Resistance Above Magic: A LitRPG Adventure Paperback – December 22, 2023

Cool new magic system. Cool, unique, well developed and likable characters, extremely well written, excellent pacing, fantastic first entry to a series I am definitely looking forward to!

I would have rated 3.5 stars if it were possible. The story is interesting and the magic system is quite robust. Unfortunately, most of the characters lack depth and consistency. For a YA novel, this works well. Older readers may want to try something else if you aren't into crunchy LitRPG stuff.

Just some great old-fashioned adventuring fun. Or is it?It certainly is fun. The characters act with humorous realism without being awful (most of the time), and the team dynamics between different rookie adventurers shows bright on the page. The action and character progression (especially for an unconventional bard character concept) are engaging, and the writing is deftly handled so the reader can focus on enjoying the story. And the themes of cooperation, common decency, and healthy versus unhealthy ambition are staples of the subgenre that are made fresh here by people acting with maturity uncommon in such a book. All that is rare enough to deserve four stars at least.But what elevates this story to five stars in my mind is the worldbuilding. The tension between personal and system mana, the economy of risk and rewards, and life under powerful Ancients who protect people from mana's hostility while imposing rules that border on intrusive. It's a fascinating world where nearly everyone is guaranteed life to old age, but their every mistake tests the patience of the entity protecting them from death. I won't spoil any more of it, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and think it's well worthy of five stars. Not because it's world-changing literature, but because it plays to its strengths and delivers on its promises to the reader with craft and style. I recommend this as a shining example of the best that systemcore litrpg adventures have to offer.

First book that I've read by these authors, and they have a very quirky magic system. It starts off as a poor MC, just starting out, standing against a bunch of rich, snobbish characters, also just starting out. They don't see his worth, and he decides to prove himself (he really doesn't have a choice) by taking on the trial dungeon by himself. He succeeds, much to the surprise of the adjudicator & the others.And so the story begins! Follows the traditional beginning character development within this unusual magic system. The battles with the monsters are good, especially since we don't know these monsters.Well worth reading. I'm getting the next book ASAP.

The novel was cute, had a mildly interesting magic system (that makes no sense and never went anywhere). The novel feels like it was written about a side character and every moment where a satisfying moment could have happened was usurped by the hero bending over backward like he was in a an office with HR rep nearby.

I found this book enjoyable, overall. It leans into the RPG part of the LitRPG genre more than many others. It also has a main character you can empathize with and other characters who feel multidimensional. I hope the sequels are similar.

This is the first book I've read by this author.Levy joins a group who plan to go through a short dungeon so they can level up. Everyone else is in a group of three, and while he would love to team up with someone else no one wants to team up with him since he is an enchanter.That's the setup for the book. After the dungeon is over, he does manage to join a group, and they search the wilds surrounding the city to kill monsters. The book flows easily and there are plenty of stats, item descriptions, spells, and much more for those who enjoy that sort of thing. The editing is okay but not great, but it didn't detract from the story.At first, I was confused because the book seemed to lack a plot, but that will become apparent later on. Book one really is a training montage including a dungeon that takes up the last third of the book.I enjoyed this. Levy is a unique character, and while the rest of his group are mentioned frequently, I didn't feel as connected to them. 5/5* and looking forward to book two.

Good book with a different gimmick, a hero who does little on his own, but has strong buffs and debuffs as a great support caster. The magic system is interesting, with room for the hero to have more direct impact. Fun start.

A worthy first book in what looks like being a great series.Unfortunately we now have the long wait for the next one to come out.Well done folks.

The book should really be called "I played a lot of late 2000s mmorpgs and decided to write a book about living in those worlds" ... though maybe that title is too long. There's a few things that almost made me drop this book numerous times. First being it's all tell not show, conveniently everyone doesn't know and asks just the right question so that an info dump will happen, repeatedly through the whole book. Making it feel so contrived and like people don't understand basic things in the fantasy genre. Even more annoying was the immersion breaking lingo used, lots of gaming terms which they went into detail explaining why that was a term they were going to use and what it meant. (Especially with it being inconsistent, eg train... they don't have trains... ). The continuity was terrible and existed only when convenient. The game system was set up so haphazardly that it really wouldn't work, eg randomly putting in "hell levels" just to slow down xp for no reason, or everyone regening 1 health a second base, having low double digit health but fights lasting minutes.... just doesn't make sense. Also the magic system was confusing, talking about mana like it's music... but they aren't singing or anything just vibrating mana ? Yet it's described as musical notes ? Annoyingly this had promise.. it just really didn't live up to it sadly, I won't be looking for the next book, and this is probably only worth reading if you've run out of other better stuff

It's a bit too WoW for my taste, too many stats and theory crafting interludes. Competent enough and few errors.