Review: Isekai Skies by HP Holo
The Isekai genre is just a Japanese term for falling from one world into another. Be it Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, or maybe even Peter Pan (if you're the Darling kids).
In HP Holo's Monster Punk Horizon novels, it's a common occurrence. Sky portals routinely drop all sorts of creatures from all manner of worlds. Isekai Skies are literal.
Someone new is about to drop in. And he's going to have a heck of a learning curve.
The story
Kaito is at Wyvern Con in the 31st century. He's basically IT and an expert in holographic projections and special effects.
Then the floor disappears from under his feet, and he's thrown into the world of Skull Harbor, among the rest of the monster hunters.
Unfortunately for Kaito, it's only a month since the first novel. The monster they called the Screecher has limped off into the ocean, wounded but not defeated. Unfortunately, the Screecher adopts the characteristics of whatever the Screecher consumes, and it's just eaten something that produces asexually.
If they thought that it was a problem before, they now have to deal with the Screecher, and the new army it just spawned.
Basically, the Screecher is is a kaiju version of the DC villain Doomsday, and it spawns.
Overall, the story worked so very well here. The first round was more carried by nothing but plot. But this one was more balanced in terms of story, character and world-building.
It even had a great opening line: "The suns were high, the air was sultry, and the sky had exploded again."
There were multiple traps that Holo could have fallen into, but deftly avoided. One was Kaito constantly thinking "this is all a dream" until the last minute, a trope that would have had me throwing my tablet across the room. It could have very easily been done, given the rules laid out here, but Holo got it out of the way in short order.
The characters
I must say that the characters are better established in this one than in book one. Usually, it would be because the author would reintroduce the characters through the new arrival, Kaito. Here, it's not the case. The newcomer doesn't drop in for a few chapters. Both Pix the analyst and Jaz the berserker are far better established in the first chapter than they were throughout the whole of book one. That was a surprise, because I thought book 1 was both fun and technically brilliant. Holo has surpassed herself here.
Even the character descriptions are better and more vivid, describing one older cat-like creature as
"a grizzled gray thing who looked like he'd popped out to get a jug of milk, but somehow ended up in a war and just decided to keep fighting because grocery runs were boring."
Kaito is entertaining. He's not stupid, despite having been dropped feet first into the deep end of the Isekai pool. But that's okay, he spent time at the 30-building convention known as Wyvern Con in Atlanta. He might survive long enough to adapt.
The world
Holo's trick here was interesting, because two worlds had to be built here: the world of Skull Harbor, and Kaito's future. While his technology is trashed by the sky portal, his knowledge is still intact, even if his nanites no longer connect him to the world wide web. But not to worry, the sky portals translate everyone's language so they can all communicate.
Although, having been to DragonCon, I understand the line
"All the neon and body odor .... suggested he'd been trapped inside a cyberpunk dystopia. Really, it was just the Saturday night masquerade at Wyvern Con."
And the threat that technology could have been hacked made for a nice red herring for a bit, and stopped before it became annoying. I especially liked "the Deep Fake Wars" in his world's past, making it especially necessary to tell the difference between real and fake.
The additional lore brought to Skull Harbor is exactly how they treat the Isekai newcomers--usually by messing with them as a form of entertainment. But as a "pure" human, Kaito is considered extremely lucky, it says so in the holy book from the skies, the teachings of Ripig.... spelled RPG.
Yes, they thought an RPG manual was holy book.
I suspect that Holo is spending time poking fun at the tropes in other other LitRPG novels, but I could be mistaken, this is my first foray into the genre. (My wife informs me that "Rifts" may have been an influencing factor.) However, I do get the joke about Kaito having "main character hair."
Again, Holo spends a LOT of time on monster design, attacks, habitats, and how they're used when a hunter brings one in. Like a magic gem that makes things bigger on the inside, or saltwater versus freshwater types of monsters. Holo even goes into monster behaviors as evidence that Something Is Up.
As I said in the last book review, I haven't seen this much in the way of ecology since I read Dune.
Oh, and the gems to make things bigger on the inside? They're for monster trainers to carry their monsters with them. Even I caught the Pokémon reference.
Heck, Holo even makes bards useful.
The politics
None, thank God. We don't even spend a lot of time on the local economy, which is barter, and centered around magic jewels harvested from monsters.
Though there is a slight bit of satire in here that could be read as political, with the mention of "the Beer Plague" making everyone prefer contactless greetings in the 31st century. I laughed.
Content warning
Honestly, none that I noticed. I think you could give this to children if it weren't for all of nightmare monsters. If someone could watch Lord of the Rings without bad dreams, you're good to go here.
Okay, if you're an arachnophobe who couldn't stand Shelob, you might have some problems.
Who is it for?
Anyone who just wants to jump onto an insane, wild ride with plenty of thought put into it, this is for you. If you play monster hunter games, you should definitely read it. This may work both for fans of LitRPGs, and probably also for those who hate them. Holo pokes fun at the tropes without being mean about them.
Why read it?
Because it's just fun, well-written, and clearly thought out fantasy.