The Primal Hunter #2 – By Zogarth

The Primal Hunter Book Two continues The Primal Hunter series, a LITRPG novel originating from Royal Road and making its way onto Amazon and Audible. Since this is the second book in the series, let’s skip the preamble and get into it!

My initial rating will be spoiler-free, while the rest of this article will 100% spoil the book. You’ve been warned.

Check out our review of The Primal Hunter Book 1

*Update: Interesting note. Webtoon has started a Webtoon version of The Primal Hunter. They’ve introduced a new character to act as a sidekick to Jake . . . so perhaps I’m not the only one who struggled with the character going solo for so long.

Oh! They also changed Jacob’s name to Adam, most likely to avoid confusion between Jake and Jacob, which again, I second.*

Rating 7/10

The Primal Hunter Book Two continues the pace of book one and adds a bit more besides. We have lots of action, leveling, skills, gaining of powers, new monsters to fight, and our loner protagonist continuing his trend of awkward social interactions and isolation.

In short, it’s everything in the first book, with just a tad more. The problems of the first book are mostly continued, as are its strengths, and if you enjoyed the previous installment you’ll find a good read here.

Personally, the author hasn’t hooked me yet. The protagonist has not grabbed my attention and care, and while future plot developments look interesting, it’s just not there yet.

I really want to like this series. There is a lot of good here, thus the 7/10 review score. But the author is making it very difficult for me to get invested.

Rating: A Semi-Weak 7/10

Jake Fights The King

Summary

Okay, now we’re diving into spoilers, so bail if you want to go into the book with fresh eyes. Stick around if you either don’t care or have already read it.

Book two picks up right where we left off in book one. The Tutorial continues as Jake hunts down the remaining three Lords of the Forest for his quest, while learning new skills and a finer control of magic along the way.

Lords of the Forest Remaining:

• The Great White Stag
• The Nest Watcher
• The Horde Leader

Mix alongside a chapter or two focusing on the Malefic Viper, the first half of the book is focused on finishing the quest, dealing with William, in case you forgot, he’s the psychopathic metal mage who killed most the rest of the tutorial, and Jake’s confrontation with The King of the Forest.

If you read my last review you’ll know that I’m getting a bit tired of Jake’s solo adventure. It’s hard to put a pin on what bothers me so much. I’ve read a lot of Progression Fantasy at this point, and most of them have long sections where the protagonist is on their own. It’s never been a problem for me before.

Perhaps I’ve been worn down by my reading binge; I could be affected by my last big read¶—An Outsider in Another World—which focused on party play and character interactions, or simply I don’t feel the stakes yet in Primal Hunter. Whatever the case, while I find parts of Jake’s lord-hunting quest memorable, overall I was muddling through, hoping for something plot related to transpire.

And no, while the hunting of the lords is technically plot, I don’t consider it as such in this context. They are ultimately more beast hunts, which we’ve seen too much of already.

Don’t get me wrong, the action is well thought out. The Lord’s powers are interesting and unique, in particular The Great White Stag, and Jake learns new powers that add to his growing repertoire of power.

I’m just not feeling the stakes. I know Jake won’t die. No one else but William is even in the tutorial by now. And Jake himself has no personal stake in events outside of wanting a challenge.

That’s not enough for me to become invested in his journey.

Anyway, Jake’s encounter with The King of The Forest is pretty rad. The King turns out to be a quasi-treant creature in the D Grade, so hot stuff, and is fully intelligent and capable of sneering at Jake whilst he punches his face in.

Via a series of powerful artifacts gained from the Lords of the Forest, Jake is able to put The King on the backfoot, still loses, to only hulk out like a cliche shonen anime protag when they’re knocked out and the inner beast is freed. No really. That’s what happened . . .

Cliche and a bit uninspired, but still cool.

TLDR: Jake wins when he shouldn’t have, gets some juicy rewards, the tutorial ends, and he hangs with the Viper and a new buddy god besides until being sent to earth.

Oh, and Jake killed William along the way. It was fast, like one move fast. I respect that. William had been built up for the entirety of book one so I was expecting an epic battle. Instead, William is cocky and arrogant, pushes the wrong button on the Jake trauma scale, and gets himself insta killed when Jake responds. It was fast, very brutal, and it was a nice subversion of expectation.

Don’t worry though, William was stranger dangered by another god, the creepy smiling dude, and rezzed to become his follower. We’ll see more of William.

