The Bookwyrm's Review of The Nexus Games by Shami Stovall

 

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Audible

Rating: 9.5/10

Synopsis

Special Forces Soldier Alex Kellan has three problems. He’s on forced medical leave, he’s alone on Christmas, and two men are actively stalking his every step.

Things get worse when Kellan wakes up in a twisted world where people have magical abilities and high-tech weaponry. It turns out, Kellan’s stalkers want him to participate in a deadly competition—whether or not Kellan agrees.

Forced to compete in the infamous Nexus Games, Kellan must risk everything to survive the competition and save the other members of his ragtag team. Their new motto quickly becomes: Situation Normal: All Fouled Up.

A litRPG thriller with high-tech magic, set in a game for the ultimate prize.

Review

While I was aware of Shami Stovall from seeing her Arcanist books receive praise, I hadn't got the chance to read or listen to them. When I was offered the chance to review the audio version of her latest release, The Nexus Games, I was intrigued with the premise and quickly agreed to review it. I can happily say this was a good decision on my part, because this was one of those books I couldn't stop listening to, and finished in a couple days at work. She takes a lot of concepts from a variety of SFF sub-genres and turns a lot of them on their head.

The world building in this book is phenomenal. It's based around a real place, Fayetteville, North Carolina, the town outside Ft. Bragg, where the main character is stationed as part of Combat Applications Group, AKA Delta Force. You get a bit of a feel for the town before things get topsy turvy with the start of the Nexus Games, when a bunch of different dimension's versions of Fayetteville are overlaid in the Nexus, a pocket dimension where the mysterious Arbiter has total control, and is always watching. Its a combo of dystopia, with mutants, murderbots and monsters roaming the streets, while the affluent "players" of the games are safe in the non-combat areas of the Arbiter's palace. Until they have to go to the game areas, that is. Its a wild combo of low and high tech, and you get a clear visual in your head of just how disturbed the mind behind it all is. The game areas, where the players compete, are varied, from a shelled out cityscapes to a space station in orbit that would give Ridley Scott nightmares. These settings fit the story perfectly, and draw the reader in like a spider's web.

The characters are an interesting bunch. Alex Kellen is the main character, and as such gets the most time for character development, but the author doesn't slack when she fleshes out the secondary characters as well. Alex is pretty complex, because his last mission has left him with some serious mental scars from the loss of his team, and he is really struggling to overcome it. It effects his reactions throughout the story, even in the high intensity combat parts, which was off-putting at first, until I realized that his PTSD was exactly why he was reacting so unexpectedly. His world had been turned upside down, and his training and experience could only compensate so much, especially when the utter insanity of the Nexus was thrown on top of it. He is easily my favorite character in the story.

The secondary characters are a nice mix of the ordinary and the otherworldly. These characters on Alex's team range from a combat wounded veteran named Mavis, who Alex meets at a bar and who inadvertently gets stuck in the Nexus with Alex and has to compete also. There is also the brother and sister duo of Sun Sen and Sun Xiang. Sen is a body shaper who looks like a ten year old boy, although he's 30, and Xiang is a high rank illusionist and also team leader. They also have ties to a number of powerful figures on another team, Including an alternate universe version of Alex. The last team member is Husker, a werewolf type alien with a powerful ability that comes at a horrible cost. They all get fleshed out throughout the story, and you really get a good look into how they think and feel.

The antagonists are basically everybody else in the Nexus, for the most part. The opposing teams obviously what Alex and his team dead in the competition, with one team especially having personal reasons to see them defeated and dead. The Arbiter, while not an outright antagonist, has fairly mysterious motives and puts many roadblocks in their path to success. It will be interesting to see how this part of the storyline shakes out in future installments.

The narration is performed by Dan Calley. I was unfamiliar with his work before this, but I was impressed with the job he did. He has a British accent, which was a bit startling at first, since the story is set in the US (sort of) with American characters, but He does such an excellent job bringing the characters to life that I was completely absorbed into the story within five minutes. He really brings a kind of raw intensity to the characters, and you always know which character is speaking. He also has excellent narrative pacing, so you never get distracted while he's reading.

While this story falls into the category of LitRPG/GameLit, I think it could have much broader appeal. I can see fans of more straightforward Sci-fi or cyberpunk finding things in this story to enjoy. If you enjoy a good, well told story with excellent world building and characters, The Nexus Games should definitely be in your TBR pile.