Brian Tubbs

As the ZERO virus decimates the planet, Clay Hopewell and his friends have found a new chance at life in a virtual reality world full of monsters, magic, mystery, and mayhem. In Arcane Kingdom Online: Dark Magic , the second book of Jakob Tanner's LitRPG series, Clay and his companions are pressured into a quest by an arrogant teenage king -- all while this new digital world they call home is on the verge of total war and is ravaged by a strange and dangerous computer glitch. As with the first installment, the writing quality is solid. There were no distracting typos or other such issues. That's a refreshing contrast with many of the titles out there in this genre. The  Arcane Kingdom Online  series provides a compelling, thought not entirely original, premise. And the world created by Tanner is colorful and diverse. It's kind of a late medieval world liberally sprinkled with elements of magitech and steampunk. You have sword fights as well as battles between a...

Do you read fantasy novels? Do you enjoy playing tabletop or computer role-playing games? If so, RPG Literature may be right up your alley. What is RPG Lit? RPG Literature (or RPG Lit for short) is a fantasy and science fiction sub-genre combining the conventions of role-playing games (RPGs) with, you guessed it, science fiction and fantasy novels. This subgenre is more popularly known as GameLit (Game Literature) or LitRPG (Literature or Literary Role-Playing Game), however there are some distinctions between GameLit and LitRPG, which we will discuss shortly. RPG Lit is all about following fictional characters through a (hopefully) high-immersion, virtual reality ‘world,’ specifically a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). In the last few years, I've become a big fan of this subgenre. My introduction to RPG Lit / GameLit / LitRPG was author J.A. Cipriano's World of Ruul series. Cipriano, a  New York Times  bestselling author, has written three insta...

Stan Faryna is an author, blogger, gamer, entrepreneur, technology expert, and an online strategist. As an author, Stan has become known in the emerging sub-genre of gamelit or litrpg. His debut novella Francesco Augustine Bernadone: A Brief History of Tomorrows has been reviewed on this blog. His stories have drawn praise for their depth and thought-provoking nature. "His stories go deep," writes Yomar Lopez, founder of a community of techno-geeks called Geeky Antics. "Stan makes me think," writes a fan on Facebook. He does that in an immersive context of a dystopian world, life-like characters with vivid problems and pain, and Christian hope. A recurring theme across his writing is right out of the bible: Love never fails. Brian Tubbs (BT): Stan, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Stan Faryna (SF): Thank you for honoring me with your kind words and attention, Brian. BT: As Yomar Lopez says in his review, your stories go deep. Tell us abou...

Stan Faryna’s Francesco Augustine Bernadone: A Brief History of Our Tomorrows centers on an 80-year old Italian named Francesco as he desperately seeks to finance his wife’s cancer treatments, battles multiple sclerosis himself, and struggles to hold onto any work he can. All in a bleak world devoid of much happiness and hope. Francesco’s selfless devotion to his ailing wife, Clare, is about the only bright spot in the dark dystopian story world painted by the author. Francesco Augustine Bernadone is the first of a planned series of novellas set several years into an imagined future where the Dollar and Euro have collapsed, and western society has plunged into a gritty existence of unemployment, poverty, struggle, and despondency. To escape this grim reality, people are buying their way into a virtual reality game called Jacob’s Ladder . The massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) is, in many ways, even darker than the real world itself. Yet, for those few who can survive ...

If you’ve ever pictured yourself as a knight in King Arthur’s Camelot, Galen Wolf’s latest LitRPG novel may be just for you. LitRPG novels are of course all about following a character or set of characters as they progress through a virtual reality game setting. In Camelot Overthrown , Wolf turns his attention to knights and chivalry and churns out a virtual reality manifestation of medieval England. The prolific LitRPG author invites his readers to follow a young Level 1 up-and-comer named Gorrow on his quest for wealth and glory. All is not well, however. Gorrow must climb from poverty to wealth and from obscurity to fame in the midst of a war-torn world. The forces of evil (and they are thoroughly evil – more on this in a moment) are sweeping across the land and closing in on Camelot, the kingdom’s main bastion of freedom and hope. Wolf’s game world allows players to join King Arthur and fight against evil — or align with evil and seek to overthrow Arthur’s fabled Camelot. Gorro...

What happens when anger, rage, and a desire for power all mix together? According to Travis Bagwell, you become an evil necromancer who unleashes a torrent of death and destruction in a digital world. That’s the premise of Awaken Online: Catharsis , one of the most absorbing and thought-provoking science fiction and fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. Awaken Online: Catharsis is another entree in the fast-growing, highly popular genre known as “LitRPG.” LitRPG stands for Literature Role-Playing Game, and it’s all about immersing the reader in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. In other words, it’s a virtual reality adventure with the protagonist having to progress through skill development, resource acquisition, quest achievement, the building of alliances, and so forth -- as is the case with any typical role-playing game (RPG). The science fiction and fantasy genre has long been known as an effective platform through which to explore moral and philosophical questio...