Back on topic finished
Solo -1/2 by V Mahanenko who seems to be one of the main writers in the Russian and Ukrainian LitRpg scene - A Osadchuk Last Life series currently on #11 with #12 in June has become maybe my current ongoing favorite sff series and Underdog (just finished the 8 book cycle) was super fun, but I tried quite a few other similar works and none really kept my attention beyond 20-30 pages until this one.
The premise of Solo is simple - there are 6 schools of magic and the corresponding mages tend to have corresponding hair color (Nature -green, Water - blue, Fire - red, called the inner ones - Light - gold, Dark- black Chaos - white - the outer ones), whose mages fight creatures from Rifts that appear randomly in the world and have potency from 1-10 (as do the mages ranks go to date though 11 is rumored to be possible - rifts of rank 10 are almost impossible to be closed even with rank 10 mages, usually they are contained only) and in the Empire where the main action takes place, there is a group, Candor, formed by the 6 top experts in each who are almost as one being - they give up their names on joining and take the name of their magic school - group dedicated to closing the hardest rifts.
When Chaos goes missing - presumed dead - in one such action, the group invites Tarin Solace to become the new Chaos; Solace, a 90 year old Chaos mage, Chaos academy professor etc has dedicated the last 70 years of his life mostly in saving team members when stuff goes wrong as he works by himself only - he is very respected but has no family or close followers.
Not long ago, Candor executed the Emperor's son for vile crimes, but as they are highly respected and powerful, as well as acting within Imperial law, they think that the emperor agreed with their decision and is even secretely thankful to have spared him that burden, but of course things turn out differently - at least as Solace, our hero believes - and on graduation day from the Chaos Academy and when Solace would also be inducted as the new Chaos mage of Candor, the emperor and noble houses mages attack them - realizing that neither Candor nor the Academy can withstand this, Solace (still in-between as an Academy leader and Candor) orders some of the younger promising Chaos mages to make a run for it, while Candor tries to fight - but the odds are hopeless, so the 5 Candor mages use an artifact to teleport Solace/Chaos away and give him the knowledge needed to rebuild the group far from the Empire (while the five do other things that are less benign as we find out later), since not being integrated yet, Solace is the only possibility.
But the teleportation goes wrong somehow, and Solace (retaining his memory and experience) finds himself a lowly rank 1 mage in a 20 year old body some 60 years in the future when lots of thigs are different and magic seems to be much weaker than before, while powerful Rifts appearing from nowhere have been devastating the Empire for 60 years and leaving large "wastes" behind, with the mages barely able to contain them within magical walls - now the second ring is on the verge of being overwhelmed, so a new huge chunk of Imperial territory may have to be evacuated and a third ring built. And Candor has been erased from the collective memory, while all was blamed on Chaos mages, who are mostly outcasts today in the Empire - the strong ones are exterminated and the weak ones used in menial work.
Taking the name Solo, our hero gets to work to survive, strengthen, find out what truly happened, reestablish Chaos' reputation and rebuild the Chaos Academy, and of course recreate Candor and take revenge on the Imperial house... A tall order, when one is a rank one mage with grayish hair marking him as chaos, in a young but untested and untrained body, while getting on the wrong side of some noble families whose behaviors are not so noble, even from day one....
And so it goes with just energetic writing, interesting characters and setting, in a book that I literally couldn't put down until I finished while I then jumped in book 2; the usual first person narration with interludes from other main characters
Solo 2 was even more fun than the first book - more new characters, more action, lots of monsters, both otherworldly and human, as well as intrigue and even some romance. Solo gets a following, including a noblewoman, a talented mage of farmer stock and even a princess, and starts establishing himself, but of course, that only increases the number of his enemies.
Though Solo has a plan, the question being if he can live long enough to execute it, especially as the universe turns out to be much more complicated than he (and we) originally thought and the back story of how the vengeful Emperor (whose grandson is emperor and whose great-grand daughter is one of Solo's three unofficial apprentice mages) took down Candor and the Academy of Chaos seems to be incomplete at best and a complete fabrication at worst - this being said, someone did those things of course...
And so it goes, energetic, fast and fun, so much so that one has to jump into the third book immediately. While there are 6 series books to date (last, just published this month in English) there are only two in audio,l but I am thinking of listening to them after I finish my current sf listen.
