Unexpected Healer (Earthen Contenders #1) by Jonathan Brooks

Unexpected Healer (Earthen Contenders #1) Reviews

• 
  Tony Hinde

  This 500+ page book contains less than 200 pages of actual story. The rest is stats, upgrade options, reward descriptions, and rumination on how each upgrade option or new skill would impact the protagonist's path. And those 200 pages of story are not tight prose. Wordy, verbose, rambling digressions are not often fun. I feel like I spent more time skipping filler than actually reading.
  
  So why three stars? The well-concealed short story, shyly peeking out from behind these pages, is good. I wish the author had realized that his research notes, stat tracking, and perk dictionary didn't need to be published as part of his story.
• 
  Stan Slaughter

  MC is not so bright
  
  The MC is like in his late 20's or 30's, not the teen shown on the book cover. He also seems weirdly unknowledgeable for a guy who has played games. At about 75% thru the book the MC has been on a game like world for 3 solid months. He never once tried "inventory" or "loot".
  
  MC is in a town where the townies barely tolerate him. He gets a cloak that has some powers, but is -15 on charm/charisma (I would lable that a cursed item). So of course he decides to wear it all the time when in town (versus putting it on right before entering the dungeon)
  
  MC talks about how he likes to travel - yet continues to hang around the town where everyone dislikes him.
• 
  Christopher

  I'm used to skipping the meaningless descriptions of skills and spells the MC will never use, so the book was much shorter than I expected. The problem is we are getting set up for some super loner who saves the world BS. He builds no relationships with the towns folk. He quickly bails on the only people worth being friends.
  
  Now the other issue that is going to be a deal breaker is if the author doesn't figure out how to add suspense or risk. Right now he is an unkillable, bumbling fool.
• 
  Steven Whitfield

  Antisocial Coward, gets super cheat mode and does everything he can NOT to save people
  
  Seriously this is the kind of person who gets purged out of every organization that finds him in their ranks. Chooses over and over to be disassociated from whatever group he finds himself. Ends up being 3 times everyone else's level and rabbits.
• 
  Johnny

  Book one
  
  This was a really good read.
  The MC, once you get past his absolutely ridiculous arrival on the planet, acts in a completely believable manner.
  I haven't slept because I needed to finish this book.
  You should give it a try. The book not the no sleeping part.
  
  9/10
• 
  GaiusPrimus

  I'm really liking these non-dungeon books from Jonathan. Really enjoying the Fusion series, but I like this one a lot too.
  
  Interesting premise, well developed mechanics and looking forward to where the story goes, there's a lot of potential, especially for an author that finishes stories.
• 
  Gareth Otton

  This is another book in this sub-genre where I am really frustrated to have to give it such a low score because I really like the premise. However, as is always the case with these books that I have to rate lower than I'd like, it makes the following mistakes:
  
  1. Messes up the balance between Game and Literature
  There is a massive difference between using gaming elements to enrich a story, and writing what feels like a journal of someone's experience playing a game. Gamelit novels rely on a delicate balance, and if you're struggling to make the balance work, then you have to lean more on the literature side of the equation because, at the end of the day, this is a book, and it is more important that it works as a story than it does as a game.
  
  2. Keeping the protagonist isolated
  It is easily the most common flaw with novels in this sub-genre, but the authors feel the need to isolate the protagonist at the start of every book, and it's always to the detriment of these stories. Unless you are a master storyteller specialising in character studies, the chances are you are not going to create a protagonist compelling enough to carry a story on their own. I think the authors get too excited in their world-building and trying to set up the gamer mechanics, but as with the first point, writing a good story is much more important. Multiple characters, relationships and all the other good stuff that comes from people interacting with one another are vital to telling a great story, and I genuinely can't think of a single GameLit novel that got interesting until the character leaves isolation and starts interacting with people.
  
  3. Info dumping - Telling rather than showing
  It's another side effect of not spending enough time on putting the story first, but this book is full of info dumps that tell us information rather than show us. The best example of this is the overuse of stats and gamer info in this book. It is common with all of these books that I simply will not remember a single word of description told to us through a system message. It is simply not interesting. It only becomes interesting when that information is put to use in the form of action that is meaningful to moving the story forward, that's the only time that it matters.
  
  4. Overly detailed in system information
  We do not need to see every system message, every option for every character-build decision, every single time a stat is levelled up, and so on. Like with the last point, it just bogs down the story and doesn't meaningfully move the plot forward. When every chapter is half full of system messages, then I no longer feel like I am reading a story and instead feel like I am reading a transcript from someone's game.
  
