Hello bookish friends! After enjoying Firebreak, a book about a virtual reality game that is the reality people seek out, Entriss Online by David J. pedersen seemed like the perfect choice to try a different side of the story. What if the world that was so dear to people was going to shut down? What does that look like from the perspective of a developer and gamer? Those were questions I am curious to see play out. It was such a good experience to read this with Erynn and be part of the Storytellers on tour blog tour for the blog. Take a look at the synopsis below and then I will share our discussion about three aspects of the book.
They were shutting down Entriss Online, and Ian had no way to stop them. The game was his life — by day, as one of their lead developers; by night, gaming as the accomplished Mandorf the Wizard. After years of leveling up, both professionally and personally, everything he had worked for was going to end. His goggles-and-gloves virtual reality MMORPG was being replaced with Everyworld Online, a next-gen game that provided full immersion so players could experience a world that looks and feels real.
After stumbling on an unknown quest that kills anyone who approaches, Ian discovers an enormous amount of orphaned code that had never made it into the game. Moments before being fired, he checks in the code, enabling The Left Hand of God quest chain, an unexpected world event, and the frightening reality of a fully immersive Entriss Online.
Content Notes: Non-graphic violence, mentioned abuse.
Thoughts on Entriss Online
Since this was a buddy read, Erynn and I decided to split our discussion into two parts for the tour. Check out the post on her blog Dragon Hourglass where we discuss the book in general! Dive into detailed analysis of the cast, world-building and plot. As you probably know the drill from prior discussion posts, Erynn’s comments are in bold text.
Cast
Entriss Online has a number of characters. We meet Ian who is a renowned player in the game, his coworker Julie, who is also a very good player, along with different people in the organization. The company itself is going to be sold and downsized and as a result, there is a lot of tension and sadness. In the game itself, we meet the AI, Deity, as well as numerous Non-Player Characters (NPC) and tribes that create the world of Entriss. Such a variety of cast as well as the snippets of what the real world looks like (this is obviously set in the future when virtual reality, completely immersive games are possible) was a new experience for me and I enjoyed it.
The cast started out relatively small but by the end of the book there were so many characters I honestly had a little trouble keeping track of them all!
Me too. There was a map to help with the world itself but with the numerous tribes and people and team changes within the game, I had a hard time keeping track of some of the characters too. A lot of fantasy books have a list of cast and I feel like that would have been a helpful edition for a fantasy world game.
While the characters within the game developed, I felt like I only got to know them superficially. Ian and Julie had their own secret lives and though they are hinted at throughout the book, it would have been good to get to know them better as real people too. This is not to discount the effort that went into their relationship. It was just hard to follow why they behaved a certain way in the game because of what had happened in real life and was unknown to me as the reader. While some readers would find it as a great mystery/suspense element, it did not help me bond with the characters.
Agreed. I felt like what was supposed to be suspenseful in not knowing the truth ended up just being more frustrating to me than rewarding. It would have been more exciting, in my opinion, if we’d known at least part of the truth much earlier on. It would have made me feel more connected to the characters to see their flaws and secrets. In that way, the way they behaved would have made more sense (even if the other characters still don’t have the truth)!
Of all of the characters, I think we get to understand Ian the most, which makes sense since he’s the main character. You can tell from early on that he has a bit of a moral code that he sticks to, but it’s interesting to see how that changes throughout the book. When it comes to the game, it seems like the care he’s put into developing his relationship with Julie kind of goes out the window.
World building
I found my experience playing Diablo III and watching Clinton play Warcraft came in very handy to understand the game mechanics and the world of Entriss. While we spent a good chunk of our reading time in the world, it was actually aspects of the real world where the company downsizing and character’s history were situations that I was most interested in.
I think any background in gaming is definitely an asset for understanding what’s going on in the game part of this book. Although I’m not a hardcore gamer anymore, I did recognize what seemed to be some Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft references and mechanics. That did help with my enjoyment of the game aspect, but I definitely agree, I would have liked to know more about the real world part of the story.
Yes I caught the reference to Leeroy Jenkins too though I have never played World of Warcraft. It is fun to know such references!
What was happening to the company and how the game was supposed to help or affect the real world was really foundational to the development of the plot and how you’re supposed to understand the characters motivations, but there were quite a few times where I got lost because the real world context wasn’t adding up, at least in the way I was understanding the story.
