Throughout the final days of 2021, as well as the first days of 2022, I quite enjoyed Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw’s comedic and creative portrayal of an apocalyptic situation in his novel Jam.
However, Mogworld, to my knowledge, is his very first literary work. The whole story takes place within the setting of a massively multiplayer online game (MMO or MMOG), and is suitably self-aware and nerdy—much like his other novel that I reviewed positively two years ago.
The protagonist, Jim, has been dead for about sixty years, when he is suddenly resurrected by a necromancer. Despite some divine or purposeful calling, Jim has no desire to save the world and is just an all-round grumpy, disinterest character in a world where fantastical elements and obnoxious optimism are supposed to prevail.
If it’s anything like his second novel, then Mogworld will be horribly dated, fairly creative, extremely self-aware and tongue-in-cheek novel. Yet, I suspect that much like Jam, it will be charming and amusing to get through, even if the story itself isn’t entirely fleshed-out or able to invest readers.
Video games are something novels tend not to acknowledge or toy with a lot, despite the potential to write a very unique story that is able to wave-off most of the realism and logic one should expect from conventional stories set in a grounded world. For that reason, Mogworld is a novel I want to read, even if it ultimately ends up being rather middling, one-note, or predictable by the final chapter.
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