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Play to Live #6
The War
The magic flames are raging. Blades are melting. Souls are reduced to ashes in the fury of battle. The grand finale of the war for the First Temple is upon us. The last trump cards have been played, the reserves are all exhausted, and even the gods have engaged in the plebeian fight. The universe is on the point of collapse. Broken are the chains which hold the worlds together. The icy waters of the Baltic cool the scorching sands of the Frontier. The creatures of AlterWorld spill the first blood on the quiet streets of Earth’s cities.
What will Max do? Become embittered and butcher his enemies? Seize the deserted castles and abandoned lands? Attempt to save the one who had given her life defending him? Or try to win the jackpot by finding a way h
What will Max do? Become embittered and butcher his enemies? Seize the deserted castles and abandoned lands? Attempt to save the one who had given her life defending him? Or try to win the jackpot by finding a way h
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 10, 2014
About the author
D. Rus
33 books533 followersD. Rus is a young Russian author whose books took the Russian literary market by storm in 2013. AlterWorld - the first novel of his Play to Live series - made him a bestselling author overnight as critics now credit him with single-handedly creating a new science fiction genre: LitRPG. Set in the virtual reality of MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games - his books tell stories of real people who'd become stuck in the game and are forced to follow its rules while preserving their intergrity and fighting to make their new world a better place. The five books of the series have created a huge following as more authors followed suit, making LitRPG the latest bestselling Russian genre that merges science fiction, fantasy and gaming conventions. D. Rus has been nominated for Start, one of Russia's prestigious literary prizes for the best debut science fiction novel. The first two novels of the Play to Live series - AlterWorld and The Clan - have been translated into English, and talks are under way to have the rest of the series published on Amazon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
January 23, 2016
First couple of books by D. Rus are excellent, sadly this is weakest book of the series for me, will probably not read seventh. I can forgive spelling mistakes and typos, but confusing two big cat characters, shocking. First 40% of book is battle, fight and war, boring.
March 17, 2016
What happened?
Too many political views mashed into what otherwise would have been a great story. After reading this book I feel guilty having suggested it to friends.
Too many political views mashed into what otherwise would have been a great story. After reading this book I feel guilty having suggested it to friends.
June 2, 2016
Better than the previous one. Full on action and not much development except the last few pages and some horrible twists. Nice read.
April 18, 2017
This book in the series wasn't as exciting as the early volumes, a lot of stuff was going on but Still liked it enough to go ahead and read the next book in the series.
January 1, 2016
Nope
It was not as good as the others. Cant even give a 4.. the phrasing problems, missing words or letters is one thing, but mixing up the whole stuff with Bagheera? Too much. And this whole stuff with the end is just too messed up..
It was not as good as the others. Cant even give a 4.. the phrasing problems, missing words or letters is one thing, but mixing up the whole stuff with Bagheera? Too much. And this whole stuff with the end is just too messed up..
December 24, 2015
Lots of action, maybe too much, but great read still
Very engrossing, although at times, it feels like the author repeats himself, using plot devices he has used before, in similar situations, to similar effect. He's particularly fond of a certain type of betrayal, and overly fond of cliffhangers. It seems he has decided it's the best way to end his books. A good story nevertheless, although as it's often the case with this theme, war takes a frontseat, and leaves everything else behind, including adventure, exploration, fun. It's all a blur of actions scenes now. It's one way to advance the plot, but one tires of eating the same food eventualy. Still, all is saved by the great story and the storytelling is not mad either. I'm certainly looking forward to the next book.
Very engrossing, although at times, it feels like the author repeats himself, using plot devices he has used before, in similar situations, to similar effect. He's particularly fond of a certain type of betrayal, and overly fond of cliffhangers. It seems he has decided it's the best way to end his books. A good story nevertheless, although as it's often the case with this theme, war takes a frontseat, and leaves everything else behind, including adventure, exploration, fun. It's all a blur of actions scenes now. It's one way to advance the plot, but one tires of eating the same food eventualy. Still, all is saved by the great story and the storytelling is not mad either. I'm certainly looking forward to the next book.
September 4, 2018
I overlooked some blatant misogyny in this series for the sake of reading a good, lengthy series with some interesting plot. Up until this book, even though it was hard to keep track of timeline or perspective at times, things could generally be understood. In this book that strain is even greater and as many have pointed out the author even mixes up some of his own characters, one of which had been a favourite of mine and I cannot forgive, never mind the ever-growing sexism. I've had it, I'm done. I can't finish this series anymore.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2019
I skipped 60%
I don't know what happen to this series, it used to be great but now the write is just all over the place. The MC has his own rules as if he were a God actually he has more power then all those gods in AW . The writer no longer care about game mechanics nor the rules he establish for the world.
