I enjoyed the story. What an interesting world concept! I would have liked more comprehensive descriptions of the affection, love, and lust between Lei and Longwei. The leader, Sun, is intriguing. His motives might be more clear if he exhibited his "listening" behavior sooner, to show that he thought he was getting direction from his ancestor. I didn't care for Li Hua, the present queen. She seemed useless. Please ignore the rating for updating stability. This book was complete when I read it. There are some editing problems, including character names changing back and forth in chapters 20-21 and 24-25. I told we novel about that.

The characters are realistic, each with a mix of very human weaknesses and strengths. While I did not like some of the characters, and I often felt frustrated by the choices made by the ones I did like, all of them thought, felt, and behaved the way people do. What an interesting story! Its complexity and layers kept me "turning" the pages. Also, I have never played a video game, so I learned a lot about that environment. Ditto for the world of corporation-sponsored and groomed aspiring entertainers. (Note about my ratings: I wasn't reading this novel during its development, but I couldn't post without giving it a rating for updating stability, so I chose a neutral three stars.)