Rule of Cool by Matthew Siege : An Audiobook Review

Raze is ‘just’ a lowly Gearblin, chained to the quest-giver desk at the worst (and only) arcade in town.

That sucks for her. It means that she’s a Non-Participating Citizen, someone who can’t see her stats or make opposed rolls against Heroes. It’s why her life’s worth less than the vendor trash she doles out.

The old-timers swear it didn’t used to be like this—that their issues only began once RNGesus went AFK a thousand years ago, leaving the questionably-blessed Heroes to conquer everything without consequence.

Fortunately, Raze is not about to let something as trivial as a millennium of injustice cramp her style. She’s got a crush on a frustratingly optimistic dreamer, and when he talks her into using the Konami Code as a map to scale the conveniently located and suitably forbidden fortress, everything changes when they reach the top.

[UP UP, DOWN DOWN, LEFT RIGHT, LEFT RIGHT. B. A. START]

What follows is Raze and her mismatched crew doing their damndest to burn the new ‘old’ ways down to the ground, squaring off against thousands of noob Heroes in epic, crunchy, badass, mechanized carnage!

Rule of Cool is a screaming love letter to LitRPG and the possibilities the genre embraces. Hilarious, action-packed, and filled with unforgettable characters, it’s perfect for fans of Ryan Rimmel, Dakota Krout, and Shemer Kuznits.

One thing I’ve discovered over the last few years is that, to my own surprise, I’m not really a fan of the LitRPG genre. I think it’s mainly because if I’m going to read about someone playing a game, I could instead just go play a game myself instead, so I tend to stay away from the genre these days. I have to say though, that I’m glad that I made the decision to give this book a try. The Rule of Cool by Matthew Siege was a fun book and pretty much everything I wanted from the LitRPG genre when I first discovered it a few years ago. I planned to slowly listen to this book on my walk to and from work every day for a couple of weeks and instead ended up staying awake all night to finish it in a single sitting

There’s been a lot of books written over the last few years either told from the PoV of NPC’s in a video game or TTRPG, or from the dungeon itself, but this is the first one I can remember seeing or reading told from the PoV of a “monster” race. Raze was a fantastic character and I enjoyed every moment spent listening to her and her crew’s story. I don’t know if this is meant to be a stand-alone book but I really hope not because I would enjoy finding out what happens next! I don’t have many complaints about this book but the one I do have almost made me stop listening to it a time or two out of annoyance.

I know this is a LitRPG book and the author is really trying to get the TTRPG aspect/feel of it across, but there were just SO many dice rolls and stats read out over the course of the story that it honestly got a little annoying. I DM twice a week right now and I can’t help but feel like if I forced as many rolls and read out as many stats as happens in the Rule of Cool that my players would revolt or just quit my campaign. But, as I said, I’m not a fan of and haven’t read a lot in the genre and maybe that’s normal for these books and I just have to adjust to it.

As much as I ended up enjoying the story of the Rule of Cool, I do have to say that the best part of it was easily Felicia Day’s narration. She’s always such an amazing actor and she just absolutely killed the narration of this book. I think it could have been the worst book in the world and I still would have enjoyed it because of her. I hope there’s more in the series and I hope that she narrates them all!

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.