The MC fights like a different class. With all the killing going on, there's no exp gain nor leveling up. Oh yeah the status r not shown
Don't buy this series
I don't know what happen to this series, it used to be great but now the write is just all over the place. The MC has his own rules as if he were a God actually he has more power then all those gods in AW . The writer no longer care about game mechanics nor the rules he establish for the world.
The MC fights like a different class. With all the killing going on, there's no exp gain nor leveling up. Oh yeah the status r not shown
Don't buy this series
August 18, 2017
This book had inconsistencies in the story from earlier in the series. It also hopped around so much that it was difficult to keep the thread of the story without rereading parts a couple of times. I like the author overall, and overlook his more misogynistic comments.
June 11, 2015
Pietiek tālāk vairs šo sēriju nelasīšu. Sērija sevi izsmeļ praktiski pēc otrās grāmatas.
September 25, 2018
Yes, I skipped book five.
March 21, 2016
Come, Asmodeus! -some spoilers-
This book was pretty good. Max has become a true leader and clan chief, and events are transporting that make this book hard to put down. The Great Rupture has finally occurred and Alterworld is no longer virtual. Chaos ensues but something new is rising from the ashes...
Now, I love this series. LitRPG,as the Author calls it, is fascinating. However...the author's misogyny, apparent in small, excusable (he didn't really mean that, did he...?) doses from Book One, has become very uncomfortable and open. The "female insidiousness" remark at one point late in the book nearly made me put it away for a while. Just...tone it down in Book Seven. Okay? I really want to finish this series.
This book was pretty good. Max has become a true leader and clan chief, and events are transporting that make this book hard to put down. The Great Rupture has finally occurred and Alterworld is no longer virtual. Chaos ensues but something new is rising from the ashes...
Now, I love this series. LitRPG,as the Author calls it, is fascinating. However...the author's misogyny, apparent in small, excusable (he didn't really mean that, did he...?) doses from Book One, has become very uncomfortable and open. The "female insidiousness" remark at one point late in the book nearly made me put it away for a while. Just...tone it down in Book Seven. Okay? I really want to finish this series.
November 28, 2016
Two strong endings
I have to to say this book had a lot reframing feature compared to the last book. However there was some grievances. One of them is they switch Tigress and Bagheera. His pet from earlier was Bagheera not Tigress. The book had two strong ending. The first one was half way through. Honestly I think the fifth one might have been better if it's ending was where the half way point was for the book is. A lot is about to go down and I cannot wait for the next one.
I have to to say this book had a lot reframing feature compared to the last book. However there was some grievances. One of them is they switch Tigress and Bagheera. His pet from earlier was Bagheera not Tigress. The book had two strong ending. The first one was half way through. Honestly I think the fifth one might have been better if it's ending was where the half way point was for the book is. A lot is about to go down and I cannot wait for the next one.
February 11, 2019
To many errors
Way to many errors. Examples are when Max is referring to the pet he had in earlier books Bagreeha he confused it with the female his pet ran off with Tigress, and there were times where a character would go from a he to a she. I was fairly disappointed in this book.
Way to many errors. Examples are when Max is referring to the pet he had in earlier books Bagreeha he confused it with the female his pet ran off with Tigress, and there were times where a character would go from a he to a she. I was fairly disappointed in this book.
November 3, 2019
I don't write reviews often, almost never actually, but when I do it's because of something a bit more extreme then usual. Usually because it's terribly bad in some way.
This review isn't just about one book in the series, it's about all seven of them. The books themselves are terribly short at around 200-250 pages, the last one going under 200.
Let me start by saying that if you cannot read around sexism, misogyny, racism, Russian nationalism, homophobia/hate, etc. This entire series is not for you the first (free) book isn't that bad, the farther you go into the series, the worse it becomes and you'll be able to ignore it less and less. If you love that sort of thing, this series will rate an absolute 5 out of 5 for you, you won't notice the other things wrong in the books, I just don't want to know you. If you can read around those things, I still am not certain that you should read this series.
One really annoying thing in the series is inconsistency, some of it you could write of due to a bad translation (from Russian), but it's so rampant that I suspect that it's the author and no one did any actual good editing. The author is also very bad at math and numbers in general, the average of a price of 10.000 and 100.000 isn't 50.000, it's 55.000. That's the most obvious example, but there are many, many others. On their own not an issue, but combined with the inconsistencies, it's starts to annoy.
