Star Divers: Dungeons of Bane

A MUST read for Gamers
This is a book that taught me a few things. It’s in a new genre that is a logical offshoot of sci-fi: LitRPG. These are stories about players who function as sentient characters within video game environments. Its invention should be noted as an interesting societal moment for all of us. It’s only natural that people who are directing a character’s actions within a video game would want to take things to the next logical step and actually place themselves in the head of the character they are controlling, and perceive themselves to exist within the game environment. Fiction, at the moment, is the only way this can fully happen, and so, just like that, society gets a new literary genre! One that was earned honestly.Okay, so, here is the biggest thing this book taught me: even when the story features people donning the personas of characters in a video game, the story is still about the people donning the personas.We are all familiar with the James Bond type idea, where Bond shows up at a cocktail party in a tuxedo, and everyone at the party is dressed to impress, and somewhere in the crowd is the villain, acting cool and civilized. Everyone is calm, but everyone is scheming. THAT’S how it is in this novel – only much more fun. Switch the fine clothes for fantasy personas – instead of a little black dress, you wear a dragon, instead of a tuxedo, you wear a tech-ninja persona, or an orc. Instead of a ballroom, you meet in castle ruins with electric lava and collapsing ramparts, but everyone behind each persona is human, and everyone is scheming. (That’s not fair. Everyone is NOT scheming in this novel, BUT everyone is acting with agency. Some act within teams, and some act individually. Even the NPCs (Non Player Characters) are more than they seem).Lit RPG gives the author several tools that are unique to the genre. A character can be a basic person, but still deal with vampires, killer robots, ninjas, aliens or anything – since all they have to do is enter a manufactured environment that contains those things. And the brilliant part is – the reader already has knowledge of these fantastic elements. You don’t have to teach the audience everything. That’s useful and exciting.Interestingly, Landry makes use of character stats across the book – rectangular boxes with texts that reveal facts about any particular character at any particular time. There is even one point where Landry has his main character, (named Breq), budget his upgrade into areas he thinks he’ll need on his next mission (something Like: I’ll take this 10 points and split it between weapons’ power and healing power). It’s a very interesting idea that you won’t find in most genres. (Landry wisely uses it in the middle of the book, where it is merely interesting. He doesn’t use it near the end, where it might feel like cheating). Personally, I got to the point where I started to skim the stat boxes. But I’m not a gamer. Imagine a reader so steeped in game knowledge that character stats were a drama-enhancement. (really? He’s facing a blaster demon, and he didn’t upgrade his shields? He’s going in with problem solving skills instead? Okay, let’s see how that works out…). I can’t say if Landry did this or not, because it would have gone over my head, but I can say that Landry has filled this book with a thousand cool things – something on every page. His team of characters move from mission challenge to mission challenge, and Landry fills these moments with great visual concepts. At one point, the team fights a T Rex, who, each time it takes a hit, reveals that it’s made out of hands — something a game designer would rub their hands together gleefully over getting to work on. And that happens everywhere in the book – character design, costume design, world design, ship design, real world people living in a near future design – it’s constant, and very impressive. Landry’s use of the real world is also interesting. Breq is a 17 year old kid with no living family, but with a great talent for playing Video games. He gets swept up to play for the big-league gaming company, and it’s a bit like someone suddenly becoming a sports superstar, or an entertainment diva. Actually, it’s like someone becoming the prisoner of their managers (never evil in this book, it’s just that Breq is always “managed”). Landry does a good job with this too.Breq is a nice, unassuming guy. The story is told from his point of view, and Landry’s prose is a perfect match for the character – it’s friendly, and unadorned. A very easy and pleasant read. The book is also loaded with fascinating concepts related to existence within video games and video game AI, any one of which Landry could investigate in a book of its own – characters decoying themselves as other characters; a game AI that is happily humming along, but is busy building its own language (that doesn’t include human concepts); an AI that can dump players out of a game; time dilation within game existence – losing months, while spending only minutes in game time; and one game-related concept I found particularly wild – that YOU as a flesh and blood person, and YOU as a video game character, could have different memories, some only present when you don the costume again. That is a WILD idea. There are so many equally interesting concepts in this book! There is also a wonderful little patch of easter eggs to Jeff VanderMeer’s work AND WHO KNOWS how many others. So yes, read this book. It’s a MUST if you’re a gamer, and an education if you’re not.

SciFi LitRPG Fun
I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy LitRPG and I needed a change of pace. Star Divers checked all of the boxes. I was not disappointed. Set inside a VRMMO people dying in-game begin to die in real life. It makes for some huge stakes. The story itself checks all of the SciFi boxes for me. Smart-mouthed AI, fancy futuristic weapons, Mechs, Space battles, and a race. At the end of the day, it’s just a really fun read.

Excellent writing, very entertaining
I don’t read much sci-fi but, on a friend’s recommendation i decided to give it try. I loved it! It’s hard to keep my attention but this book kept it from beginning to end.

Sci-fi LitRPG with lots of action and enjoyable characters
I had fun reading this book. Likable characters trying to do the best they can with the cards they’re dealt, and smooth action scenes with cool weapons and enemies. Without spoiling too much, I also enjoyed the idea of spaceships becoming dungeons.I will be (star) diving into book 2!

Forgetting the fact that we are reading about a game that has permadeath with potentially similar real world impact, the story can be convoluted and confusing, with a few deus ex moments and a few “but wait” plot twists.There are moments of entertainment brilliance sprinkled throughout the story, but between what I mentioned above, the “quick lore” moments breaking the flow and the fact that the story only really comes together in the last couple of chapters, it made for a bit of disjointed adventure.I was really looking forward to the story and it has a great cover.

An absolute belter of a LitRPG.Breq is an awesome MC, and I love the concepts and story. Really excited to see what happens next