Book Review: CivCEO by Andrew Karevik

So I’d heard of this series before but must admit that I thought of it as a bit of a filler. It’s seven hours long on audio and the premise isn’t action-oriented at all. But it was perfect for filling out a bit of spare time I had in between writing, editing and reading all the things on my TBR list.

My problem was, that this book managed to turn itself from what was supposed to be a filler, to much more of a priority. Little did I know that this book was one of many in the series, a series which, as I write this review I have reached book three in, in less than a week.

SO we start off with the MC being shown to us as a powerful CEO, business type guy. He’s whisked away to a fantasy world by a god and given the powers of a champion – one who can control his village from above. There’s more detail to this and I paraphrase because it gets us to the good part – this book is essentially a story-driven run through of a 4X game. And who didn’t used to love them when they were huge? I mean they’re probably still huge but as we get older we tend to play fewer games, until eventually you put down your controller for one last time and never pick it up again. But where were we? Oh yes.

The story is about Charles doing his best to get his town: Tyne, to grow and flourish. It’s essentially all about managing finances, build queues, population growth, morale and happiness, administration styles – all that good stuff you play those games for.

Fighting and wars, so far, this is not what this is about. There isn’t really action to be spoken of, nor are there any real threats as of yet, but we can see that they will come, as they always do in these kinds of games, uh, books.

The seven hours flew past in this one, and I found myself quickly at the end of book two shortly after. I’m just so glad there’s a lot more to look forward to!