The first book is free, it's the least offensive in the lineup, but the rest of the series isn't worth $5-$7 for a digital copy that's so short and certainly not the $17 for a physical copy.
Not everything is bad though, I read through the series in a week and quite often the writer had my attention with cool ideas that made me want to see what happened next. But then absolutely grinding to a halt when he went of again about the "place of the woman and the role of the man" or a "girlfriends training manual". Being an Goblin, Orc, or Troll is alright, even an actual demon is (initially) welcomed as an ally, but if you black, yellow or god forbid, Jewish... *facepalm* This isn't unique to this series or this character by this author, I checked out his other book and found similar issues. It's as if it was written with a certain target audience in mind...
This could have been an interesting and enjoyable experience if all the bigotry was removed and a good editor went over the book with a fine tooth-comb removing all the inconsistencies.
I'm no white knight, I can read/watch around a lot of stuff that I don't agree with or have no interest in. But even I have limits and this sorely tested them. There is bigotry in a lot of older titles, written in a different time, for example The Destroyer series which was mostly written in the 60s-70s, but this is from a (Russian) kid and written in 2012-2015.
There are far better, more consistent, and less offensive titles that cover this genre.
This review isn't just about one book in the series, it's about all seven of them. The books themselves are terribly short at around 200-250 pages, the last one going under 200.
Let me start by saying that if you cannot read around sexism, misogyny, racism, Russian nationalism, homophobia/hate, etc. This entire series is not for you the first (free) book isn't that bad, the farther you go into the series, the worse it becomes and you'll be able to ignore it less and less. If you love that sort of thing, this series will rate an absolute 5 out of 5 for you, you won't notice the other things wrong in the books, I just don't want to know you. If you can read around those things, I still am not certain that you should read this series.
One really annoying thing in the series is inconsistency, some of it you could write of due to a bad translation (from Russian), but it's so rampant that I suspect that it's the author and no one did any actual good editing. The author is also very bad at math and numbers in general, the average of a price of 10.000 and 100.000 isn't 50.000, it's 55.000. That's the most obvious example, but there are many, many others. On their own not an issue, but combined with the inconsistencies, it's starts to annoy.
The first book is free, it's the least offensive in the lineup, but the rest of the series isn't worth $5-$7 for a digital copy that's so short and certainly not the $17 for a physical copy.
Not everything is bad though, I read through the series in a week and quite often the writer had my attention with cool ideas that made me want to see what happened next. But then absolutely grinding to a halt when he went of again about the "place of the woman and the role of the man" or a "girlfriends training manual". Being an Goblin, Orc, or Troll is alright, even an actual demon is (initially) welcomed as an ally, but if you black, yellow or god forbid, Jewish... *facepalm* This isn't unique to this series or this character by this author, I checked out his other book and found similar issues. It's as if it was written with a certain target audience in mind...
This could have been an interesting and enjoyable experience if all the bigotry was removed and a good editor went over the book with a fine tooth-comb removing all the inconsistencies.
I'm no white knight, I can read/watch around a lot of stuff that I don't agree with or have no interest in. But even I have limits and this sorely tested them. There is bigotry in a lot of older titles, written in a different time, for example The Destroyer series which was mostly written in the 60s-70s, but this is from a (Russian) kid and written in 2012-2015.
There are far better, more consistent, and less offensive titles that cover this genre.
March 27, 2022
Okay. There is a HUGE plothole / continuity check in this story.
It had me thinking I lost a few chapters from a previous book.
Didn't enjoy this as much as the starting books. The wonder and experimentation is gone. It's just battle after battle.
The next book seems like it will be interesting enough.
Hmm.
I wonder how others reading the books for the first time right now will respond.
3/5 Stars
It had me thinking I lost a few chapters from a previous book.
Didn't enjoy this as much as the starting books. The wonder and experimentation is gone. It's just battle after battle.
The next book seems like it will be interesting enough.
Hmm.
I wonder how others reading the books for the first time right now will respond.
3/5 Stars
August 15, 2017
Very good LitRPG with lots of action! Play to Live book six continues the saga of the Dark Alliance, that is not really dark. The war against the alliance culminates as the light alliance goes all out to attack the Valley. As usual, Max / Lathe comes up with new ways to beat them at their own game. The showdown with the sun god and Lolth all come together in this novel. As the sixth book in the series, I thought the action was maintained quite well, in fact, it seemed like Max didn't get a break at all in the novel. Though I don't think this novel was the best in the series, it still wants me to continue reading the next in the series. Great narration for the audible.com version by Michael Goldstrom.
