving right on to book 2!

I really enjoyed this story. While it does have it's faults (like pretty OP characters and loot at noob levels), it is definitely worth the time to read. The book was well written and the balance of the real world and the virtual world was a nice change from some of the others in the litRPG genre.

The book is entertaining and the characters engaging. There are a few things that made it less so. The guild gaining a thousands of years old mage as an ally who just dumps skills on them for one. Another would be the incredibly OP ability of Alexander with stone. Despite those two major things and a few minor ones I would recommend this book if you enjoy the genre.

It's a fun read with a fast moving story that is enjoyable. It'll be interesting to see if the author can keep the melodrama moving without 'jumping the shark' but the story is fun enough to read that I'll try to find out.

First quarter of the book should be told in the first three to five pages. After that it gets a little good but then gets terrible again at one third of the book where the main character starts torturing people even though it's not allowed but it's ok because they are PKs. I gave up.

Good 1st book
It is a good read, decent characters if a bit one dimensional in the first book.
The story is a bit overly mary sue, as pointed out in other reviews; but at least for me, not too over the top.
My only real point of criticism is that I feel the author spent too much time describing building processes during the book.
Next book, add some grinding, and have them take the mascot with them :)

I liked the world and the characters. I had a slow time reading this book. I thought that the characters weren't challenged. Real conflict with consequences did show up by the end. I think I'll enjoy the next one better. I thought the descriptions of gaming terms after the story was a nice touch. I read it after hearing Jeff Hays read a section where the party interacts with a goblin, my favorite part of the book.

I am going to be truthful here. I have not yet finished the book and I am deliberating whether I will.
EDIT: I have finished the book. And I enjoyed it aside from the PK bits, because of the points I have outlined below.

There will be spoilers in this review.

So I actually enjoyed this book. Until I was quite brutally jarred out of my immersion. It happened when they encountered the player killers(PK). It was when the main character basically tortures the one PK. They later said it is not really torture since he was not restrained at that point. However he was second earlier and he was surrounded by 5 people.
In a game there should never be a deliberation of whether something is torture or not. The moment this question even comes up the game designer failed, horribly. And would probably get sued to the ground. Pain settings high enough to torture somebody are a bad idea from the beginning but then not putting measures to prevent that ...

Made my lose all sympathy for the main character. Next is a flashback to his mothers death which explains his approach. I have some problems with that too, but more to that later. I was hoping his friends might be reasonable but they were "Oh hey so were are torturing this guy for information thats cool". Lainey was the only one who seemed put of by it. But when told something, I assume it was something along the lines of "Hey the MCs mother was killed by a terrorist". she was suddenly ok with it too. However I cannot understand the jump from there to suddenly be OK with that.
The PKs are pricks but that does not make this ok.

Next the flashback.
Mother gets killed by terrorist. Terrorist are religious fanatics, they flee to Iran. Iran shelters them. Father gets investigators they track the terrorists identify them. They get tried in absentia. Death sentence. I am with you on all of this, but then I feel it kind of derails. Father gets the company to stop providing service to everyone playing in the whole country. Which was said in the story to be 10 Million people providing for a lot more. And offering an ultimatum to the countries government to release the terrorists or have said people get screwed over. People who have not done anything. For personal revenge. Aside from the sheer magnitude of abuse of power, I cannot imagine something like this working. The lawsuits would be insane and as for as I know you can't just brush aside lawsuits. Also when looking a company trying to blackmail a government. There would be alarm bells ringing in every country on the world.

Third was the scene with the GM, who basically tells the PKer who was "tortured" that he technically was not tortured. And the reasons as to why he was not tortured included things he did to avoid said torture...
He did deserve to get banned for his little threat in the end though. Even though you might argue that the GM goaded him.

Those are my problems with the story and they upset me enough to leave a review.

There is just one last thing I would like to adress. His father and another guy in the company basically state that he dislikes PKs a lot. This comes from the guy who DESIGNED the game. If he dislikes it so much why did he put it in the game in this way. He provided the systems these PKers use and gets upset that they use it? There are so many ways to stop player killing even while still allowing pvp. You could let players opt into pvp. you could make the noob safe zone bigger. You could make a pve game. You could activate pvp only in select ways, in a war for example. You could make it impossible when the level difference is too high.

To summarize what I have a problem:
- the sudden torture and its rationalization
- the possibility of such a thing in a game
- the okness of the people with it
- the blatant abuse of power of the MCs father and the fact that it does not seems believable
- the unprofessionalism of the GM
- the question why this is even a problem to begin with

I have been having a difficult time finding books that keep my interest. This book not only kept my interest but also kept me laughing. I live the characters and how they interact with each other. I would love to join their guild, jump in, and play the game with them. Can’t wait for the next book!!!!!!

