#BookReview: Invading the System by Inadvisably Compelled

The System Must Be Destroyed

If you like litRPGs, I can’t tell whether you’d like this book. I can be more confident, though, if, like me, you’re annoyed by artificial rewards, contrived adventures, and monsters that look like all the other monsters.

Maybe you’re bored with the text equivalent of watching someone else play a video game and you would love it if a litRPG was devoured by a real novel. If that’s the case, then welcome and read on.

The Story

When the System came to Earth, we were well into our post-singularity utopia. We had digitally-emulated citizens, swappable GM super-bodies, and Von Neumann nanotech capable of turning anything into anything else.

Then a magical portal showed up and flooded our planet with “essence,” which broke any technology more potent than a wheelbarrow. It replaced cities with procedurally generated dungeons and opened a window in everyone’s mind telling them they could earn essence and level up if they killed their neighbors.

Fortunately, all of the fabricators, bio-forges, and computronium in the rest of the solar system still worked. The No Fun Allowed War eventually retook the Earth, but a single digital soldier embodied in a living tank decided that one planet freed was not enough. The System Must Be Destroyed.

All of the above takes place in the first sentence of the book, as “Cato,” our hero, dashes through the collapsing portal and enters the System.

The Characters

Inadvisably Compelled has a tendency to create overpowered main characters who aren’t operating under much real threat. In Invading the System, he controls that tendency by setting Cato against ranks of enemies that go from “copper” all the way up to “System god.”

More importantly, Cato has morals that constrain his actions. He wants to destroy the System, yes, but only with minimal civilian casualties. This when every adult person wields magical combat skills they acquired through killing enemies. Defending his warframe body without murdering his attackers is a major challenge. A challenge which pays off when Cato converts some of his enemies into allies. Others end up as even worse enemies.

The World

The world is by intention not very innovative. Part of what makes the System so pestilent is that it replaces the unique cultures and biospheres of the planets it assimilates with cookie-cutter dungeons, combat zones, and towns. Food and goods pop into existence after an expenditure of essence. A town with enough essence will level up, granting residents larger, more gaudily decorated cookies to live in. It’s all very soulless — a Skinner box with fantasy trappings.

The alternative is Cato’s post-singularity civilization, which we learn about from his memories and goals. Here, there was some missed opportunity for Inadvisably Compelled to get creative, but that wouldn’t be the point of this book. Likewise, if the alien species aren’t very interesting, that’s so they don’t distract from the story, which has other strengths.

Politics

The politics of this book aren’t about who should be president or what color sign you put up in your front yard. They are about agency and the nature of accomplishment. There’s a difference between killing an animal to eat its meat and defeating a monster to get awarded health points. It’s the same difference between investment and gambling in a casino. In a casino, you play by the house’s rules, and the house always wins.

Inadvisably Compelled might have been thinking about bullshit jobs, Ponzi schemes, and credentialism in academia. I certainly was thinking about them as I read, and watching Cato chew, claw, and explode his way through the phony game-world was very satisfying.

Content Warning

PG at most. There isn’t even much blood.

Who is it for?

I was reminded of We Are Bob (without the pop-culture references) and the early work of Charles Stross (without the socialism). If you liked those, you’ll like this. If you’re into litRPGs, maybe this book will be to your taste, too.

Why buy it?

Invading the System is a fun and fast progression story. It’s saved from being merely escapist power-fantasy by its thoughtful main character and the fact that it’s not always possible for him to do the right thing. It’s surprisingly high-protein popcorn.