To Play with Magic

The Forerunner Initiative, Book 1

De: Draith

Narrado por: Andrea Emmes

"With a onesie, and the ability to stop time, anything is possible."

Dragons, catgirls, guns, and magic—oh, and the ability to stop time. What more could a modern gal want?

Well... If my past would stay locked in a dark corner back on Earth, that'd be nice.

Right, there was that one other thing: finding a way home before the world ends. But hey, that's what my mom would call the last step in your five-year plan.

The first? Play with magic.

©2023 Draith aka D. F. Kirtzinger (P)2023 Podium Audio

Fun and unique story

This was a very interesting and enjoyable story. The litRPG elements were outside the norm making them interesting. The author made all characters unique, including having different resources for magic, and it gave them all a lot of room to grow. In a way, it felt like it was setting them up to be a combination of a system style litRPG and a superhero book. Each character was growing and progressing well, and I felt like the story could definitely be longer, but as the first book in a series that's a good feeling to have.

Andrea Emmes did a fantastic job with narration and bringing the story to life. Each character felt distinct and she did a very good job of making all scenes feel realistic to how the characters were feeling and adding ambience to every scene. The pacing made sure the story was easy to follow even with the more complicated than usual magic system.

Promising start!

This is a very promising start to a series. The story is emotionally, rich, as well as having decently developed characters. The path to progression is a little bit complicated… But not overly so. As long as you pay attention and have a reasonably decent memory, you’ll pick it up quickly. The one problem that I have with the story is that while on her own, Alexis does pretty well… However, when she returns to her companions, she pretty much immediately falls into the people pleasing role. I hope this trend doesn’t continue in future books, or at least gets broken by her. She is an amazing and dynamic character.

Read it on Royal Road

I read this initially on Royal Road, and am currently on book 6. If it wasn't obvious based off my progress in the series, this is among my favorite series I have listened to, leading to me purchasing the book to support the author, and to hear what voices the narrator would use for the cast.
While there were a few flaws in the Audio version, they were all minor enough to not be noticable for most people who aren't utterly obsessed. (Roberts's Matrix Resource accidentally being called Umbra rather than Reprieve)
As for the story it's self, it is a slow burn Progression Fantasy through a well designed world. Most pieces of world building are well placed and integrated into the pacing well, and are fairly logical in their design. The slow pace however, does mean that the story develops pretty slowly, though there's still progression and action, there's just additional focus on the moments of downtime, compared to other LitRPG authors.
My only real complaint, is in regards to the System, as the Forerunners are antagonistic towards the system, but it's not specifically noted what their grievances are. There are some subtle hints as to whats wrong with the System, most notably birth control but I feel that's a fair exchange for immortality, and the System only seems to use it to prevent overpopulation.
The characters are well designed, if a tad flat in the early books, and Alexis' sense of humor is hilarious. Which is quite entertaining, seeing as the book is written as though it was Alexis telling the story herself. Also, Smoulder is absolutely adorable, and is definitely the best Doom-Bunny.

Takes a bit to get used to

This series is written in first person which isnt too unusual however what takes a bit to get used to is that it's written in present tense.

Normally that would make me drop the book but I gave it a shot and its decent. Which makes me think it would be amazing in another tense. instead of " I head outside " I know I'd prefer "I headed outside"

I dont know if its authors preference or perhaps wanting it to feel more uncertain it the MC will survive. After all first person past tense always makes it feel like they survive since the story is set as if it happened so they must survive to tell it in first person, while present tense takes away that feeling.

As for the story, its interesting take on fight the system storyline. The MC is a bit of a air head. Not that shes stupid but she gets lost in her own head. It's less in book 2 but in book 1 shes constantly doing magic to the point she blocks out the whole world. It might have a bit to do with past trauma because once she resolves some of it she seems to focus more. Though she is still one track mind to the point of not taking in whole rooms shes in until later as If she can only see one thing at a time and not register the broader picture.

3.5 rounded up

I got real sick of the word “onesie,” the too frequent full stat reads, and the overly complicated system. But, I did like the story enough that I will be reading the next one.

Terrible

I have to return this. The writing is terrible and so far it's just an hour or so of an awkward teen talking about lots of game mechanics that I will never, ever understand or care about.

Three quarters set up

It is entirely possible this is a good series. Listening to book one is not the way to find that out. Andrea Emmes does a good job but there is only about three hours of plot in this book. The rest is explaining the system and increasing stats. I’m going to give book two a shot and see if that changes.

Not bad but they add beastiality in later books

edited after listening to more books so spoilers. Warning to all this author adds a gross relationship with the mc and the cat monster later so do not start this story if that bothers you as much as it did me. I dropped this series because of that.

middle of the road story so far. A few things that linger in my mind after finishing:

The transition to the new world was kind of abrupt and all the characters accepted it immediately with no problems which was kind of strange at the time. Not yet sure how the intro chapter plays into the story. The magic/class system seems way too loose to me so far to the point where I’m not sure why there needed to be one. Far too many classes and options and stats and resources. Comes with the genre though I guess. At least this book avoids the narrator hell of complicated character sheets that are read every other chapter so bonus points there.

The constant use of the word “scritches” when petting the rabbit is super cringey and redditor-esque. That’s the only offense though so certainly able to look past it. It’s weird having the dates and times at the start of chapters. I understand why it’s there since she has time powers and there’s kind of a race against the calendar to save the earth from an apocalypse but at the same time it kind of dates your book as it feels weird listening to this in the future. I think I would’ve gone for possibly a countdown to the apocalypse or a count up from when they were transported just to not date the book. I’m not a writer though.

The narrator is okay but super Canadian sometimes which I guess gets a pass since the mc is Canadian. Mostly when saying “about”. Also possibly not the narrators fault but the constant reading of “TPWM” between what I assume are paragraph breaks is very annoying.

Review has all my negative thoughts but overall it’s not a bad story so far and I am planning on continuing.

Did not Finish

There were parts where I thought I was going to like the book. Then I just lost all interest and didn’t want to finish. Sort of a waste of money since I didn’t even get a quarter of the way through. Maybe I’ll try it again later but I doubt it.

Sexist Fanfiction Knock Off.

Good reading, but the source material is just cringily bad. It sounds like a sexist, autistic highschool nerd girls fanfiction knockoff of Shadow run needs Albion Online .