June 11, 2018
As I'd hoped, the jumble of events in the previous book felt like filler / setup for the next book, because that's what it was. Maybe it's just me, or maybe this book did right everything that the previous one did wrong. The pacing of events felt better, as the events were broken up by interesting little interludes, and everything that happened seemed more significant.
This time around, I'm actually looking forward to digging into the next part and finding out what happens next.
This time around, I'm actually looking forward to digging into the next part and finding out what happens next.
April 26, 2018
Loved it
I loved the book. And the story. Ready to devour the next one.
I only got thrown off when the author swapped Bagerhra (sic) and Tigress. He seems to have forgotten that Tigress was the Temple guardian of level 700 and Bagerhra was the level 398 pet. If you swap the names and genders in those few chapters it reads fine though.
The low esteem US Americans seem to held in in the book makes me wonder if the world really views us as that egotistical.
I loved the book. And the story. Ready to devour the next one.
I only got thrown off when the author swapped Bagerhra (sic) and Tigress. He seems to have forgotten that Tigress was the Temple guardian of level 700 and Bagerhra was the level 398 pet. If you swap the names and genders in those few chapters it reads fine though.
The low esteem US Americans seem to held in in the book makes me wonder if the world really views us as that egotistical.
June 16, 2018
I'm not enjoying the direction these books are going. It's becoming less high fantasy (loved the gaming angle and discussion of mobs and stats and whatnot) and more urban fantasy. The bleed through to the real world is really annoying. I cam to this series for fantasy. Not looking forward to the last book, but this deep into the series, I'm in for a penny, in for a pound. I need to know how it all ends.
October 6, 2020
The author does a great job of keeping this one moving and interesting. The series has been insightful and a lot fun but I do not think it will lend itself to replay value. Lots of suprises and the author does a good job of closing up many of the more intricate plot lines. For some it may be a bit of a distraction as the author tends to politicize some of his story but it is always good to have an understanding of someone else perception.
July 25, 2022
Собирательно про 2-6 книги.
Со второй книги показалось, что жанр не совсем литрпг, а скорее "попаданец попал в литрпг".
К шестой всё уехало от рпг в сплошное попаданчество, мудрость товарища Сталина, мы русские с нами бог, а все остальные узкоглазые, младоевропейцы, наглосаксы и пидоры, все без причины хотят нам зла, так пусть умоются кровью все, кто сомневается в нашем миролюбии, а вот мой посох из адамантия, кстати. Какой же трэш.
С жанром литрпг покончено, спасибо.
Со второй книги показалось, что жанр не совсем литрпг, а скорее "попаданец попал в литрпг".
К шестой всё уехало от рпг в сплошное попаданчество, мудрость товарища Сталина, мы русские с нами бог, а все остальные узкоглазые, младоевропейцы, наглосаксы и пидоры, все без причины хотят нам зла, так пусть умоются кровью все, кто сомневается в нашем миролюбии, а вот мой посох из адамантия, кстати. Какой же трэш.
С жанром литрпг покончено, спасибо.
July 30, 2021
Musím zopakovať časť predchádzajúcej recenzie: je to stále horšie a horšie. 180 stranový konflikt s neustálymi a nekonečnými opismi, ktorý po sebe nezanechá nič. Už vlastne nie je ani jasné, čo je zámerom série, nakoľko sa pôvodný LitRPG koncept úplne stratil v mišungu politicko-technologicko-etických a neviem akým ďalších konfliktov. Celé zlé.
November 6, 2018
I found it hard to get into at the beginning, then it got good, then it dropped with way too many battle and damage stats before finally getting back to a place close enough to where the series started in tone and in direction.
May 10, 2020
Собственно, все, что я хотел сказать о книге - ничего. Не мое это. Не мое. 1 балл - чтецу. Было бы больше, но кто говорит "СЧастливо"? Кто читает каждую букву в слове? "Пожалуйста" - то же, по буквам. Не надо так.
May 26, 2017
Really got confusing
June 6, 2017
It was fairly good continuation to an interesting plot. I feel the ending dragged after the climax, but I will still be reading the sequel
September 5, 2017
Keeps getting better.
An awesome read! The story keeps you hooked and the characters draw you into their world. Keep them coming. Thanks
An awesome read! The story keeps you hooked and the characters draw you into their world. Keep them coming. Thanks
January 22, 2018
Good book
Like all his books so far a little short on pages but really good story hope to get The next one soon
Like all his books so far a little short on pages but really good story hope to get The next one soon
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews