Off the Bookshelf: How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps, by Andrew Rowe

 

Audiobook version. A fun romp that parodies and salutes role playing games at the same time.

Our heroine, Yui, doesn't like waiting for the Hero to show up on schedule. Especially since the Demon King isn't following the usual conqueror schedule. Yui sets herself a plan to earn her way up the ladder of levels and skills and magic tools, no matter how boring and frustrating and repetitive some of the steps become. Such as killing silver slimes over and over and over and ... just to earn coin and experience points.

There were a lot of grin-worthy moments even for those who don't play role playing games. Such as when her earnest sword saint companion, Ken, lectures her on all the tools and skills she needs. She's frustrated that the Hero needs to be able to play a harmonica and wear a green tunic. Among other ridiculous rules and requirements. Why? It seems like a waste of time to her. Then there's Ken's frustration when she tries to cheat her way around the requirements. Yui is kind of having fun, and so will the readers. She starts as an ordinary village girl but proves her cleverness and determination and bravery, and points out just what a ridiculous world she lives in without actually saying it. She's too busy working her way up to being the Hero, even though she doesn't consider herself one.

Tongue-in-cheek fun.

Off the Bookshelf: SIPHON, A Touch of Power, by Jay Boyce

Audible Books
Available only on Audible
Lit RPG

Narrated by Samura Naeymi

(I assume this is what they mean by Lit RPG ...?)

Terminally ill Jade wakes up one morning freed from her hospital ward, and all the machines and wires and tubes keeping her alive. When she concentrates, she gets a screen in her vision with her stats, just like in computer games. Among her skills are walking and eating -- things she has never been able to do freely before.

The story, first in a series, only covers her first week in the magical kingdom of Andara, where she learns to use her special skill: Siphon. The ability to touch and borrow/learn other people's skills and magical powers. This is not just helpful, but necessary to survive, because anyone touched with magic becomes the target of horrid creatures who feed on their blood. At first she learns by trial and error and a lot of pain. Things don't get much easier when she is accepted into Dracona, the school for the magically endowed.

Jade just wants a peaceful life to enjoy all the things denied her in her hospital-bound life: sunshine, fresh air, friends, walking, eating. She has big plans to recreate all the conveniences of the modern world, such as sunglasses and wristwatches and bobby pins, but those might have to be put aside to fight threats and dangers, not just to her, personally, but the country of Andara, and maybe the whole world.