Talyn: Unyielding – Benjamin Medrano

I’m enjoying this series. It is mainline Isekai: The protagonist dies in an accident and is reincarnated in a LitRPG world of dungeons and character classes and leveling up. Book 1 introduces Talyn (and the reader) to her new world. Book 2 takes a hard left turn, as she finds herself in circumstances that should have killed her, but instead leave her with a considerable improvement in skills, levels, wealth, and political importance. She is also left, as we discover at the end of book 2, with some benign protection from ultra-high-level beings who have taken an interest in her.

The fallout from book 2 weakens book 3. Talyn has become politically important - and she spends much of book 3 dealing with politics. Since the political scene is peripheral to the main story, this mostly translates to stretches in which Talyn is irritated and bored and has to be polite. And the ultra-powerful beings weaken Talyn’s story, as it becomes apparent that serious threats to Talyn will be dismantled by a group of angry plot devices.

The best parts of the book are those with neither the political distractions or playing out of major threats that never actually have a chance. I hope book 4 focuses on those.