something different

not listed to something like this before. Good story but various volumes so difficult ro listen at bedtime.

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Much Fun!

Such a fun story, and such amazing performances. If you're a fun of the LITRPG genre and want to have some tongue in cheek fun at the expense of the major clichés... then this is the story for you!

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Interesting.

It's worth a lesson I suppose I would recommend it yeah.

Thank you 🙂

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fun but no masterpiece

I really liked the feeling of this one. the characters where likeable and felt like a gang of goofs. and all the references made the read so much fun! for a 2 hour story I hade a fun time

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The format wasn't for me

Writing the entire book as a chat log and having a full cast perform it is a fun idea, but the weird format combined with various over the top characters made it very hard for me to get into the story, and I dropped the book. I guess it's not my kind of humor.

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Short, sweet and absolutely hilarious.

Much like How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps, Rowe has crafted an extremely fun story that both pokes fun of and embraces the source material he is parodying. I'm a huge Sword Art Online fan despite the many problems and it's deeply fun to see them made fun of in such a way whilst still managing to tell a complete story. It's not the only series parodied here but it is clearly the major one and it's done in a great way where it never feels meanspirited, I just love the scenario of believable QA testers actually analysing some of the bizarre game design that works great in the story but realistically would never fly!

The cast are all great, and there are plenty of laugh out loud moments as well as just enjoyable conversations and dynamics between the characters. I usually don't go for sound effects in my audiobooks but they never felt too annoying here and there was one in particular toward the end that definitely got me good with how unexpected but funny it ended up being. As with Demon King this book is chock full of great references and jokes that I'm sure I'll end up catching even more of on a second listen.

Rowe really puts his background in the game industry to use with some interesting insights and detailed descriptions of what QA is actually like compared to what people think it is. I'm not that knowledgeable about the industry but I'm sure those who are will get some great enjoyment out of some of the lines. The line about someone being in QA despite knowing how to code and the requirement of multiple years experience for even basic positions definitely hit home.

It's honestly very impressive to me that despite referencing the SAO series and game industry so much you could easily enjoy this book with no knowledge of either. A lot of the bugs/features the characters mention are taken straight from SAO, but used in some original fun ways and John is a great portal into the world for newcomers.

Can't recommend this audiobook enough, especially if you're familiar with SAO. It's great that this has come out just as the Sword Art Online books have started hitting audible too. I hope Rowe continues writing great witty stories like this one alongside his other works.

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3 people found this helpful

Simple, Short, and Fun

This is quite an enjoyable little listen - the description should say it all, it's a series of log chats (but voiced, each user with its own recognisable VA) for a QA team that are testing what sounds an awful lot like Sword Art Online. And riffing off a few other things too.

It's free with an Audible subscription at time of writing, and takes up about the same length of time as a good movie - if your interest is piqued, you've got little to lose :D

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Relatable if you’ve worked with QA

Pretty funny if you are working or have worked with Quality Assurance. Quite silly story, but enjoyable.

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Seems like a knockoff...

Very short sword art online vibes, and the end was awful... Would not recommend

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This would be better read, not listened to

There's a lot of templating that I would have speed-read through. It doesn't really work in audio format.

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