She wants to level up her humdrum existence. But her next quest could spell life or death.All Jen Jacobs has achieved in life is loneliness. So when she stumbles across a real-life game of epic quests on the streets of New York, she jumps at the chance for some excitement and gold tokens. Little does she know that the items she strives to collect hold a darker purpose… hold a darker purpose…
After a particularly harrowing quest pairs her up with Beatrice Taylor, a no-nonsense and ambitious mentor, Jen hopes she’s on the path to becoming a big-time player. But as she dives deeper into the game’s hidden agenda, she realizes Beatrice has her sights set on the Guild, the centuries-old organization that runs the Questing game. And the quests Jen loves are about to put both of them in grave danger.
Will Jen survive the game before powerful forces cut her real life short?
Guild of Tokens is a thrilling new twist on conventional urban fantasy. If you like determined heroines, gritty cityscapes, and vampire-free adventures, then you’ll love Jon Auerbach’s rollercoaster tale.
Buy Guild of Tokens to roll into an action-packed quest today!
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I read Trainee and Enforcer, the two Guild of Tokens Origins prequels to Jon Auerbach’s Guild of Tokens, which is the first full book in the series of the same name. As a result I knew to expect a complex tale with betrayals and plots galore. Add in to that a neat concept of effectively a real life RPG – with actual magic – plus a great lead in Jen Jacobs and a complex and really well-crafted character in Beatrice Taylor (and that’s all I’m gonna say about her as I don’t want to spoil anything). The result is a heck of a great yarn. It’s also a different yarn depending on whether or not you read the prequels (available for free from the author) first. It will be just as fun though, either way. But for the fact that I’m literally dictating this review to my husband from my hospital bed I could go on and on with praises. The book definitely deserves it. Since I can’t do that I will simply note that the book is most definitely one to read, and it is easy to highly recommend. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.
Today, I’m so very late for ensuring this post for Guild of Tokens goes live but I’m alive and happy to be joining with some other fantastic blogs talk about Jon Auerbach’s Guild of Tokens! As always, make sure to stop by some of the other blog stops (Tour Schedule) Don’t forget to sign up for the giveaway below! Thank you to |Storytellers on Tour| and Jon Auerbach for the review copy.
Guild of Tokens was an intriguing blend of urban fantasy and litRPG bordering on dark at a fairly quick pace. The author ensures readers are just as lost as Jen when she receives a mysterious message about questing for tokens. Auerbach wastes no time whisking readers about NYC, giving glimpses of the darker side of what should be a fairly innocuous… game? Lifestyle? I still don’t know and I’ve been marinating on this review for a week and a half.
The timeline jumps a bit but readers primarily follow Jen and her efforts to gain tokens until she stumbles on something bigger. Cut to betrayals, a bit of coercion, unlikely duos, and a shadowy organization. While the plot confused me a bit, I thoroughly enjoyed the morally grey characters and watching Jen struggle to find her own balance as her understanding of the world sharpens. Beatrice was my favorite by far and I absolutely plan on circling back to read her origin novella.
I struggled to connect with Jen and the transition from a typical contemporary world to the pseudo-video game set up. I’ve read plenty of urban fantasy and some litRPGs. Reading a story that lurks about on that edge of what I expect from my litRPGs almost broke my brain a bit. Clearly, this style ended with some of the plot and world-building getting lost in translation for me. The good news: I’m positive this is an issue of me being unable to wrap my head around a concept. I have no doubt that other readers that spend more time reading various forms of fantasy won’t have an issue. I remain on the fence regarding Jen. I didn’t connect with her, but I also didn’t hate her.
I’m still not sure what I truly think about Jen’s story and the Guild. I’m fairly certain Auerbach’s storytelling knocked something loose in my head and I’m going to need to convince Mr. B to read it so I have someone to talk with.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed a review copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This is an urban fantasy that’s more MMO than murder-mystery, and a bazillion times more engrossing for it. I don’t think I’ve ever read one quite as self-referentially sneaky that doesn’t go too far into humour territory. It’s all a bit point-n-click adventure, only with more grit.
In this strange tale we follow Jen Jacobs, coder and geek extraordinaire. Underappreciated by her startup bro colleagues, she’s all up for the mysterious Quest Board that appears on her computer screen one evening. OK, so it asks her to do some strange tasks IRL, but she’s rewarded with tokens and XP, so other than having to kill a rat how bad could it be? The answer: Bad. Ish. A run-in with a more experienced (and more psychopathic) Quester puts Jen in a tricky position: blue pill it back to reality complete with catty friends and fickle boyfriend, or to keep Questing and get to the bottom of this hidden world where magic just might be real (even if it does involve harvesting rat spleens #eww)?
It’s safe to say this rabbit hole goes deep, and that’s what I loved about this book. It. Is. So. Strange. You honestly can’t predict it because, much like a 90s point-n-click, it has a bizarre logic to it that felt so satisfying to follow (fan theory #1: Roberta Williams and George Lucas were affiliated with the Guild???). That and the pop culture references/Easter egss scattered throughout – not to the heavy Ready Player One level, but just enough to make a geek smile.
Originally released as novellas, the pacing can feel a bit odd as I did notice how Jen reminded us of earlier events like refreshers that made sense when the story arcs were separate. Conjoining them by introducing interludes did help a lot though, giving us a breather between conclusions. Don’t get me wrong, it’s strange but not a bad thing. In gaming terms think satisfyingly grindy to get to the dopamine payoffs without becoming a slog.
I like that Jen is different from your usual, self-obsessed butt-kicker of an urban fantasy protagonist. Yes, she can dish sarcasm, but it’s not over the top unrealistic. Sort of antagonist Beatrice is one of my favourite creations here, being rather dark and unstable but also more complex than you might expect.
I could find Jen (and through her, Bea) a little hard to understand at times though. Jen’s lack of ability to gauge other people’s emotions and how they will react to her actions can make her a bit cold sounding at times even though it’s clear she wants to understand at least certain people. Her relationship with her college friends and boyfriend Duncan were strange because they didn’t seem to mean that much to her until she tells you that they meant everything. Although fan theory #2: Jen’s on the autistic spectrum so finds these things difficult? Regardless, her character growth is really something as she becomes more confident and more in control.
Fan theory #3: Jen is like the stand in for your usual adventure game AFGNCAAP (Ageless/Faceless/Gender Neutral/Culturally Ambiguous Adventure Person) first person avatar. Given enough identity and agency so that she’s actually like a real a person, she’s leading you through the plot actively rather than making you just follow along #NotAWalkingSimulator #OverthinkingThis
And really that’s the thing that intrigued me so much, this alt-reality of the Guild and the whole “magic is real – go kill me a pigeon!” stuff. As Jen works it all out, I didn’t mind that I was discovering it at the same pace they were. Does Bea know more than she’s letting on? Of course. Would you want her to tell you and spoil the surprise? Probably not – she’s an unreliable source with motives of her own anyway.
Character-related nitpicks aside, there are twists and turns aplenty that (along with the thinly veiled LOTR references) made me grin with the ingenuity of it all. The twist at the end had me ready to find out just what’s going to go down between the improved Jen 2.0 and her newly minted frenemies.
The Guild awaits; if only we didn’t have to!