Moving on, far more interesting than Jake are chapters from other character points of view, granting us broader context of the universe and seeding potential plotlines to come. Jacob ends up studying in a branch of the Holy Mother Church, Casper as an Undead, and new side characters Jake’s not met yet, but I am positive will make themselves known, provide interesting diversions from the obligatory hunting quests of Jake.

Jake’s brother is one such diversion, as it turns out he’s the Judge of the Court of Shadow for Umbra on Earth, the leader of the religion’s forces in the newly integrated universe.

I can easily summarize the rest of the book from here. Everyone who survived the tutorial returns to Earth. Jake has a disappointingly uneventful reunion with Jacob and Casper and goes loner man once more and nopes out. The rest of the book is him training, learning new skills, and some light exploration.

Jake claims a Pillar of Civilization, allowing him to form an official city zone—essentially a system-approved city where I’m assuming unique bonuses and benefits will be available for the inhabitants and builders.

Two high points toward the end are the introduction of Miranda, Henry, and his kids. The four survivors had a very different tutorial than Jake, and upon returning to Earth were preyed upon by beasts. They flee in the direction of Jake’s ‘city’, get rescued, and we end up with Miranda becoming the City Manager under Jake, thus absolving our protagonist of any responsibility for pesky social and humanizing interactions.

The book closes with Jake learning to fly from a new skill, being taught by an oddly intelligent hawk, and that’s that.

King of the Forest

The Good

Some of the action was pretty rad, with nice power-up moments for Jake. The King of the Forest was an interesting character even if present for a short amount of time. William and Jake’s encounter subverting expectations was refreshing. And the side story chapters from alternate points of view were great world-building and plot.

And it was fun to see Jake hang with the Malefic Viper.

There’s really not a ton to say here. That’s not to say that there is not much good . . . it’s just not anything new.

The above moments kept me along for the ride and got some honest laugh-out-loud moments from me, and that’s more than some books manage. Jake also has the attitude of an unendingly driven protagonist in a power fantasy, and this led to some really cool events, like when he ends up absorbing some blood of the Viper despite that being essentially impossible.

By far my favorite parts of the book were when we step away from Jake and dive into world-building and character development with side characters like Caspar, a gang boss who goes by M, Jake’s brother, and an ex-boxer with a chip on her shoulder and a story to tell.

The Horde Leader

The Meh

The combat, while thought out and unique, lacked any significant stakes and left me uninvested in the outcome. I’m also still not feeling any relatability to Jake himself, nor any real motives outside of gaining power for his actions.

I could see a character seeking power for the sake of power being interesting. To pull it off you need a much more dynamic personality. Jake is not that. He’s a loner introvert with little interest in other people. He likes to do his own thing, doesn’t much care to bother others, and while that’s fine and I’m sure some people will resonate with that, I don’t.

Jake himself is lacking direction post-tutorial, amplifying the issues above. If Jake doesn’t care and has no specific goals . . . why should I care? I think the author needs to ask themselves that.

The few times Jake potentially has a direction or goal, the author intentionally steers Jake away from any plot and into the bushes. It’s quite honestly baffling. I’ve never before read a book where the author so consistently seems to want to isolate and separate their hero from even the slightest drop of plot and dialogue.

The Nest Watcher

The Bad

There is little I would mark as outright wrong with this novel. I wish we had more character interaction, the protagonist having a stronger motivation and connection to the plot, and more of a direction of where the series is going overall, but the book is mostly shipshape.

While this book might not be grabbing me as much as I’d hoped, I am starting to feel that the issue may reside more with personal taste than an outright flaw in the writing.

I’ve complained enough for one article. All of the issues in previous sections stand, but a point hammered home too often becomes a grudge, so let’s wrap up.

Final Thoughts

I remain interested in The Primal Hunter universe. I can see great storytelling ahead and a lot of pieces are being maneuvered into place for future happenings. That said, so far the series has failed to grip me as strongly as others in the genre. Much of this pertains to the protagonist being more inward focused than your standard Progressive Fantasy hero

The few times Jake interacts with other characters I’m pulled back in. With Jake and the rest of humanity back on earth, I expect more plot and more potential for character interactions going forward. I’m giving the third book a shot. Let’s hope it manages to carry me through to the fourth.

For those still on the fence, I’d not blame you for bailing at this point. But stick around here, as I’ll be reading The Primal Hunter , and letting you know if it’s worth giving the series a third times the charm chance. .