Novella Review: The Emperor

Synopsis:

The series starts with book 0: The Fool.

SEASON 1 EPISODE LIST:

The Fool ~ Virtual Arcana #0
The Magician ~ Virtual Arcana #1
The High Priestess~ Virtual Arcana #2
The Empress ~ Virtual Arcana #3
The Emperor ~ Virtual Arcana #4
The Hierophant ~ Virtual Arcana #5
The Lovers ~ Virtual Arcana #6

This latest installment of the Virtual Arcana will really mess with your head. There is some Matrix level craziness going on, and I am absolutely loving it.

I felt like this entire novella was like “hey, you, reader, I’m trying to tell you something. Good luck trying to figure out what it is. Tee hee.” There’s not even much to say here, because I don’t want to give anything away, and there are only so many vague statements I can make.

Kelsey remains horribly confused about everything; she’s a bit annoying, sure, but if I were in her situation, I’d probably be annoying too. Xander took a little bit of a different turn here, which was very interesting and intriguing. He started playing a little to the tune of “this has to be done” rather than “protect Kelsey at all costs” which makes me really really really want to know his motivations and his back story and just what the heck his involvement in all this is really about.

I guess you could rename The Emperor “Dreams vs. Reality”. That’s about as spoilery as I want to get here, because you just need to read it for yourself. Kelsey starts living moments that she isn’t sure are real, waking up in places she doesn’t remember getting to. And it continues to get more trippy from there. VR and real life start blurring together into what is an indistinguishable timeline of muddled events. And the reader is living it just as Kelsey is.

Dang these are hard to review. Pretty much all I can say is do yourself a favor and pick this series up ASAP.