Blurb: They call it Faction Wars.
The ninth floor.
Nine armies, each led by rich and powerful aliens from across the galaxy. Each team has one objective: to capture and hold the castle at the very center of the battlefield. Strategy, alliances, pitched battles, and, of course, betrayal... It all makes for great fun and even greater television.
After all, none of these powerful aliens really die when they’re playing war.
Except this time. This time, winner takes all. Those who fall, stay in the ground.
As the AI continues its rapid decline, Carl and company take advantage of the chaos. For the first time ever, the crawlers are fighting back. They are now one of the nine teams. And this season, there’s a tenth army on the playing field. The NPCs, who are normally used as nothing but cannon fodder, have become fully self-aware and formed a team of their own.
For Donut and Katia, the stakes are even higher. Only one of them will be allowed to leave this level.
If they all want to survive, they’re going to need a little help from a veteran or two.
This is it.
This is what they’ve been fighting toward.
This is war.
This inevitable ruin.
Review: Floor 9. The Faction Wars. The AI continues to deteriorate, and boy, does it deteriorate. Carl is struggling on many levels and trying to get everyone he cares about to survive. But in war, that's not going to happen.
This is one of my all-time favorite series. One of those stories that I could read forever. This is what made me love LitRPG so much. The humor, originality, and complexity of this series is what I strive to write in my own books.
This is a big book. A BIG BOOK! So much is happening and there are so many layers. It's hard to keep track of some things at times, but we get reminders when we need them, and the emotional connection to Donut, Carl, and certain crawlers is strong. The beginning felt a bit slow. There was a lot of setup needed for the Faction Wars, and there were reminders of what happened in previous books. The Faction Wars is separated into four sections, and in the first one, Carl has to set up his team's entire defense. He carries a lot on his shoulders. Yet once things started rolling, they were wrecking ball rolling. Right, Rend?! (Rend is a pet: a giant psychotic pet meatball who eats everything!)
There's so much I want to say, but I won't give spoilers. Like the previous books in the series, this was an incredible read. Hilarious, action-packed, and an emotional roller coaster. Something very big happens with one of my favorite characters and I was blown away. It was one of those moments where you just had to sit there and meditate on it for a while.
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