I like how well the author transitions from RL to online however for the next book I would like to see more actual game mechanics and loot. There is too much hand waving in the story for the magic system in place. A few of the chars are well thought out like Brick and Alex however Lainey and Sasha are both fading into the background without much development. Good read, a bit of potential here.

A Fun new series by a new author. It took me a bit to get into it as it was a bit slows to get into the main plot compared to many other litRPG stories but once it got going, I really enjoyed it. It is fairly light on the amount of stats, just enough to keep you in tune with the MC's progression.

Definitely going to read the next in the series when it comes out.

This story is simple wish fulfillment without any risk, loss or challenge to the main characters. The author attempts to show a challenge to the main character by having them fight enemies that are 10+ levels higher than them and in several cases several times their level, and all of them are crushed with ease.

The game world described in this doesn't even seem to have any other humans in it that aren't somehow attached to the main character either as a friend or foe. In a game that's supposed to contain nearly a billion players the main cast never once even TALK to another human player that isn't trying to kill them.

I guess it makes some sense though, the main character is a rich boy who gets everything he wants. So who needs challenge, character development, any sense of risk or people who don't constantly talk about how awesome you are? Or even better, people who try and fail to kill you despite being far "stronger" than you to show just how great you are.

That's not even getting into the fact that no one in the game world seems to understand politics, game balance, currency, construction, logistics or risk management. But hey, sometimes it can be nice to read a story about a grossly over-privileged kid stomping everything.

While I enjoyed the MC being overpowered in the game, being the kid of a Bill Gates like dad IRL kind of rubbed me wrong. He punished those who had no choice or chance was just wrong because he doest have to struggle to make money. The author does a good job of speculative science in this fiction. Keep up the good stories. By the way, you have typos in red instead of being erased and repeated sentences.

This book started out pretty interesting and then quickly became forgettable. While I understand that no idea is truly new, the author seemed to pick pieces out of already popular LitRPG books and try to incorporate them all. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to mesh very well. The buildings could've been less fantastic versions of buildings in The Land. The earth manipulation could've been pulled straight from Emerilia. The guild wars represents an all too common trope in Russian LitRPG and overall, it seemed like much of the same. Even the main character seemed reminiscent of Dragon's Wrath. I can't think of anything truly unique about this book except for the fact that the main characters never had a negative experience throughout the whole story. There was little conflict within the plot and what was there consisted of the main character easily defeating lackluster opponents. Finally, the book was rife with grammatical and spelling errors. The author even accidently (I hope) included the Google Doc notes from his beta readers. It's an embarrassing oversight that is indicative of a laissez-faire attitude on the part of the author. It never should've been published with such glaring errors and the beta readers should've done more to point out the startling similarities between this book and others within the same genre.

The story has similarities with other RPG games. I especially enjoy the early chapters because the characters progress together. If you want to read a book about friends Then this is a great book.

Warning the characters are all overpowered which sucks some of the fun out of the story. Some of the game mechanics don’t get muddled as well. The bad guys motivations are hard to believe, because of that it’s just a fun read but not more than that.

While I liked the book, it became a chore to read. The pacing started strong, then lulled in the middle through the end. The town building was over described for my taste. Some of the attacks by the antagonists were predictable, but everything was foiled too easily, all the time. With the character's new powers to manipulate the game in ways unheard of outside their immersion, it didn't matter that they were low level. Nothing in the story was insurmountable, or even challenging. I appreciate that the characters were using cleverness to defeat their enemies, but boring, stupid thugs don't make for interesting reading. The first half was much stronger.

None of the losses mattered, because none of them happened to anyone important. None of the challenges mattered, because the characters were too smart or too strong for them. [Spoiler] The goblin was the only character who actually grew or changed in the story, and that's not enough for me. But it made me like him, and not just because of his comedic part.

That being said, I still enjoyed what I read, and look forward to a sequel that tightens up these areas and progresses the story. If you're a fan of Chatfield's Emerilia, Willmarth offers a similar feeling, only better written with a story that's going somewhere at a pace worth reading without TOO much filler.

Overall a decent read. Quite a few spelling mistakes, such as waived instead of waved occurred multiple times. My biggest problem with the story was the lack of any real conflict. Everything just happened to work out perfectly for the main characters the whole book. Also quite a few sections dragged on too long, particularly the building parts.
Still, the book was good enough that I'll check out the next in the series.

Exclamation points should be used rarely. I get excited talking to my friends and family about things that I'm passionate about, but rarely do I exclaim things to them. The characters in this compilation of words that roughly resembles a novel rarely have a single conversation that doesn't have two or more exclamations. There's also the fact that the author needs to be loaned a thesaurus something fierce. In several places every character compliments the MC as being very good for doing something inane and obvious.

