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I finished the two existing volumes of He Who Fights with Monsters last week, and I'm almost embarrassed to say I found it inspirational. The author is less than subtle with what should be pretty trite themes: carpe diem! and be yourself! What sells those themes for me, I think, is that the protagonist's experience of being almost literally born again in a new world justifies him going all in on those approaches, and also that being himself includes a Machiavellian streak that he always fears may take him all the way to the dark side, despite his deep commitment to his friends and to helping people. While I would hesitate to call the characters realistic - they're still larger than life - at least some of them are complex and sympathetic, and like the world and monsters and powers, they're invested with more genuine creativity than the other litRPGs I've read so far. It's unfortunate that the text is so riddled with typos and extra words pretty clearly left over from revisions - a good copy editor would do wonders.
Now I'm in the second book of the Red Mage series, which is more standard fare, returning to the "Ancient Aliens initiate a RPG apocalypse" premise. I struggled with it in the beginning, because the writing had such a plodding news-report style and tended to get bogged down in details, and the settings seemed super vague (granted, most of the early settings are dark hallways and stairwells). The appeal is almost solely in watching the "game" mechanics progress: people getting more powers and linked powers and bonus powers, new monsters, new structures, and more lore about the ancient aliens (in this case an intergalactic human empire, including several pantheons of deities). Perhaps sadly, that appeal is enough for me with these books. A video game walkthrough in novel form? Yes, please. And Boyce's magic system is pretty satisfying, with semi-personalized powers fitted into nodes on a linked diagram in different configurations that reflect the person's role or personality.
Once again, the protagonist's and presumably the author's politics are plainly on display, but going in yet another direction - in this case, "enlightened centrist." I'm still finding it odd how seemingly every book in this fantasy genre manages to slip in a pamphlet for one present day ideology or another. I wouldn't say it dominates the narrative in any of the books I've read - the worst in that regard would be Derelict - but it's always there.
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