Brian

The premise was interesting, but the characters and world building were completely implausible.

I know it's sci-fi. I love sci fi and fantasy, so I'm used to some level of impossible to make the story work. It's only interesting though if the people are still recognizably human. In the world of scythe, teenagers can execute strangers in cold blood and not be completely fucked up. The rich elites somehow allowed a system that renders them as vulnerable to death as anyone else. People have a perfect system of wealth redistribution, and immunity to natural death, but somehow choose to keep unlimited reproduction while agreeing to random violent death. The reapers use knives, and drowning, and fire to kill people instead of something quiet and humane?

The whole thing reels of "I have a thought experiment and I'm going to ignore absolutely everything that makes it implausible"

For context, The Culture books by Iain M Banks are set in a world with hyper intelligent AI, immunity to most natural death, and have a post scarcity economy. The people are still recognizably people, and the stories are still interesting because they have recognizable reactions to horrible situations.

First impression: Ready Player One for gamers. (That's not a compliment). Second impression: actually deep, and I love that sassy cat.

I was close to dropping the book after the first few pages. The constant "hilarious" in-game descriptions were really off putting. The whole premise of "what if a regular person was dropped into Warcraft!" was pretty dull, too.

I kept pushing through though because I'm a sucker for a good cat character, and Princess Donut is excellent. I stayed because I do enjoy a good power leveling fantasy when the characters are also good. By the mid point I was detecting some interesting themes on voyeurism and capitalist exploitation.

For the record, though, Matthew Woodring Stover did a much better job on those topics with the Legacy of Cain series - grittier, more complex, and ultimately more horrifying.

So far, I can say I enjoy DCC, but I doubt it'll have a permanent spot on my shelf.

I wanted to like this book. I'm a sucker for regency romance, witches, weird magic, and plucky heroines. The writing, though, gave everything away. Nothing was earned, no discoveries were made. I dnf'd when the grandmother showed up in the second chapter to explain that she is literally called a "Honey Witch" because...of magical honey. Emotional moments are discarded almost as soon as they're introduced and foreshadowing lasts barely through the paragraph in which it's introduced.