Ren loves being the best alchemist in the popular VR game Towerbound. His skill not only got him a place in a corporate guild, Prosperous, but it also got him out of the the slums of District One and into District Ten. He hates combat, and his contract says he's not required to do any, but the Guild Master badgers him into doing a dungeon run that requires an alchemist. Ren succeeds where all other alchemists have failed, but his guild betrays him leaving Ren with nothing except a vision of the coming apocalypse and the end of humanity. He wakes up back in his old District One dorm with nine other guys two days before the release of Towerbound. He has no idea how he went back in time or exactly how he can get everyone he knows to start playing in preparation for doomsday, but he's going to save District One and get revenge at the same time. F*** Prosperous!
What initially got me hooked was how well Towerbound captured the earliest MMOs, even though it's a full VR game where you feel every wound you take. Ah, the good old days of camping spawn points, corpse retrievals, kill stealing, and trains. Not to mention the dirty tactics the strongest guilds use to ruin each other's raids and take a shot at the target themselves. The nostalgia took me right back to Everquest and the Talons of Justice guild. This is also a battle between a bunch of the despised slum rats getting back at the wealthy, and who doesn't like the underdog? Even better, most of them are orphans! Ren isn't even talking about the apocalypse or his future knowledge. Instead he inspires his roommates by promising he'll sell his own organs if they aren't making enough credits to quit their horrible jobs within a month. It's a tough sell because each of the cheapest VR helmets is two thousand credits and most of them don't make that in a month and not even Ren was able to afford one at the game's release in the original timeline.
One gamer who hates combat but is a god of the alchemy profession. Nine noobs in full virtual reality discovering that it's a lot harder to kill rabbits than they thought and getting wounded really hurts not to mention being eaten by dire wolves. The random pick up group that discovers the joys of cheesing your way to victory against a boss. And we can't forget egotistical Victor who's only guild leader of Prosperous Guild because his daddy owns the Prosperous corporation who blithely blames all of his mistakes on everyone else. In less than a week everyone Ren knows agrees. F*** Prosperous!
On Audible, narrator Jonathan Mulder's performance is actually rated higher than than story's 4.1 stars. Myself, I'd call it a B+ so 4 stars feels about right but for the nostalgia it's 5 stars because Chui really nailed the feeling. The world building, of the real world, is actually pretty interesting. The "city", and Ren never mentions any others, is made up of ten circular districts with space between. The less affluent districts form a ring around the wealthier districts and each specializes. There's an enormous gap between the wealthy and the poor with corporations running everything because only business owners can vote in elections or nominate a candidate. Only a few of the characters a well developed and Victor is little more than a stereotype. Despite the OPMC tag, (stands for over-powered main character) Ren isn't really OP. He's still working for everything he gets in the game but his future knowledge allows him to take advantage of the timing of events. Overall, it's not an instant classic but I found it entertaining.