Gamer for Life: Alpha World, Book 1

Wonderful story with good world building. I love the exploration of theme. He has Easter Eggs for Animie and classic gamer fans. It's a great book

This is actually not half bad. I didn't care for the Heinlein-esque descent into juvenile polyamory fantasy. But overall I thought the book was relatively well written, showed careful planning by the author in creating a premise and story, and moved along smoothly. If you just look at low level stuff, like how sentences flow, how the dialog reads, and so on, it's really very solid work. The premise is a good (but not perfect) guy has made some awful choices under awful circumstances, and winds up a convicted murder. He gets a chance, for reasons that are hinted at but not over-explained (yay!), to end up as a guinea pig for a project (involving an MMO obviously) but it all ties back to his past, his motivations, and his values. Already more thought than a lot of recent indie authors, sad to say. Anyway, I thought the writing techniques were quite respectable. I liked the focus and pacing; it's got a nice balance of combat, relationships, world building, leveling, game mechanics, etc. It's probably a smidge more time on combat than I'd like, but that's probably exactly what most readers want, so I can't fault the decision to do that. I enjoyed quite a few little authorial decisions that I don't want to give away as spoilers, but the author is more careful than most to tie character choices back to established character values and traits (rather than just the most obvious or cliche drama to write). The characters develop slowly, but carefully; it seems likely there'll be a fair amount of char dev, just paced over a longer body of work yet to come. The MC is a bit angry, and slightly a dick at times, but that fits in even if I don't like that aspect, and he's not so bad as to be an utterly unsympathetic character (or worse, one only a pissy 14 year old MMO player would find familiar; some LitRPG novels are clearly written for *that* player in an MMO; the one that makes "ignore" settings a necessity). Good supporting characters, some indications of slight char dev there, we'll see. It may struggle w/ too large a cast to do justice by them, but we'll see.

This book was a lot of fun to read. I'm not sure where the series will go, but I'll definitely keep up with it.Highly recommended.

I don't read a lot of LitRPG and am even less likely to do so if there are harem elements, not because I have anything against those but because they often lead to a superficial story with little depth of character. Not so in this case!I waited until I read all 8 books in the series before posting this review since it is really one long book with a few pause points. I thouroughly enjoyed ever aspect of it. Interesting plot and character development, good inside nods to the gaming community and a nice balance of familiarity and novelty to the settings and mechanisms.The main chararcter is both real and seriously OP (I like OP characters) and there is good reason for this. It all hnags together very well, including good reason for the polygamy that is fimly story based. The battles are epic and there is the feel of progression from level 1 to end game raid while seeing development of the characters in game and relative to their real world backgrounds.All in all, an excellent read, one of the best examples of the genre I've ever read and I am looking for more by this author!

Alternate universe, LitRPG VR gaming, adult situationsSeamus aka Alburet goes to Alpha World, an immersion VR fantasy game world, and he's there to test the effects of long-term immersion on the player. This is an older tale, from 2016; it's a bit rougher with some punctuation issues, but it's also clear why people like Daniel Shinhofen's storytelling. I was so engrossed in the story that the end surprised me. Glad I have more of the series as I intend to binge-read. Bit of a slow start, but enjoyed and hooked.

Gamer For Life is the first book in the Alpha World series by Daniel Schinofen.Totally saw that ending, from the moment she requested to call him by a different title actually. Which still manifested as an intriguing way. I think it will lead to happier game play honestly, as a more satisfying future in his life with her by his side. While a mite annoying that it's into another harem style archetype, it's not to the degree that makes me cringe at least.I'm most surprised that the first book made it to completion without making it through the first month of his life in Alpha World, and therefore facing his irl checkup. Along, somewhat, similar lines I am wondering when we will get to meet his niece in Alpha World. I honestly can't see the author not bringing about that level of rehabilition for her, given how pivotal she is to the plotline and the main characters development.I also think Alburet is going to meet a King soon. Honestly, given how much of an impact he's made since transitioning to his life as a Summoner I'm surprised there hasn't been more politicking involved up to this point. I wonder how he will get back at Wilbur's family? They took their retribution terribly far, for a completely ridiculous reason, and I'm dreaming of their comeuppance. As well, how his small act of kindness to Lady Theron will manifest in other ways, or if it will at all? I simply have a feeling she will again show herself to be more important than she seems. Such a theme has presented itself often already in Alpha World.I nearly forgot the weird happenings at the beginning of the book with the final weirdo at the prison he started at, and the weird tome that will probably lead to terrible things. I honestly believe that guy is going to turn out to be Franklin Stein or one of his followers set to overthrow the kingdom, as they failed to do in the past. Just a guess tho.

This book series has been my favorite so far, and I've read a LOT of books in this genre. I cried, I laughed, the emotions brought up along the eight books where powerful, an real masterpiece.Being someone with multiple mental health issues I found Seamus/Alburet, Julia/Fluff and Karen's road to recovery really touching, my imagination going wild with what this world entails, the deep meaning about the nature of the (human) being and sentience, philosophical questions you wouldn't expect from this type of adult literature, and that's why I loved it.These books are proof that you can have adult themed stories with deep, meaningful plots, complicated characters, with questions about morality and what makes us, well, us.So if you're searching for long, intricate stories, lovable and deep characters as well as a large and interesting world, where the author masterfully mixes medieval time fantasy with RPG elements and a bit of sci-fi, go no further.

Great book, in the beginning I was like WTF! did I started reading the book 2? But it was just that the story had started with some more background story that already had happened, it's not that rate either, just a bit unexpected.The MC in this story has some heavy issues (that should be cleared /revealed hopefully) which makes it seem a bit more believable than some perfect MC.

I've decided, after reading book 5, to drop the series. You'll notice I gave this one a 5, and that's because this is an amazing book. so is book two, and three I would give a 4. four I would give a 3, and five, a 2. excellent writing and realistic characters along with descriptive action and intrigue are the best qualities of the early books, but slowly the series goes less into action and more to Drama. if you like romance and drama novels as well as action/adventure, this series would probably get a 5 in all of its books. unfortunatly, I do not like drama novels.

I was very pleasantly surprised with this book. The main character is neither drastically overpowered (just a little, for effect), nor is he an idiot or socially inept. He learns lessons the first time, and doesn’t repeat mistakes he swears to not make again.All in all, a very enjoyable read.

A convicted (yet sympathetic) criminal agrees to having his sentence be commuted to become a tongterm test-subject for a FullImmersion Virtual Reality game. Now he enters a fantasy gameworld where he will spend the rest of his life as his game character.I enjoyed reading this one. I liked the gaming elements and the relations the MC builds up over the course of the novel. This is by no means a perfect novel, but I had a great tome and I tink so will others.