The He Who Fights With Monsters series kept its light hearted quirky side, while still delivering on a compelling plot and keep its video game type feel with its epic battles. Off the start after the failure of the exposition in the first book, I loved how the author set the tone with the grieving adventurers, and showed Jason’s vulnerable side at his deceased best friend Farrah. Throughout the book, you can’t help but sympathize as he gets flashes of memories of the time he spent with her, showing he’s more than a comic relief character.

If you are like me, a gamer reading this book, the anticipation of Jason hitting Bronze rank is definitely real! I’m not going to say if he does or doesn’t reach Bronze rank, but he does make excellent progress as he battles multiple Bronze ranked monsters including one that’s the size of a small city.

Before we get to that part though, after the expedition there was 5 adventurers, including Thadwick Mercer, who had a Starseed implanted in them. This Starseed in basic terms made it so they were in a possessed like state, which gave the families and Adventurers as well as Magic societies difficulties removing. Again, I won’t say if they were successful, but Thadwicks character I can tell you will play an important part in book 3. The Jason Thadwick rivalry might get pretty interesting.

The new mission, given to them by Emir Bahadir, was to obtain a Scythe in an alternate reality that was formerly The Order of the Reapers training ground. This mission, fraught with peril with the same chances of mass casualties like the expedition suffered, is only available to Iron rankers as Bronze rank and higher are unable to enter the reality. This is where Jason battles multiple Bronze ranked monsters, encounters one silver, and battles an enemy the size of a small city!!

Great book, definitely recommend giving it a read (start with the first book or you will be lost).

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