Greyblood: Adventurer's Academy, by Daniel Prince. | A happy review... for a change.

A few weeks ago, me and a group of people were talking about things that we like and don't like in stories, and one person recommended to me Greyblood: Adventurer Academy. Said person also offered me the book (thank you so much "Jane", you the best! :3 )! 

This copy of the book has it's own adventure... it went from England to Spain, then roamed between various Spanish provinces for about a week, ending up being sent back to England. Then it was sent to France, then back to England, and then back to Spain and then finally shipped to Portugal and then to my home... this damn book traveled more in a few weeks than I did in more than two decades... but oh well. It finally arrived.

To start I had never heard of  "LITRPG" before, and I was quite surprised to find out about it. It didn't cross my mind that this kind of writing existed as a type of fantasy. The closest that I had read/seen was the "Isekai" genre, and this book reminds me a lot of that. 

Since I was a kid, I've played many games, and (in a more recent time) I've read/watched many Isekai series. So, entering into this book I felt right at home, and that's the beauty of it! Everything seems familiar, I've "visited" many similar worlds in games like Runes of Magic and RaiderZ, and I've accompanied Kirito's adventures in SAO, Kazuma's trainwreck in the world of Konosuba, poor Subaru's unfortunate life in Re:Zero, Momonga's Ainz's plans unfold in Overlord, and the ongoing quest on Shield Hero. All is familiar, and yet, like a good game or show, everything seems new. This book managed to keep me interested even though I knew what was going to happen in most cases. I think that it can be explained with a factor of "familiarity" with the characters, the world and the story. I didn't knew these characters or world before I stared reading, but at the same time I've met them before, different versions of them. And just like what enables a new Isekai to succeed, it's the approach to the characters and story that makes this book so good. With a word of warning, however, this might not be an enjoyable book for people that are not familiar with the "RPG world stuff".

*WARNING: Spoilers from here forward.*

We start the book being introduced to the protagonist while he is trying to fight a goblin. And so we start with one of the best "twists" (calling it a twist is not right... but meh, my brain is not coming up with a better word in English). Our protagonist starts as "regular" village boy with ambitions to become an adventure, a completely familiar start and yet, like everything else, it's perfect. What would change the most from the regular RPG story is that our protagonist is actually half-orc, and there we immediately have a social tension inserted into the story! Not going to explain everything in the story, as it's not the point of this, but I would like to mention that the initial arc of build up and character growth before Lugor (the protagonist) departs for the academy is excellent. When I started reading I feared that we would not spend enough time in this initial stage of the story but that was not the case. This first part of the book was, in my opinion, very important for the build up of everything that follows. And then, later when the author introduces us to Shiva and Sandal (the protagonist's friends and party members), and it's a joy to see the tree of them interact  with each other and with the other characters. The author managed to make it so that none of the tree characters that have more prevalence are humans! Usually all authors play it safe and add a human protagonist, or a few human party members, or (going back to some of the Isekai) the protagonist has a human background. In this case the protagonist is only half human, the other half is an orc (that is considered a monster in this world), the human characters are more secondary. I consider this a bold move, but it worked out quite well, at least in my opinion. 

Still, the one moment that really got me, and made me realize that I was going to love this book, was the Skyrim reference... when I start reading that guard's line, I literally dropped the book and gave out a big wide smile, while thinking to myself "this dude is one of us".

Across the book it's possible to see the little details and the care that the author had to write such an intricate and yet recognizable story. While reading each chapter I could not help from identifying elements from different games that I played or other stories that I read, like for example (I just finished reading so it's the last one that I have in mind) the tournament, actually the entire academy... it reminded me of Hogwarts. Not in a "oh the author stole the ideas way" but in a happy, almost nostalgic kind of way. The author manages to put is own touch on every aspect of the story, making it able to stand on it's own.

And on the topic of chapters, this was the first book that I read that has really small chapters... and I love it! It works really well! I would say that most chapters are about five to six pages long on average, some reach much more but it's still very engaging. The sense of progression is much greater with the 49 chapters flying by the reader with an intense pace. It's much better when in comparison with other books that I've been reading... (I'm sorry to Felipe Faria for using his Chronicles of Allarya has a virtual punching bag... but those were the last books that I read so... eh I'm going to do it).
It amuses me how Daniel Prince manages to write around the "cliché", it's still there but you can't see it because of the author's art of story telling. Oh! And the way that the author improves on the general idea of the world itself is fantastic! The characters and the world feel alive, they make sense within it's own rules, and some things are even created to make the world feel credible. Maybe it's just me, but I never saw the element of combining skills to create new ones anywhere before this book.

And I just realized that I can write more when I'm angry at a book than when I loved the book... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And I really loved this book, I can't wait for the next one and follow our adventurers into that new found island! That's not to say that the book doesn't have a problem or two, mostly it's typos and editorial mistakes, and I really don't mind them, to me the story is what counts the most. But I regret not having taking note of all the mistakes that I found (probably some slipped by me, as English is not my first language and I give a lot of typos myself - as can probably be seen in this very text)... when I reached the end of the book there was a nice note of the author, thanking the reader for reading the book and asking for people to notify him if they noticed any mistakes. At this point I think that most of the mistakes that I noticed have already been reported to the author, but I'll try to re-find some of the mistakes and send him an email with it and a "thank you" anyway. In the future (if I ever get there) I wish that people would help me find mistakes in my book as well, so the best I can do is do the same now. :)

I gave this book a 4 our of 5 on Goodreads, I really really loved this book. But the "5" is reserved for books that manage to blow my mind with something. Still, for me the "4" is considered an Excellent Book! And I will recommend this book to everyone that I know (sadly i don't know that many people xD). At least is not a "3" out of pity... looking at you Faria. (Sorry again :3).