We met cyborgs in real life – which was pretty cool by itself! This is clearly set in a futuristic time with game engines powered by quantum servers and our computer coding capabilities have evolved to create such an amazing immersive game! On top of that, I remember earlier in the book, the games seemed to be portrayed almost as an alternative to space exploration. Rather than building new economies and exploring the world, why don’t we create jobs in a virtual place and live a whole other life there? Entriss Online definitely did a good job of putting some brilliant ideas out for readers to ponder. Since the scope of this book was limited to the game and the organizational changes happening to the company and affecting the game, I think there is a lot of room for future books in the series to take world building to the next level.
I think that’s one of the directions the other books in the series could go. There are hints of world accords regarding the games, and how there are other virtual worlds that we haven’t seen yet. There are clearly world politics at play when it comes to the IMMO space and there’s lots of room to explore the global consequences of this technology. Also yes, I want to see more cyborgs. :’D
I really liked seeing parts of game mechanics as screen shots throughout the story. Ian’s frustration with his characters, quests and abilities was supported by his stats. That helped with the game side of world building.
Right, I really liked the addition of the skill tree visuals, it was a nice snapshot of Ian’s progress through the story and a nice way to see how his character evolved. It was interesting to see how he had the Focus Tree where he could choose his skills, compared to Ned’s staff where it seemed like he received random abilities that were just as likely to hurt Ian as help him.
Plot
Entriss Online has a very interesting premise. A powerful player and developer is kicked out of his company and the last thing he does is check in some code he found which unlocks a whole other version of the game. As a result, Ian also ends up being the one on the ultimate quest. There are a number of side plots in the story like the company being in trouble, Ian’s personal and love life as well as the bigger picture of society using video games as a way to solve their problems. I think we got a glimpse of what the series will address in future books while giving us a good taste of the VR games and some of the politics around them.
The first 60-70% of the book went by really fast! But as new elements were introduced and we started to learn the motivation and identities of certain real world characters, I started to get lost. The plot was getting disjointed while the quest of The Left Hand of God was nearing its end. Erynn, what did you think of the quest as a whole? I really like the story of King Zalmon and how none of his children were worthy and how that led to a war.
I really enjoyed the book up until about the 50-60% mark as well. I had a lot of questions but since it was still early in the plot I was willing to sit and enjoy the ride. At the beginning, the plot was pretty straightforward overall, and I noticed how, at the start of the quest, the format was really a typical MMO or RPG style. They were told to go to a place (the gnome village) and there were highlights/indicators to give clues as to how to end the catastrophe… but as the story developed, and the IMMO was upgraded into the 2nd generation IMMO, the quest itself seemed to change. It was almost like it became a parody of real life in that a bit of direction is given for what you have to do, but in a way where you have to figure out 99% of the details on your own.
That’s a good way to put it!
I would have enjoyed seeing more human player characters in-game play a bigger role in the plot than just the NPCs that we met. Ian and Julie were always in a tense spot and maybe another player would have helped balance them more. We talked about platonic friendships in our personal communications and that probably would have added more time for the world rather than the emotional turmoil that was happening thanks to secrets and attraction.
Oh absolutely, I would have loved to see a better balance of real players vs NPCs. Most of the player characters didn’t come in until the end and most of them were mindless masses, that is, unless they were griefers. I wished Ian and Julie made more in-game friends for that reason.
Reading Experience Summary
For me, Entriss Online was a wonderful start in the genre of LitRPG novels. I am interested to see what other game world authors have imagined and how that interacts with the real world. This book reminded me of Ready Player One in some ways. Mostly, the writing was immersive and I felt like I was being taken on a journey. It was really easy to sink into the story, just like I would expect in a game!
Will you pick up this book?
Check out Erynn’s post on her blog Dragon Hourglass where we discuss the book in general! Head to the event page to learn about the International giveaway for a signed physical copy of the book. And don’t forget to check out what other hosts are saying about the book.
Entriss Online is available online. Order it through your local library to help this book reach more readers.
Amazon Kindle
(available on Kindle Unlimited)
About the Author
David J. Pedersen is a native of Racine, WI who resides in his home town Kansas City, MO. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He has worked in sales, management, retail, video and film production, and IT. David has run 2 marathons, climbed several 14,000 foot mountains and marched in Thee University of Wisconsin Marching Band. He is a geek and a fanboy that enjoys carousing, picking on his wife and kids, playing video games, and slowly muddling through his next novel.
Connect with him on Twitter, Instagram, his website and Goodreads.
Many thanks to the author and Storytellers on Tour for providing me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Cover image: Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash
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