Otherlife Dreams

Who This Book Is For

LitRPG harem fans who enjoy the progression journey more than the destination, and Arand completionists who want to see where it all started

Who This Book Is NOT For

Readers who want polished, fast-paced storytelling — this is an early work that shows its rough edges

Our Review

The Setup

Runner and 499,000 military personnel are trapped inside a fully immersive VR game. Their minds were synced during cryosleep on a spaceship, and now death in the game means real brain death. As the only IT department member with administrative access, Runner could log everyone out and save half a million lives — if the memory scramble during the transfer had not made him forget his password.

The only solution: level up. Each level gained releases fragments of his forgotten memories, and somewhere in those fragments is the password that will set everyone free. So Runner begins the long, methodical process of grinding through a fantasy game world, gaining power, building a party, and slowly recovering the memories that hold the key to everyone’s survival.

What Works

The premise is genuinely clever. Tying LitRPG progression to memory recovery creates a dual reward system — every level up feels meaningful not just as a power increase but as a step toward recovering Runner’s identity and finding the way out. It is the kind of high-concept hook that justifies an entire series and makes the grind feel narratively purposeful in a way that pure power fantasy sometimes does not.

The RPG elements are handled with the right balance. Stats, skills, and leveling are detailed enough to satisfy LitRPG fans without drowning the reader in spreadsheet data. Arand clearly understands what progression fantasy readers want — the sensation of visible growth against a measurable system — and delivers it with more restraint than many authors in the subgenre.

Runner is a likeable protagonist who takes a refreshingly slow-build approach to relationships. Where many litrpg harem books rush the protagonist into bed with every female companion, Runner’s connections develop through shared adversity and genuine interaction. The slow burn works because the stakes are real — these people could die if he fails — and that tension gives every relationship beat extra weight.

What Doesn’t

This is clearly an early work. Compared to Arand’s later Super Sales on Super Heroes, the setting is less defined, the characters are less distinctive, and the prose is less confident. Readers who come to this after the Super Sales trilogy will notice the quality gap immediately. Otherlife Dreams reads like a talented author finding his voice, which it is — but that means accepting rougher execution.

The pacing drags despite the high-concept premise. Runner plods through the VR world leveling up with less narrative urgency than the setup demands. When half a million lives hang in the balance, the story should feel tense at all times. Instead, there are long stretches of routine grinding that lack dramatic weight. The premise is a ticking clock, but the narrative does not always tick.

The story is pure male wish fulfillment in its character dynamics. Runner is surrounded exclusively by adoring female NPCs, and every male character he encounters is a villain or obstacle. This binary division robs the world of nuance and makes the harem feel less like a natural development and more like the author removed all competing options.

The Heat

A mild two. This is the most restrained of Arand’s works in terms of explicit content. The romantic relationships develop slowly, the intimate scenes are infrequent and relatively tame, and the focus stays firmly on the LitRPG progression. Readers looking for a harem book with consistent spice will need to look elsewhere. This is a progression fantasy with harem elements, not a harem book with progression elements — and the heat level reflects that priority.

Bottom Line

Otherlife Dreams is the origin story for one of harem fiction’s most respected authors. The VR-trapped-with-memory-loss premise is genuinely clever, and the LitRPG progression is solid. But this is unmistakably an early work — slower, rougher, and less confident than what Arand would go on to produce. Read it on Kindle Unlimited if you are an Arand completionist or a litrpg harem fan who values premise over polish. Otherwise, start with Super Sales on Super Heroes and come back to this one if you want to see where the journey began.

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