Tower Reborn: A LitRPG Adventure (Realm Grinder) Paperback – November 11, 2022

Overall I really enjoyed this book. The MC could be considered OP but also gets his keister kicked regularly. The writing is solid and the art is great. Only minor gripe is a repetitive use of a certain phrase throughout the book (81 times) and characters do sigh alot (277 times). I tend to find that a bit annoying but the overall writing and story carried the day. I look forward to seeing how the characters progress in the next installment and how the reborn aspect plays in to the overall story. Highly recommend!

No hand holding here, the apocalypse is well underway. Straight into the action as they push to rise as fast as possible!

John Maverick finds himself and his party at the end of their rope trying to climb the tower that appeared when the Earth as humanity knew it came to an end. In a last ditch effort, he sacrifices himself so that his friends can continue on, to another world. Instead, his friends plead with the gods that be for John to be given another chance.Sometimes one should be careful what they wish for.John awakes, at the beginning of the tower, unaware of what had happened and with only fleeting memories of the grueling climb. It appears 19 years have rewound. With a sliver of power that he didn't have before and with occasional glimpses at the dangers that come, will John avoid the mistakes humanity made in the past? Will his alleged knowledge cause him to make new mistakes?What makes this book is one part solid interaction with teammates with a main character who is powerful yet always equally matched, coupled with some of the craziest and entertaining scenarios one would hope to see from a LitRPG. It's as much believable as it is palpable. John doesn't have an "easy win" button, and sometimes what should be a boon to his survival comes back to bite him.Sometimes, Hell really is other people.

Remember when the first speed run a dark souls happened, they grab a powerful weapon (drake sword or spears for our MC), bypass any leveling or treasures to basically cheap the bosses down as fast as possible using exploits (or OP exclusive skills), and beat the big baddie (a giant city destroying crystal dragon). That’s this book.Overall it’s okay. The Main Character is alright I guess, not really enough character development to say otherwise. Side characters are just the roles they fill. Even if they die you don’t really feel anything because you don’t really interact enough to develop anything for them. The story is alright but too quick to really flesh out anything meaningful, which is surprising because it’s a fairly long book as far as Game-lit goes.Like is titles the review, it’s a speed run. As interesting as they are to watch, reading about an MC who basically fumbles through half a book by the skin of his teeth is incredibly frustrating and leads to an immensely boring read. I mean you don’t even know where the tower is, you have no clue about where in the world it’s located, how everyone is speaking so many languages, or what the stats, if you could call them that, do! It’s rushed and bloated with chapters about neat tower areas that the MC just blitzed through.Pick it up if you have time or really like the tower/system genre. Do not pick it up if you want an OP regressor novel.

This was an enjoyable book. First and foremost there is tower climbing. Second, it is set in a post apocalypse world. Third, there is some big event that is alluded to many times but never fully revealed. This event seems to involve some kind of time travel. Lastly, there is a slice of life aspect that really adds veracity to the story.I recommend it!

I enjoyed reading this book very much and I recommend this book to anyone who like LitRPG and progression type of books with lots of action.

This book was a lot of fun. It had some minor pacing issues, but it was really quite entertaining. I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Didn't finish this. Some nice plot and setting ideas. Similar in some ways to Sword Art Online. But the mistakes and typos are a bit annoying, the characters have no depth or unique voice, and the narrative seems disjointed and random.

Guy with a mysterious past climbs a tower and levels up. That’s about it. Quite well written but just not very ambitious. I kept waiting for big reveals or origins, or even some new skills, but it remained resolutely 3 stars.

