Welcome back, Readers! This month we’re summoning book 3 in the Fluff series! I’ve covered the other two Here and Here and I absolutely enjoyed both of them. How does this third installment stand up?
For those unfamiliar with the genre, LitRPG is a form of story that utilizes tables, stat spreads and spec sheets to enhance the narrative. It’s a favorite genre of mine and regular returnees to our reader’s nook will know this well enough considering how many I’ve spotlighted! Fluff uses something that resembles a video game UI to impart information about our protagonist and her summons, letting us know their levels, powers and abilities in a fun way that’s a lot more immersive than it might sound to the uninitiated! Fluff is also one of the lighter examples of this with less reliance on stats than some other series so it’s a perfect jumping in point if you’ve ever wanted to give LitRPG a try, but have been worried about the crunchier aspects of it.
Obviously there will be spoilers for books one and two in this Spotlight!
Anyway! Let’s check out what Eauclaire’s preeminent villain has been up to since the last time we saw her!
Book Stats
- Author: Ravensdagger.
Formats: Paperback, Kindle, and Audible.
Price: $23.99 for paperback, $4.99 for Kindle and $19.27, or one Credit on Audible.
Length: 323 pages or 11 hours and 31 minutes in audio format.
Narrator: Elizabeth Phillips.
Number of books in the series: Three at the time.
Basic Premise
It’s crazy to think that Power Day was only about a month ago. See, that’s when a seemingly random assortment of regular folks are given a power set and a morality alignment by the system that kind of rules this world. Emily Wright, a quiet and shy girl who loves cute animal videos and just wants to do well in college, was given the unfortunate morality alignment of Villain and the power to summon sisters.
These sisters draw powers from certain animals. The first one she summoned was Teddy, who can turn into a huge hulking grizzly bear. Then came Athena, who is wise and able to read people simply by making eye contact. Trinity is actually three sisters in one… or at least she has three bodies. She’s raccoon based and boy does she live up to the name trash panda! She also respawns a body if one of the three dies. (This happens an alarming amount considering she’s a literal child. Or three children. However you want to look at it.) Then there’s my favorite, Maple, the industrious and clever beaver themed girl who can build almost anything out of almost anything.
Despite not really wanting to be a villain, Emily was given no choice in the matter. And her little sisters are right behind the idea of Emily taking over the city as its evil overlord! This is complicated by the dastardly Kevin!
Kevin, or Rattles as he’s known in the mask community, can generate vibrations. From minor tremors all the way up to shaking apart buildings, vehicles and even people, he’s decided that sleepy little Eauclaire is going to be a stepping stone on his path to greatness. With no major super villains and only a small number of small-time heroes available to stand in his way, this should be a piece of cake!
While, yes, Emily never wanted to be a villain, she can’t exactly let a guy like that run loose in her town. She’s spent the last month building cover, masquerading as a hero known as the Boss, and this gives her the perfect standing to take on a guy like Rattles. The perfect set of allies, the perfect cover for seeking him out and removing him from play… but can she do it? His powers seem pretty close to unstoppable and she already has a lot on her plate; being the caregiver to a gaggle of pre-teen girls, being a full-time student and running the small, but growing, criminal enterprise she’s just kind of fallen into. Can she add this one thing to her to-do list and still come out on top? Can she maintain her cover as a hero even as she’s going toe to toe with another villain? Does she still want to work her way towards doing good and shifting her alignment?
You’ll need to read it to find out!
My Take
I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with the Boss and her group of sisters and friends. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost three years since I first discovered this series! Emily herself is a really endearing character as are all her fuzzy little summons. Maple gets a lot more time to shine in this story and I really love her take on technology – none of it sounds plausible but the sheer belief in how it works is enough for her to make miracles happen and it made me laugh out loud several times, cementing her place as my favorite summoned sister.
This entry seemed a touch more meandering than the prior two. We go on several adventures and deal with a couple of diversions that aren’t exactly plot-crucial and while they were enjoyable bits of fun and we got to learn more about our cast through their inclusion, I do feel like some of that time might have been better spent if those extracurriculars had tied back into the main thread of the story a little more.
My other, very minor, complaint is one I’d mentioned when Spotlighting book two and that’s the naming convention for things. Brands and companies, mostly. The convention is to just remove the first letter from a real-world name; Starbucks becomes Arbucks, Walmart becomes Almart, Google becomes Oogle, Burger King would be Urger Ing. It was funny initially but it gets a little extra at some points! Corn flakes being called orn lakes and Lord of the Rings becoming Ord of the Ings… that took me out of things just a little. (I would have been fine with Ellogs corn flakes but corn flakes is literally just a type of food, rather than a brand. They don’t drink offee or uice instead of coffee or juice so…. y’know.)
Minor issues aside, watching Emily fill out her role a little more convincingly was awesome. Seeing her question her own morality as she is forced to play on both sides of the line is really interesting and there are some fun, insightful points made about the human tendency to categorize things as good or evil. We’re still no closer to finding out anything about why this system exists, how it was implemented or who runs it, but seeing the sliding scale nature of the whole thing questioned is fun.
Our narrator for the audio version is Elizabeth Phillips who is a change from the narrator for the prior two entries. (Emma Galvin.) I found myself super impressed at her ability to keep everyone’s voices separate and distinct. She does especially great work with the sisters and making sure that, despite all being pre-teen girls, they don’t sound anything alike and you’re never confused as to who is talking. Despite it being a different narrator than the other two books, I didn’t find it jarring or unwelcome at all.
All in all I recommend this series and I can’t wait for book four!
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