So hey, I’d like to say I’m actually somebody (even kind of), but the honest truth is that I’m just some suburban white man-child nobody who hasn’t ever really amounted to anything so far. "So Far" I say!
With a crippling fear of meeting people, I guess becoming even the fraction of a nerd nutcase I am was sort of inevitable. From Stanley Kubrick to Robert Rodriguez, from Fallout to Borderlands, and all things Epic Fantasy, it’s hard to nail down one thing, though I can get a little pedantic and petty when it comes to some aspects.
Case in point; I wasn’t really a fan of the whole Mary-Sueness of Ready Player One, though undoubtably a good adventure story, it began to really rub me the wrong way the deeper in it gets. And that brings me to Ragnarok...
How about I just throw out a back cover pitch:
It’s the year 2362, humanity has stagnated. You can take a train ride around the entire world inside of six hours, there is no starvation, while any and all abusive crimes are severely punished. Humanity lives on as it always has day by day, meal to meal, still striving for success, but now, only within RAGNAROK.
Daunting, intense and visceral, Ragnarok encompasses all things. Success in Ragnarok equates to success outside. Children, still required to attend school until they come of age, are all trained in the fundamentals, and automatically moved into the game proper as a part of their graduation ceremony.
Jack has lived his whole life watching it on the Net, preparing for it in the school tournaments, dreaming of seeing his name join those of the greatest players of all time. Hallowed names etched in glory as the Champions of Valhalla.
Every three years a new Champion is found at The Gauntlet. Found, and offered the chance to retire, to know a life after Ragnarok, and live the remainder of their years among their peers, unplugged from all those unworthy to challange them.
For Jack and his schoolmates, the real game now beckons, and with it comes the hardest lesson of all.
Champions aren’t born.
They are forged.
Sold yet? Don’t blame you if not.
I haven’t even written it yet.