Alexey Osadchuk is an avid reader from an early age, devouring adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack London and Arthur Conan Doyle. In 2010 he wrote his first fantasy novel which was immediately accepted by one of Russia's leading publishing houses Alpha Book. He also used to be a passionate online gamer which prompted him to write the story of a man who joins an MMORPG game hoping to raise money for his daughter's heart surgery. In 2013, the first book of Mirror World was published by EKSMO, Russia's largest publishing house.
We talked with Alexey about his new LitRPG series Underdog!
First of all, I’d like to congratulate you on The Underdog which is a fantastic book all around. It’s probably our most successful 2019 release. It’s a great achievement, so my first questions are going to be about the book itself. Firstly, what gave you the idea of creating a character who is born “nulled”? You couldn’t have thought of a better plot device.
If you take a look at the Mirror World series, you’ll see that I have a soft spot for characters who have to start from scratch. Plus they tend to jump in at the deep end which is why it takes them some time to start leveling. I really don’t like OP characters who only take a few pages to embrace their awesomeness. I prefer my MCs to develop bit by bit. I hope that readers like it too. I kept asking myself what I could use to hook the reader with, and that’s how I came up with the idea of the “nulled” MC. And then I just kept upping the ante. Naturally, the hero receives some sorts of freebies on his way. But what’s truly important for me in the Underdog is that the hero has to keep going. Things have to keep happening to him. Having said that, some readers suggest the books should have more intrigue. I’m going to work on it in book three, so we’ll see how it’s going to turn out.
