As of this review, only 14 chapters have been posted.
Writing quality—not the best, but definitely not the worst. If I had to compare it to other original works on this site, it probably ranks somewhere around the middle of the spectrum. There are mistakes, but it’s nothing the author can’t fix with a good amount of editing. Quite readable.
A story which focuses on an elderly or veteran person is not an original concept, but it is definitely a rare one; this story centres around a German grandma—Flora Fluss—who was an engineer in her heyday. Here we get to see what happens when a workaholic retires from her highly demanding job and finds another platform to invest her time in. She’s got an obsession with perfection—as do many others in her profession—and this causes many shenanigans to occur, and because of her rather logical and somehow persuasive personality, everybody seems to be swept by her pace.
As I am not an engineer or an elderly person bored out of her mind, I found it hard to relate to the character. Nonetheless, Flora is quite charming with her old-lady behaviour and deep passion over her projects. The toaster part adds to the charm, and I, as a reader, could not help but wonder what other mayhem she would cause. After all, a senior citizen can cause plenty of havoc—and nobody can stop them! Because that would be rude! One should respect the elders! I can somehow imagine Flora manipulating the ‘elderly’ card to get her way...
Moving on, the author writes in a relatively convincing style, to the point where even if the author was bull****ting, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Case in point is the very long character creation arc, whereby the character, Flora, spends several in-game days to modify and rebuild her avatar from scratch. It was very draggy, but it seems to be a necessary part of the story as it laid the foundations of Flora’s character as a whole, and also show what she is capable of given time and tools. Personally, I found that some parts of it seemed too convenient, but this can be argued that the ‘convenience’ is attributed to Flora’s decades of experience—she is supposed to be a retired engineer, and we all know that retired professionals are a treasure trove of experience and expertise.
Though the format of LitRPG is better suited to other sites (eg RoyalRoad, ScribbleHub, etc) since they actually have the proper writing tools suited to the genre, I find that (as a layman) the information related to the stats did not seem as important as it did not disrupt my reading even if I skim past them (or omit them entirely). I would suggest the author to tone down the technical stuffs to make more space for Flora’s other mischiefs and wholesome content, but that would take away a whole chunk of characterisation as the story seems to be focusing on her ability to create or repurpose items in-game.
All in all, it was an okay story. Rough around the edges, but a good read nonetheless. Keep up the good work, author, and don’t stop writing if you can help it. Good luck!
