This week for Bookish Wednesday I’m back with another LitRPG. It’s The Beginning by Vasily Mahanenko!

Plot: The plot is pretty bad. Honestly our main character Yaropolk is incredibly unlikable and the plot doesn’t back him up all that much. The basic premise is that the world is a game and only a few people actually know that fact. Everyone else is just screwed.  Our main character finds out and starts out on this quest to become a “Player”. It’s been done before and usually is done much better than this. It might just be that the translation is bad, which is a thing I’ve noticed with Russian LitRPGs. Honestly Russian LitRPGs are super disappointing in general and if I wasn’t trying to clear out the backlog of books I’ve read for this column I wouldn’t even bother looking up the book again to see the main character’s name that I forgot because I disliked him that much.

Characters: The cast is bland and full of a bunch of jerks. Honestly there’s really not a single likable character in this entire book.

Overall: Stay clear of this and any other series from this author, you’ll just be disappointed.

For those who like: Mediocrity and Disappointment, you masochists.

Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above, or just have standards in general.