Dragon Hack: Blasphemy Online, Book 1

This is the story of a young teenage boy struggling to cope with his life in a dystopian future and of that of a newborn dragon who has been orphaned and forced to fend for himself. They live in different worlds, but strange circumstances have them switch whenever the boy logs into a game.Personally, I loved the world building and character development of this book. While highly immature (no joke, we're talking teenage horniness and childlike selfishness here), both protagonists grow to become quite endearing, and this character growth is only expanded in the later two books.I noticed that a number of the other comments find the politics jarring. The way I see it, the dystopian future envisioned in this story is nothing more than a collection of bold caricatures from all sides. The boy protagonist happens to live in one dystopia while there are others (albeit maybe not so extreme) at its borders. In any case, the dystopian setting really only serves to create an environment that's both technologically advanced, but highly risky for the main character to act out in. More focus ought to be brought upon the accompanying fantasy world anyways.This is the first book of a prequel trilogy revolving around the world of Generica, which is a seperate but associated world to the dystopia discussed above. While this book works okay as a standalone story, if you are at all interested in the rest of the series, I *highly* suggest you read Threadbare (Vol.1-3) and Small Medium first, and in that order. While this book does a decent job at introducing the working LitRPG System of Generica, there is a lot of lore to unpack -- especially in the second/third books. The other two trilogies do a better job at easing the reader into this deep lore, and you will be left with questions that this trilogy will (mostly) answer.Most importantly, my suggestion to read the other two trilogies first stems from the fact that the third book of Blasphemy Online leaves behind a loose thread that's near-impossible to ignore, and is resolved in Threadbare Vol. 4-6. And obviously, it's hard to start Threadbare in the middle. I read this series without knowing it was a prequel, and this loose thread plagued me until I read the other books. Regardless, I've come to love this series. I just wished I knew I was in for the long haul before I started.TL;DR: This is a great trilogy, jampacked with lore. This is the prequel of a greater series, so highly recommend you read Threadbare (Vol.1-3) and Small Medium first before you start here.

The media could not be loaded.  This is another story set in the Threadbare Universe, but told from the perspective of the players. So in a lot of ways it feels totally different than that series. You will recognize the game elements if you’ve read that series but if not, this does a good job of explaining things.The story is also much darker than anything I’ve read from the author, especially the dystopian real life part. It’s so harsh that the author has several disclaimers that he’s not poking fun at any real religion or group. It’s also a bit more of slow burn with a lot of character development in the firs part of the novel, but the main character (MC) is in the game world by the 11% mark.Once in the game world, the system will feel familiar to anyone that’s read the Threadbare or Small Medium series. It actually expands on many RPG elements giving you more notifications, class and race abilities, and player only aspects that you wouldn’t have seen before. It’s all very nicely thought out and is explained very naturally.There are several aspects to the story and how the MC explores the game world while it seemingly explores him that I enjoyed. I won’t spoil things, but it’s a neat exploration. The in-game time is a bit slice of life, but always relates back to the dark real world.Overall, I liked the novel. It’s a bit different and darker than what the other’s written before and some people will find elements of dystopian real world a little controversial. But it’s an entertaining read.Score: 7.5 out of 10

So I *love* Threadbare. That first trilogy is my all-time-favourite out of hundreds of LitRPGs, and Small Medium is almost as good.This trilogy is very different in a few ways. It's still an amazing trilogy, don't get me wrong! But it's not the same charming story as the first two trilogies.Still, the world building is top notch, and I'm super excited for how parts of this series explain many events from Seiple's first 6 books and how they'll impact Threadbare 4.So it's still a 5/5 LitRPG, but I'd rate this trilogy as A tier (instead of the S tier of Threadbare and Small Medium).Highly recommended.

A simple twist on the idea of a litrpg, and a very good attempt at one of my favorite aspects of litrpg and transmigration stories - humans getting used to alien forms.And also with some decent character growth on behalf of both the main characters.I had the chance to read this for free, over time, on Royal Road, and instead as soon as I saw it for sale on Amazon I bought it without a doubt.If I had any regrets about the decision is that I didn't get to have this story drawn out over months, instead finishing it in like an hour.

I loved this book!

its a nice aproach to a litprg. its more fantasy/sifi as this genre should be instead of endless boring levelups. theres a story instead of just action.

more moar more moar more moaqr moaqr more moqr more moar beep boop awesomejeepjoopgreat loved it love it lovelyhiboobeebyehiwelp toot

Highly recommended. Deep characters and a realistic vision of the future.

Unfortunately, B.O. stinks. (Ok, it's not that bad, but reading gamelit does encourage puns)Though I've been a fan of Semple's earlier works, Threadbare and Small Medium, this prequel strays into meatspace, and there the story falters. Dystopian fiction is hard to write well, and this trilogy failed it badly.Firstly, I went in having read multiple reviews about its strawman politics and willing to overlook some heavy-handedness, but I still found it over the top. This isn't necessarily a failure, as some of the best literature explores such concepts, but the writing simply isn't there to support it. There are multi-page "philosophical" arguments a la Sophie's Choice, the occasional moral line thrown where it does not help the story, and the simplistic writing style that helped worldbuilding in the earlier novels lacks the subtlety required to remove the awkward taste.Secondly, the works abandoned nearly everything that made it interesting in favour of a more generic vrrpg setting. The meatspace parts contribute little, and the virtual parts are focused mainly on how humans are interacting with the world as if it were an MMORPG, a significant departure from the NPC perspective of the previous trilogies. And it doesn't work. Generica Online makes a bad MMO, and this trilogy in particular makes it obvious. The characters, which were the strongest parts, are now bland. Even the NPCs act much like players, and this turns the books into a cheap log of a real-world MMO instead of a view into another reality.Thirdly, these novels exacerbate existing flaws which could previously be overlooked due to the obfuscated nature of the internal reality. Explanations that don't seem internally consistent, behaviours that can't be well explained... when under a spotlight, such as the introduction of a human player perspective, these become glaring issues that are worse than unaddressed, they are added to.Fourth, and on a much more subjective note, I just didn't like it. I read all three books, and my obsessive need to complete my collections is satisfied with my purchase, but I doubt I will ever read these again. The ending was unsatisfying, the in-between felt like padding... Yes, that's exactly the feeling. It was like anime filler. Badly written anime filler for a manga that was otherwise good.For other fans, I haven't yet read the new Threadbares (4-6), but there was nothing in these three books that felt like it filled in gaps for me in 1-3 or Small Medium, so I would strongly recommend you simply pretend these don't exist.