I think this novel hinted at a really robust and memorable world, but some of the writing was a bit clunky and repetitive and could have been tightened up a bit to produce a very well-rounded story of mystery, competition, saving-the-world, multiverse-traversal and love. Was the story bad: No, not at all. But there were numerous times that the author added way too much unnecessary dialogue. Too much “What?”, “What do you mean?”, “Why?”, statements that could have been eliminated to help the story run a bit smoother. I also think that there were several times that the MC met a new important character just completely out of the blue and it just didn’t really make much sense. 

Over all I did enjoy the mystery of the novel and learning about the game and the interesting cast of characters the author imagined.