TL;DR: Devoid of the meaningful fights, meaningful companions, meaningful skills, and meaningful growth seen in other Tower Climber series.=====The blurb is misleading in that the prequel events referenced do not appear in the book. Instead a guy wakes confused about where he is, and to some degree who he is - presumably American but unclear. The end of the world has arrived and a tiny number of refugees seek sanctuary at, or in, the tower which presumably appeared somewhere in Europe. The Americas, Australia, the Pacific, everywhere outside the Old World is basically completely lost, no contact remains, and the survivors are turning into cannibals etc. European cities survive a little longer but a nigh unkillable (nuke surviving) city destroying dragon flits around the planet exterminating the signs of humanity, ultimately heading towards the tower, and humanity's last bastion. Seems like it could be interesting right? Except it's really not.Jason the protagonist has an 'ultimate' skill that allows him to hulk out for 3s per level, and faint knowledge of the first few levels of the tower but it quickly turns into a mindless slog of either slaughtering yet another bunch of monsters we don't care about in whichever part of whatever floor the scene is on to get to the next pointless fight, or in later levels, run away from overly powerful monsters in a desperate bid to get to the portal to the next level so as to keep running to get to the portal for the next level because Level 25 has a magic skill that might allow the aforesaid dragon to be defeated, which it sorta kinda does, eventually, but not without massive - think near total, casualties by the defenders. Should I say spoiler alert? Eh care factor zero.Several of the locations mentioned for fights had the potential to be interesting, to provide unique, character or world building encounters, but the story blitzes through them so quickly that most are forgotten by the time you turn the page.In addition to the end of the world is nigh impetus - revealed about midway through, and what seems like hundreds of fights (and avoided fights) which sad to say are more page filler than attention grabber, there's also friendships - sorta, politics - kinda, and backstabbing - absurd levels.Jason enters the tower with 1 friend, picks up a 2nd soon after but they part ways as he's obsessed with climbing further, faster, higher. One friend has guild duties, the other is inclined to be a scholar or researcher. Cue 2nd round of friends - actually killer who wants to turn over a new leaf because ... I forget. She quits her kill everyone else guild, publicly confesses, and hey she's forgiven. Sweet! I guess 10 murders is no big deal or something. She a useful ally, threat of betrayal aside, until she storms off in a huff because she's not trusted due to stuff. Cue 3rd round of friends - 2 tank type characters introduced near the start who help Jason in his run - emphasis on run rather than fight, to get to Level 25.The politics are a mess. There are a handful of powerful (ruling?) guilds at the start including the army - whose is never clear, Shieldmaidens - females only, Lancers Rising - a group ostensibly focused on getting higher in the tower, some wizard group, the aforesaid kill everyone group, and a bunch of others that appear once. The army appear a major power in the first few chapters but quickly vanish to something more akin to town guard, likewise the guild ostensibly focused on climbing doesn't appear to achieve anything. The PKer guild, who believe reality is an illusion so there's no ethical issues with slaughtering people, regularly try to kill Jason and his turncoat ally, yet also hold one of the seats on the council for ruling guilds. Why do homicidal lunatics get a seat? And despite not being a guild leader, or even a guild member, Jason gets one too because uh who knows. The wizard type guild play a small role in providing support, try a coup to take over the town, and oh yeah, seem to be run by the PK guild or something.Ultimately it seems like law and order don't exist, murder is not only rampant but folk in a homicidal guild are somehow respected enough to get their own seat, folk killing others for trying to ascend past them on the leaderboard because of course the tower tracks and makes public what level everyone is and what floor floor they've gained access to, there's really no cooperation except at the guild or interguild level - other than Jason's team(s), nor any real problem solving except that done by Jason - get food from X level to feed people etc, no crafting done, no skill growth, and barely any stats - congrats you get a power/will/skill fragment because you killed stuff. Goody for you! (/sarc)Frankly it's immensely frustrating when compared to many other tower climber books with meaningful fights, meaningful companions, meaningful skills, and meaningful growth. Sadly none of that is apparent in Tower Reborn.

The book starts with a reincarnator going back to the beginning of the tower. But somehow for reasons never fully explained they are 49 levels behind the forefront of the tower at the start.The entire novel consists of awkwardly chosen time jumps as we see bits and pieces of what is happening. I can’t escape the feeling the author has only told half the story by how fragmented and clunky it feels.In short, core elements of the plot need to be explained clearly so that they feel correct. A reader shouldn’t be left feeling things don’t make sense. Time skips should be less frequent or better designed so the story doesn’t feel like small disconnected fragments.