This is author Chris Reign’s first publication. Dive: Endless Skies was published in 2021 and is the first book in his Dive Sequence series. It is the 16th book I completed reading in 2023.

Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to scenes of violence and mature language, I categorize this novel as R.

This book combines two different genres. On the one hand, it is science fiction due to the immersive Virtual Reality DIVE pods. These (without much explanation) enable the user to become deeply immersed in a game. For the purposes of this novel, the characters are playing the Endless Skies game. Endless Skies is set in a medieval fantasy world complete with magic. The players have access to their User Interface, allowing manipulation of their character settings and viewing their stats.

Eyre is a young woman who has entered Endless Skies hoping to find her independence. She is overly anxious to get into the game, skipping the new user explanation and training. Something that she will regret from time to time.

She picks up a quest, but it is more challenging than expected. She throws herself into it, but finds she is ill-prepared. She luckily falls in with an experienced team from the Reckoning Guild. At first they reluctantly include her, but as she learns and gains experience, they accept her as a full member.

The team is led by Sworn, an old hand at Endless Skies, and is their ‘Tank’. Other team members include Zephyr, Juke, Kerner the warlock, Thera, and Raize. Each has their own special skills. Each of them is deadly in their own way.

The team mentors Eyre, teaching her and helping to guide her character’s development. Together, they face several confrontations, Eyre’s skills grow with each encounter. Zephyr takes a particular interest in the young woman, and a budding relationship ensues. The team’s ultimate goal is confronting a powerful Warlord who has seized Ironcross Depot, threatening the neutrality of the border region.

Will the team complete their mission? Will newbie Eyre complete her quest? Will she even survive?

I enjoyed the 13.5 hours I spent reading this 422-page science fiction novel. I like the story, but I felt like I had missed a couple of chapters at the beginning. I was thrown into the story without much background. While I like the chosen cover art, it does little to prepare the reader for the story. I give this novel a rating of 4.5 (rounded to 5) out of 5.

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this was a fun start to a series, the characters were great and I really enjoyed going through this book. The world was built perfectly and I enjoyed reading this.