Recently, I've been devouring anything written by Daniel Shinhofen, the writer of the Binding Words series I recommended in a previous post.  Shinhofen is a harem specialist that can vary from having non-existent ero to full-on BDSM in his stories, but a common element to all of them is that all his protagonists end up with a harem and that harem is happy (for the most part).  

Lest I make that sound like he scrimps on story, the very reverse is the case.  Every one of his series is extremely dense and packed with deep characterization and storytelling.  The reason I chose to do these two very different litrpg series in a single post was because they represent opposite ends of the spectrum for the writer's characterization and storytelling.

Apocalypse Gates is a story focused in a game world where the protagonist, Alvin, is a brain-copy of his original self (sold by his cryo-corp) to serve as a test subject for a post-apocalyptic digital world with permadeath.  Alvin is... well, he's what is called an amoral familist.  This term is one that isn't in common use, but its essential meaning is that the individual in question only really sees people that are a part of his group as people and all others are merely objects.  Alvin frequently self-describes as a sociopath, and in a very real sense, when it comes to non-family/non-friends, that is true.  Alvin frequently and quite happily blows the brains out of people who even look like they are going to seriously annoy him, and he has absolutely no moral qualms about it.  However, he is passionately, even obsessively protective of the small circle of 'real people' he builds around himself.

Another issue is that he has an extreme reaction to abusers (rapists and those who take advantage of the helpless), and he will kill them with extreme prejudice wherever he finds them, regardless of consequences.  Considering that Apocalypse Gates is a digital version of the year 2000 where the Rapture occurred and all those soulless bodies rose as zombies to attack the living, this means he ends up killing a lot of people across the series.  I won't spoil his harem for you (really, seeing it get together is a treat, though it is definitely a BDSM harem) though.  This series is full of blood, gore, and looting the ruins while screwing like bunnies in their free time (and happening to make the world a better place as an entirely unintended side-effect).

Alpha World... is not what you would think from reading its description of the first book.  While there is plenty of sexuality, there are no actual sex scenes in this series (as compared to Apocalypse Gates, where sex scenes were ubiquitous for the first five books before it settled down later).  In this series, a convict named Seamus, in hopes that his experimental data will be used to take the pressure off of the overcrowded prison systems and provide help for victims of crimes similar to the one that drove him to his own, agrees to be permanently placed in a pod for a virtual game called Alpha World.  

The first book has him forming his initial relations with the people that will later become his friends, family, guild, and harem- of course.  However, it is later books that really make this series stand out... to be blunt, this series reminds me of a nakige.  The characters, including Seamus, face issues of extreme emotional depth born out of their pasts and their emotional scars, showing off their flaws and virtues to the reader in such stark detail that, for books three and four at least, this aspect eclipses the other aspects of the story entirely.  I cried for almost the entirety of these two books, I cried for Fluff, I cried for Karen, and I wept for Seamus.  

This particular series also confronts an issue that will inevitably pop up as AI becomes more advanced and our games become so immersive we have trouble telling the difference between real life and the game... is there any essential difference between a fully-sentient digital character and the human minds interacting with them?  This particular aspect is deliberately kept partially vague, with Stacia - the protagonist's NPC lover - being the only NPC whose perspective you get to see through.  However, Stacia's depth as a character - despite her somewhat simple and straightforward personality - definitely represents the argument for there being no essential difference.

My favorite character in Alpha World, surprisingly, is Fluff (aka Fluffball or Julia).  I'll be straight with you... Fluffball's past is heartbreaking to a degree that will make any soul with a scrap of compassion furiously angry and extremely protective at the same time.  In many ways, Fluff is the most important character when it comes to forcing the others to confront and overcome their own issues.   Her intense vulnerability and fragility serve as a counterpoint to Karen's ferocity and Stacia's inherent resilience, while also putting up a mirror to Seamus's own fractured spirit.

Overall, these two series showed me the depth of this writer's talent, and I thought I'd share it with you all.