Entertain and Suprise Me!

As a reader of almost three decades, and a reviewer of almost a third of those years, I admit to becoming a bit more critical and jaded about new books. Certain genres have gained or lost popularity over the years, certain trends have brought a particular kind of book forward at one time or another, but in the process, I can often feel like I’ve been there, read that.
While most of us will always enjoy certain types of books—for me, it will be Regency and Victorian Romance, Paranormal Romance, and Cozy Mysteries of all kinds—after a while, we have certain expectations for those books, and very few new ones tend to stand out from the crowd. The sudden surge of newer sub-genres have brought some interest, but even these book waves require certain factors to stand out.
For example, the LITRPG genre, in which the main character finds themselves either through death or some sort of VR tech, living inside a video game or video game-like world, has become a recent trend in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. The idea of a character getting a second chance at life in a game/world that measures success through levels and skills appeals to game-loving types.
However, after a couple of years reading these books, one becomes more picky. It’s no longer enough for the main character to fight a bunch of monsters, level up and defeat the big bad. Instead, they must do something else too, establish a guild, build and defend a town, or something equally creative to balance the fighting. Some readers aren’t as critical and can easily look at and appreciate the continuance of a simple plot.

Read the entire article in the March 2023 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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