Head Hoppers, by MK Eidson and Emila H Thicke, is complete! As of April 1, 2023, all five books of this GameLit/LitRPG series are available for Kindle on Amazon. Paperback and epub editions of books one through three are also currently available on various platforms. The plan is to release print versions of books four and five by the end of April 2023. Shortly after the print versions of books four and five are released, these two books will be setup for pre-order on numerous epub bookseller sites, with a planned release date of July 1, 2023.
The story of Head Hoppers follows numerous game avatars from the character creation phase all the way to level thirty, the maximum level allowed in the game world of Khertaan. A couple hundred players enter a video game competition of an unusual nature. At stake: millions of dollars in prizes.
However, unknown to the players, the competition is a cover for a military training exercise. The Khertaan avatars are being trained to fight inter-dimensional aliens who have invaded several worlds, including Earth and many alternate Earths. These aliens aren’t harmed by conventional weapons, and that’s where our heroes come in… it’s up to them to reach a level of expertise in their chosen classes to effectively fight the invaders and send them back to the hell from which they sprung.
The first two books introduce the bulk of the cast and demonstrate the laws of the multiverse, and either of them can be read first. Book one introduces the concept of avatars activated by sleeping players and the ability of these avatars to head hop to other avatars to lend out their skills and traits. The head hopping concept gives the series its name and is essential to the series plot. Book two introduces the concepts of time-jumping and time-shifting, the latter of which involves moving between alternate universes. These concepts are also of paramount significance to the overall plot.
The story of book one is told from the perspectives of a player and her Khertaan avatar. Book two is told from the point of view of a different character, and has only a little overlap with the cast of book one. Starting with book three, the number of points of view gradually increase, going from roughly half a dozen viewpoints in book three to over twenty in book five, giving the reader insight to the significant events occurring in multiple places simultaneously. And though the story characters may at times be in totally different universes, their plot lines all come together in the conclusion of book five.
While the series genre is GameLit/LitRPG, some of the books are more heavily steeped in genre conventions than others. Book two, which introduces time-traveling and universe-switching, is light on GameLit/LitRPG elements, but an understanding of the concepts developed in book two is essential to appreciating the full series.
Readers who have some knowledge of role-playing games and enjoy reading science fiction stories with large casts, intricate plot lines, time travel, and alternate realities, with a bit of fantasy and cyberpunk flavor thrown in, are more likely to appreciate these books. The series is aimed at an adult audience, containing material depicting violence, sexual situations, and emotional trauma, which may be triggering for some readers. But above all, at its core, Head Hoppers is a story of love and sacrifice.
Find the first book in the series, The Longest Survivor, on your platform of choice. Look for the other books in the series on your chosen platform now or in the near future. The books may also be available through library outlets; it doesn’t hurt to ask.