LOST IN THE NETHER

When Eeebs the kitten gets lost in the Nether, his life changes forever.

Trapped by wolves while playing hide-and-seek with his friends Meowz and Tufty, Eeebs flees through a violet light and into the dark, foreboding Nether. He befriends a ghast named Clyde who, when a strange change overtakes Eeebs, carries the kitten to Eldra the witch. Eeebs learns he has received something called the Dark Blessing from the Nether (which is not evil, just darker than the Overworld), and Eeebs must use his new powers to help foil the plans of EnderStar, an enderman so evil he was expelled from the End by the other endermen. Success means finding other characters to fulfil the Prophecy of Minecraftia. With this outing, Minecraft fanfiction scribe Cube Kid kicks off a companion series to his Diary of an 8-bit Warrior books. It’s more of the same: simplistic and rambling text squarely in the “at least they are reading” genre. Game tropes are clumsily jammed into a predictable quest tale with zero closure. Large print with arbitrarily boldfaced words meanders around colorful pixelated images drawn to look like the game, some with captions or callouts; it’s easy, quick reading even for the distracted.

The plethora of young players might enjoy…no one else need bother.