Be Thou My Brilliant: An Isekai LitRPG

The Devil's Foundry, Book 2

By: Joseph Marcia, Argentorum

Narrated by: Hollie Jackson

An Earthling villain must learn to embrace her inner bureaucrat in the second volume of this inventive series mixing humor, cyberpunk, and fantasy.

Via, aka “Empress,” used to be a Supervillain—powerful, cunning, manipulative, cruel—until one of her technological innovations glitched and stranded her and her nemesis, the Hero Electra, in an alternate realm. Now, despite her best world-dominating intentions, Via finds herself in a position she never thought she’d be in: local politician.

With her attention divided among building up her city’s defenses, using her high-tech prowess to create amazing industrial inventions, and helping her citizens with their never-ending litany of requests and concerns, Via hasn’t had much time for scheming or wickedness. So when a lesser Vecorvian royal lands on her doorstep seeking asylum and assistance in battling the manipulative Seneschal who’s taken over the city of Silverwall, it’s time to let her villainy shine. Only, the more she plans her attack, the more she realizes that if she has any hope of success, she’ll need to learn to work with others and even make *gulp* friends . . .

A wise-cracking, fast-moving, action-packed isekai, Be Thou My Brilliant is an irresistible continuation of the series that blends the best of superhero stories, litRPG, and character-driven urban fantasy.

The second volume of the hit LitRPG fantasy series—with more than one million views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!

©2022 Joseph Marcia (P)2023 Podium Audio

good story, great ideas

good story , good characters, a little to much double talk and romance but otherwise this is great.

Town Building and Romance is the theme

It's a good story about individuals from a different world building a promising small town using magic and old world technology. There's romance and action that keeps you entertained throughout the entire time - the narrator does a great job.

one town war

This book seems to end the local problems and set up the start of the national level moves for the next book

Love it

I can’t wait for the next book, I’m so interested in this story. Love enemy to best friends angle, and the powers they have are really cool but not op either.

More Progress, more problem

The second volume manage to be more intense and down to the wire while exploring more about the characters. Overall I enjoy it even if third volume is probably not coming anytime soon, the ending was satisfying enough for what it is.

lost me with teen style anxiety riddled romance

it's ok overall.... jokes are still funny for the most part no real changes in characters.
If I wanted to be generous I could see how we got some more information about background and motivation for our main characters but we didn't really.
Final third of the book was pretty tough to finish... one plot contrivance after the next.
Not into teen romance stories... especially when the people involved AREN'T TEENS, it's just written like they are.

Decent

Not nearly as good as the first book characters make dumb decisions one after another for the sake of plot and I could really do without the cringe romance bits I also noticed a few shots at men as a whole so theres a bit of man hate as well...such a pity the first book was a fun lighthearted story that I couldn't get enof of but this one was a disappointment.

Oh Well

I really liked the first book but I don't think the author knew what to do with it after getting it going. I have eight hours left and I'm taking a break from this one because I have a hopefully much more interesting book waiting for me. This one devolved into a not-so-fun city building exercise with Empress overlooking obvious things repeatedly to further the "plot." I'm just not feeling it.

Edit: I eventually made myself finish the book. The last few hours were OK but not worth the drudgery leading up to it. So much of it was mired in really weird motivations and awkward, nonsensical plans. I stand by my three star rating and won't be continuing the series,