  Final Verdict
  This is a book with a fascinating enough premise that I kept reading to the end. I hoped that this might be like Defiance of the Fall or The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound, where if you can just push past the isolation period, then the story will eventually get awesome. However, while there is a glimmer of light here when the other human characters finally show up, the story seems to lean towards taking the path of the lone wolf, and at that point, I was done.
  
  I'll keep an eye on the reviews for the next book to see if things do change for the better, because I am really hoping that the author could rescue this premise. He just needs to focus more on telling a good story, and not writing his ideal gaming experience.
• 
  Laura Quevedo

  This was a really good read...
  
  Amazing start to a series.
  
  First, I have to admit that I'm not a fan of RPGames, I've tried playing two different games but I found them boring (probably because it was too hard to understand what to do, and I still get lost in some technical stuff) BUT since the first book I read that was about people living in a world with a game like system I absolutely fell in love... Though I still don't like playing the games, I love books that have elements of them... And my favorites are the ones that have dungeons...
  
  Now, this book's poor MC had an extremely rough start, everything that could go wrong did go wrong... Luckily he at least had one break, that honestly was the only reason he survived. But most importantly, I enjoyed seeing how he pulled himself together and started solving problems one at a time, of course sometimes he didn't have enough time to actually think and just reacted but I really found myself respecting the MC...
  
  The plot is really interesting and I can't wait to see what else the MC uncovers in his journey, now that cliffhanger was amazing... I'm not one to like cliffhangers that much though I don't hate them either but this was incredibly done... By that time, enough questions have been answered that I felt the plot moving, of course it also presented a lot of new questions, and when the end came about I was left speechless: the MC was in trouble again...
  
  I can't wait to read the next book.
  
  POV: dual (mostly MC, with some secondary character's chapters)
  Tropes: system error, new world, magic and dungeons, game like rules, leveling.
  Spice: none (there's no romantic interest)
  CW: violence, gore, blood, decomposing corpses, death, mentions of depression (secondary characters)...
• 
  Steven Brown

  An okay one time KU read.
  
  The title of this story describes the setup perfectly. If you like quick and easy Litrpg reads, heavy on the rpg and game mechanics, then this might be your cup of tea. It is YA appropriate with some foul language and, of course, violent action.
  
  I started and erased several reveiw attempts as they were more on the negative side and from a writers perspective. Target audience is key, and when an author finds their niche style, it will be desired by some while putting off others. This story does have the quickly published feel, it uses the familiar set up as described in its title and a very specific limitation to the main protagonist that even after the authors explanation at the end of the book annoys me haha. That is, I have never played a rpg of any kind were the healer/support class has zero offensive abilities or even use of a weapon of any kind.
  
  Between worldbuilding, character, and plot, the world building was the strongest portion of the story. It was a decent set up that did build some interest in me. The characters were hindered by the rpg element taking priority over depth, motivation, and even logic. The plot had the feel of what should have been the beginning, lasting for over half the story before what should have been the meaty interesting part being glossed over, and then the story just ends.
  
  It gets a three instead of the two because it has an interest concept with a rough draft of a story with no ridiouslous random element meant to shock the reader.
  
• 
  Pieter

  At it cores it is a fairly standard litRPG isekai with death game elements. Young man (together with a sizable group of people from Earth) is summoned into a new world with game elements. Something goes wrong for him, and he ends up in the world without getting the tutorial. He ends up with a healer class, not exactly the best when solo gaming, but a "bug" does give him a bit of an edge. The world comes with its mystery though, if only because the official story does not seem to match the MC's experience, raising the question on what is going on. The story itself is not bad, but two things keep me from fully enjoying it. For one thing, the MC is a lone wolf even if not by choice, and I prefer more social interaction in my story and it seems to go towards PvP, a game element I am not that much of a fan off. Secondly, there is a bit too much game stats, a large part of which is rather meaningless and confusing and that is coming from an actual gamer. The fact that the MC seems to be inconsistent in what he remembers from the few games he played does not help. All in all, a decent read, just not for me.
• 
  Steve

  Overall good, but just didn't clear the 5-star bar for me. I think that it bogged down too much into stats and lists of skills, and that disrupted the pacing/flow. Some people like more granularity on the game mechanics, but the info dumps (which did provide a lot of that) disrupted story progress for me. Minor spoilers follow.
  
  
  
  The author wanted to do a story with a "pure healer" with no offensive capability who is a solo adventurer. It is an axiom of warfare that the best defence is a good offence for a reason. No purely defensive doctrine will ever win a war, and his survival here is that war. He may have boxed his character in, but we'll see in book 2 if: a) he has to crack and give him an overtly offensive capability/item, b) he finds people to party up with, or c) some deus ex machina I haven't thought of. I don't see this working without something like that.