Tower of Jack

TLDR: 5/5 stars, good tower integration with good characters. Worth reading.

Tower of Jack is a standard tower integration novel. Gods are prevalent and...meddly as well as the Tower itself being more than willing to stick its fingers where they don't belong. The primary appeal is the characters -- namely Jack -- their dark secrets in their past, and how they grow to overcome them. This is one of those fictions where the main character is missing a few cards in his deck and is proud of it. 

Tower of Jack is an odd one. On the one hand, the introduction to Jack is rather polarizing and I feel that it failed to properly excite me regarding what was coming next. He comes off as an idiot or suicidal with a rather uninspiring amount of plot armor, rather than the ultra-competent assassin wearing the mask of a buffoon. That bothered me, but on the other hand, the story has a setting, plot, characters, the works. It isn't a mindless murder fest, nor is it a repetitive comedy that gets stale after three chapters. My only complaint is that the setting and magic system are a little stale (for me), but they don't get in the way and get the job done. 

The story gets lost at times, and there were at least a few occasions where I felt like the plot lost an argument with a brick wall. That being said, I enjoyed what was written currently, and encourage you to give it a try yourself. 

Style notes: The author uses nonstandard -- I think -- definitions/spellings for the words reigned and nonplussed. From the context, reigned=rained, and nonplussed=unperturbed. 

The premise of this fic is a sort of extremely assholeish James Bond esque stand in, the problem comes in with the point that one, despite being extremely skilled he regularly chooses to do things that screw himself and those around him over, and two it never matters.

Despite the problems, the fic has involved characterization, eschews basic writing errors, and has interesting world building. Unfortunately, the tendency to write events that neither follow motivations well, nor are the result of compelling or interesting characterization leaves it an exercise in frustration.

Succinctly put, the characters well character, should matter. Although the assholery isn't great to read either.

Cain from "heroes die" meet litrpg.

Great mc is the force that push forward this novel. Drunk, asshole assasin (im sorry, hitman! Dont tell him I called him assasin)

Great comedy/action in tower simmilar to "tower of god". 

I love all the references and "hey fuckface" got me giggling, not gonna lie.

And I swear to god, they should learn to stop throwing glass potions, they are really expensive. 

Read it, you will not regret that

The setup, while can be seen as a general Tower story, has its strong points.

The main issue with it is simply that levels do not matter that much. The Tower system is kind of a letdown compared to the rest of the story.

There are very few grammar mistakes and that could be solved later. 

The character are interesting but among all humanity, protogonist's friends are everywhere. As of now there literially no one of importance in the story that Jake did not know before the Tower. Except the dragon and the bug faction. Which are usually outside of the Jake's struggle in the first floor. 

New charecters could be intruduced but in every turn there is someone Jake already knows. 

The Tower system can and should be expanded. The kinks must be worked out becouse as is there are just too many exploits.

The no guns rule feels weak. Maybe if you are at say 10th floor it may be true but at 1th floor, nearly everyone will die if they are shot. Yes enchanted armour can protect but if a pair of basic enchanted daggers can rip throught them, a 50.cal will too. Esspecially in the lower floors.

Overall , the story is very good for the first25 chapters. Hope it keeps it up.

Jack is a... let's call him a unique protagonist. He has a way of interacting with the world that's refreshingly realistic for what is essentially a merger between an isekai and a system apocolypse story. Here is a man who is actively thriving in a situation that most people would realisitically die in almost immediately, and observing it all through the filter of a man who is 112% done with all of these shenanigans. The only shenanigans Jack cares about are Jack-shenanigans.

The story itself is excellently written. The style remains consistent throughout it, and Jack's fractured mentality is reflected in tonal shifts. The author has also taken care to give voice to the secondary characters whenever a chapter of scene comes up that's being shown from their point of view. The author does have one small habit of occasionally addressing the audience when Jack is thinking about something that occasionally throws me, but this is obviously a deliberate stylistic choice, not a gammatical error.

