OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: David Dalglish currently lives in Myrtle Beach with his wife, Samantha, and daughters, Morgan, Katherine, and Alyssa. He graduated from Missouri Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in mathematics and currently spends his free time tanking dungeons for his wife and daughter in Final Fantasy XIV.

FORMAT/INFO: Level: Unknown was published by Orbit on January 14th, 2024. It is 464 pages long and told in third person from multiple POVs. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Nick is just a simple lab tech, he shouldn’t have to worry about swords swinging at his head. But that becomes a daily concern when an alien artifact forms a connection with him, plunging him into a simulated fantasy world every time he falls asleep. Nick quickly learns that while the world might be fake and death just means waking up, the pain is still very real. Even worse the pain is taking a strain on his real life body, and it might not be too long before his body gives out entirely. To top it all off, Nick's fellow researchers have discovered that a devastating event is heading to their planet, and the clues to how to stop it lie somewhere in the game. It's up to Nick to delve into this fantasy world and find the answers...but he's only got so many more lives before he'll never wake up again.

Level: Unknown is a fun romp of a LitRPG adventure, accessible to both game enthusiasts and those who have never picked up a controller. For those unfamiliar, LitRPG is a genre inspired by tabletop role playing games and video games, where characters for one reason or another are aware of stats, health meters, and other mechanics. In Level: Unknown, Nick essentially finds himself in a virtual video game world, with an AI assistant, experience points, hovering UIs that display health bars, etc. While those who play games regularly will easily recognize the mechanics, Nick is written as a novice to such things so that the reader can learn the ropes alongside him. (Although I did beg the question: is the future so dark that an 18-year-old has never played a video game before?)

After the initial set up, the story takes a familiar fantasy bent: Nick starts out on a quest and goes on a journey, picking up companions, encountering dangerous monsters, and discovering the history of this virtual land he’s in. The story is mostly told from Nick’s POV, but I appreciated the inclusion of POV chapters from a virtual character that lives in this fantasy world. While Nick sees the digital inhabitants of this world as things that can be killed without remorse, Sir Gareth views Nick as a ruthless monster roaming about killing hapless villagers. His POV grounded the world, showing that to these simulated individuals, death is a very real, sobering experience.

As in his previous works, the author writes one heck of a climax; I found myself tearing through the pages towards the end. The one disappointment is that when the dust clears there are no real answers, just lots and lots of questions. What is the artifact? Where did it come from? How and why is it possibly destroying planets? These questions and more are all asked; while you’ll get a genuinely satisfying climactic boss fight, you'll get no answers to any of these questions by the end of this first book. This is the first of a trilogy (with all three books releasing in 2025), so the answers are coming, but I would have liked at least one answer to a major question by the end of this outing.

CONCLUSION: Level: Unknown is a good popcorn adventure that's a lot of fun to escape into. As a relative novice to the genre itself, I cannot tell you how it compares to other Lit RPGs. What I can say is that I enjoyed my time in this world, and I'm looking forward to seeing how these mysteries pan out in the sequel.

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: After graduating with a degree in film production, J. S. DEWES went on to serve as cinematographer for independent films, write, produce, and shoot a zombie musical, slay internet dragons, and act as lighting designer for presidents and presidential-hopefuls so many times it became mundane. To add to her list of random career paths, she unlocked the Dream Job achievement and now writes for triple-A science fiction video games.

She is the author of the Divide series (The Last Watch, The Exiled Fleet) and Rubicon

Jenny spends her free time drawing, gaming, scrolling ArtStation, cuddling her two sweet dogs and mercurial cat, and occasionally sleeping.

FORMAT/INFO: The Relentless Legion was published on November 12th, 2024, by Tor Books. It is 512 pages long. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS:  After a harrowing journey to recover the fuel and supplies needed to bring the fleet safely home from the Divide, the Sentinels have at last returned to the center of civilized space. They've spent months in hiding, preparing to go to war with Cavalon's grandfather, Augustus Mercer. Obsessed with eradicating a specific incurable genetic defect from humanity, Augustus has been playing a long game, using legislation to slowly ostracize any affected humans from society. But the long game is coming to an end, as Augustus is preparing to unleash a horrific weapon on the galaxy. It will take every ally that Rake and Cavalon can rally if they're going to have a prayer of stopping the plot in time.

The Relentless Legion is another fantastic adventure in The Divide series that continues to raise the stakes for the fate of the universe. This one is a little slower-paced than the previous novels in the series, preferring to take some time to focus on how the characters are coping with the strain of the last several months (spoiler, some of them are not). I will say that I did find Cavalon a bit exasperating this novel, but the author seems fully aware of it, given that characters called him out for exactly the things that were frustrating me. The characters get a chance to regroup and reflect before everything goes sideways.

And it WILL go sideways. If you've enjoyed the author's action-packed books in the past, there is plenty of conflict to be found here. The midpoint was particularly nail-biting, an absolute gut-punch in more ways than one. You can also expect some surprising developments as Rake and Cavalon continue to deepen their understanding of the Divide and the devices that keep the collapse of the universe at bay.

The one negative I had with this book is it felt like there were too many things going on. The Divide books have always juggled multiple threats, from the collapsing edge of the universe, the reappearance of alien enemies, and the conspiracy led by Augustus Mercer. Past books have managed to keep everything balanced and give every storyline its due. This third book, however, introduced a new problem originating from the alien ruins our group has chosen as their hideout, and that new problem proved to be just one too many things for me.

CONCLUSION: The Relentless Legion is a fitting conclusion to a sci-fi adventure I've really enjoyed. But it isn't a complete conclusion. While one of the major storylines is wrapped up by the end of the book, the door is left wide open on another one, with plenty of runway for more adventures. No fourth book has been announced as of writing this review, but I would not be shocked (and very pleased) to hear of one eventually, especially as official marketing for The Relentless Legion refers to The Divide as a series, not a trilogy. With that in mind, be prepared to have some loose threads dangling when the dust settles. I, for one, will be happy to come back if another book is in our future, but if not, The Relentless Legion is a satisfying send off for a new favorite series.