Decent story. Interesting lore. But I feel uncomfortable

Decent story concept. Game literature with character leveling without actual main character leveling.
I like the world lore that is hinted at and the way the explanation gets slowly trickled in. Hope it continues with future books.

But. These are KIDS. The young age is mandatory for much of the character interactions. But am I really supposed to relate with these pre-puberty children’s semi lewd feelings? I just feel wrong now. Hope it doesn’t continue in the next book. Or that we time jump a few years at least. Or that we step back to a more innocent relationship

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Great story with lovable heros

This is a Great start a new story and to /new characters! Just a little short!

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Somewhat Sophomoric.. But Entertaining

GameLit genre pioneer Vasily Maharenko offers the First Book in his 'Alchemist' Series.. a tale about 10-year-old Tailyn Vlashich - learning to make his way in a harsh Fantasy World. The characters are realistic, the worldbuilding is impressive, and the Magic System - using Charge-holding Cards & Decks in the place of Spellbooks and Memorized Incantations - is original.
My main complaint with the book is the immaturity of the story (the naivety of Tailyn eventually gets pretty annoying). This book is clearly aimed at 12-year-old kids.. which is fine, I guess, but I'm not in that demographic. I found it to be frustratingly unsophisticated.

As to presentation: I assume that translator Jared Firth captures the tone that the Russian author intended.. because Henry W. Kramer does an impressive job delivering it to listeners. Mr. Kramer's voice-acting is occasionally cartoonish.. but his diction, timbre, cadence, and pacing are decisively above average. The lighthearted narration approach to a kid-friendly story that doesn't take itself too seriously is *pitch-perfect*. I would listen to more from Kramer any day (in fact, I recently downloaded a book just because he is on the project).

It is unfortunate that LitRPG entries don't format well on the audiobook platform - repeated metagame Character Sheet updates are often intrusive & interruptive - because the story in this book is an exemplary combination of Game Mechanics, Adventure, and Coming-Of-Age sentiments. 'City Of The Dead' rates 7 stars out of 10. It's not the best of these books that I have read, but it's definitely serviceable - particularly if you're listening with future Fantasy fans on a long car ride or something. Save your Credit for something else if they ask for one.. but this audiobook is a reasonable distraction if you find it available on the 'Plus' menu.

[Incidentally: I didn't find the sexual tension between pre-teen characters disturbing. Yes, it's sometimes a little bit uncomfortable.. but never gets explicit]

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feels like a reskin if the way of shaman story

nothing new every turn in story was predictable. with reading reviews for next books I won't be picking up the other books in the series as I have already read way of the shaman and the pacing and events are book for book the same.

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fifty/fifty

the narrator did a reasonable and the story overall was pretty good but the romance was to sudden and seemed forced.

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