The story is strong, but it's well-traveled ground. Where Tower of Jack really shines is its unique and finely polished voice, which remain strong throughout the entire story. Other characters have realistic (though perhaps not always reasonable) reactions to Jack's... let's call it abrasive... personality and antics.

Tower of Jack is highly entertaining, as long as you like Jack himself. If you enjoy his particular flavor of mayhem, you'll enjoy this whole story.

This story is amazing. Character development, plot, world building. It honestly has it all and that's coming from someone who has read over 100 stories on this site. You should start a Patreon if you have not already considered it. Would love to contribute to your work. More chapters please!!!!!!

I don't know if I'm going to keep reading this, but I have to rate it highly because the author is definitely doing exactly what they intend and doing it very well.

I have never seen a character so completely oblivious to the narrative.  Some characters embrace it, some struggle against it, but Jack just disregards it completely.  He is trying to behave orthoganally to the plot!  He'd like a drink and his lady friend and pooooossibly not to cause the extinction of the human race...but only if that doesn't interfere with his drinking.

If the plot is going "north-south", Jack's character arc is "red-blue."  That's how disconnected we're talking.

He's funny and quippy and surprisingly lethal.  There are some really amusing scenes and decent worldbuilding, but Jack is also deeply infuriating and that is on purpose.  I can't fault the author for making Jack take bad RPG choices when bad choices are what Jack is about.

...but there's only so much '"ignore the obvious benefit in favor of a martini" that I can personally stand.  You can see stuff flying over his head repeatedly and half the time it's because he's deliberately ducking.

Maybe it gels further later on, but I'm not going to bet on it.  Still might read it and find out...if only I can manage my aggravation levels. :-)

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I really like the worldbuilding coupled with a good sense of humor. A bit of a slow pace, but nothing too drastical. Really excited how Jack will evolve and what the story has in store for us. This sentence is only for the word count - bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

Honestly if you are a fan of the cartoon Archer in any way then this is the mix between litrpg and tower fantasy that you have been waiting for. An Archer esque character gets transported into a world in which his skills of being unnecessarily lucky do not correlate as well as he hopes. One of the better RR books I have read recently.

If you like Tower Climbs, irreverent MC's and dark humour you need to give this story a go. 

Read the overview (snipped from the fiction page):

What to Expect from this story:

An over the top action comedy, set to the backdrop of epic fantasy. 

Lots of cursing and wildly inappropriate humour.

A main character who will pass up the opportunity for OP legendary items because he doesn't want to miss happy hour at the bar.

Shenanigans. 

An anti-hero lead.

This story delivers on all of these items. Where it seems to have been criticised in other reviews, the negative comments seem to come from people that don't like some of these tropes / factors. The MC is an ANTI-HERO. He is over the top (brilliantly in my opinion). He is often an a***hole. He makes ridiculous decisions. He constantly and unapologetically annoys and subverts expectations in a non-meaningful way for little pay off. But he is a HERO and the Author has warned you about him.

I genuinely cannot understand why this story isn’t more highly rated. The Author has crafted a detailed and rich Tower World, with over-arching plots, that takes the best of Tower Climbing and LitRPG tropes and uses them in a familiar but exciting way to deliver a story that scratches an itch properly. The action scenes are great, the stakes are believable and not over done, the world itself is detailed and engaging.  

There are lots of real laugh out loud moments, there are moments when as a reader you become furious with the MC, then 2 chapters later you are rooting for him to succeed. I genuinely enjoy the fact that the MC can subvert expectations by being consistent in his aggravating traits, surely it is the mark of a well written MC that as a reader you go through similar emotions to those that are elicited by the characters when dealing with the MC?

The magic system, class system, power system and climbing system are done very well. Yes there are tropes, but tropes are tropes for a reason... I feel that some of the other reviews here have missed this point as well as the ‘warning’ in the overview about the MC. If you don’t enjoy MC’s with dark humour, who are prone to self sabotage and are clearly flawed human beings, then don’t downvote a story that clearly states the protagonist is all of these things – just don’t read it!

 I highly recommend this story, it has bags of action, an MC that is engaging and enough plot to provide longevity.