So grammar and poor word choices aside, let's get into the nitty gritty of what makes this an awful novel. First of all there are the characters. They are all completely one dimensional. One of the characters, named Brick, is a dwarf with the 'catchphrase' of "BWAHAHAHA!" In fact, all dwarves seem to have this 'catchphrase.' Now if you have ever read any other fantasy series containing dwarves, by applying stereotypes you now know almost everything there is to know about Brick. What's left is some stuff about Brick and Max, another character, being poor. The female characters all love to cook,are overly emotional, and are repeatedly told by the MC that they are like family. Max is a ranger who uses a bow and has no family. Other than the fact that he is somehow poor, I know literally nothing else about him.

These are all the side characters though, and I'm sure if you've read far enough into this review to get to this point, what you really want to know about is the main character. To put it simply, he is an overpowered, spoiled rotten, childish brat, who seems to think the attitude of "No mercy" is mature. He also appears to be the authors self insert character. He hates other players that kill players with an obsession to the point of torturing them. This is lauded by most other characters as being good and the grown up thing to do.

I could continue to critique this compilation of words in an order that technically make sense all day, but in the end, if you are thinking about spending money, or more importantly, your time on this dumpster fire, don't. Read anything else.

The writing is mediocre but what really ruins this book is the stupidity of the "drama." Apparently the MC's mom was killed by a terrorist, so the MC somehow blames PK'ers in a video game for this. His reasoning is "if they do this here [kill players], they'll start to think it's acceptable in the real world" That's an actual quote from the story.

I don't know how to articulate how stupid that is and have my review not be censored, so I'll just give it the one-star rating.

Don't know why the author tried to make this s real story but I personally don't like when a Good story is mess up the none serious is pretty good it's just the deep stuff kinda turns Off it's boring?

Really, like it's a constant chain of op people being more and more op. Its impressive there is SO MUCH oP but yeah just too much op. The most powerful enchantment ever made by someone on their second attempt to enchant. Head shots galore. Plot armor thicker than a tank. If you enjoy OP, go for it.

I wanted to like this book; the story was well written, well edited, but ultimately I felt this book failed. The characters never felt challenged; never felt like they could lose.
Having played many MMORPGs, and read a notable number of LitRPG books, I just felt that even within the confines of it being a fictional work, that there was no way the characters could really achieve what they did if it was fair and balanced. They were OP and that was it. Spoilers: In no other MMORPG would a character that is 60 levels higher be something you could overcome, or bosses twice your level. So clearly levels don't matter. The things in fact that their characters can achieve at low levels is silly, from bringing up obsidian from the depths to create a forge that rivals a dwarven kingdoms to utilizing a lightning magical storm to stun multiple players. Similarly if you've beaten and confined all the officers and the guild leader of your enemy guild, how have they gained any members for you to fight in the easily won fight at the end? Yet even after all that silliness, the protagonists still somehow care about gaining levels before going into a higher level zone? If levels don't matter, and mana conservation doesn't matter, only your will and tactical sense, then why care about zone levels?

A story of a wealthy kid playing a game with access to the best immersion hardware and friends in the game admin who ensures he gets the best loot... stupidly overpowered character who can regularly kill opponents over 50 levels higher. The MC seems to be the only character capable of using gaming mechanics while other players and characters basically just run at him with a swords. Even when a lebel 80 character hits the MC that is only lvl 15- that was not enough to one shot him. It’s just silly... I don’t understand the anger against pvp gameplay. As others have said- if the game admins are against pvp then just turn off that option for the game. It’s a ridiculous premise. Hard to suspend disbelief with all the inconsistency. One minute the company is private the next minute the employees are paid with stock options. And then there is the catch phrase “see ya, see ya” like that’s suppose to catch on and become popular.... made me want to throw up a bit.

Unsympathetic MC with unfleshed out stale supporting class. No real conflict, no challenge they can't face. As sad as I'm supposed to be MC is dying and half orphaned it seems like he is literally given everything from OP gear to special abilities to things supposedly worth thousands of dollars. (not that that matters he's a billionaire heir). All problems are made simple and solved often through walls of exposition explaining the world but lacking in logic or gravity. Normal moral problems that could help the story are glossed over. Maybe this deserves two star's or three at most if you really like the genre, but so many 5 stars are not advertising this book truthfully.

The story reads like a boring text book description of MMO level grind. Like watching 30 hours of nonstop gold farming of the same mob. The story would be more interesting if it spent 300 pages describing paint drying. Very well written, well edited boredom.