Anyway, this review is chock-full of spoilers. Read at your own risk, or check out the cross-posted versions on Goodreads or LibraryThing, where I have the ability to use spoiler tags. (I opted to hide the whole review on Goodreads, so LibraryThing, where I spoiler tagged just what I considered the most spoilery bits, is probably the better option.)
Review:
Naofumi Iwatani is an otaku college student. His life, up to this point, has been pretty easy - his parents haven't put much pressure on him, and his otaku interests actually managed to keep his brother from becoming a full-blown delinquent. He's in the library one day when he spots a book call The Records of the Four Holy Weapons, which mentions four different heroes: the Sword Hero, Spear Hero, Bow Hero, and Shield Hero. Shortly after finding this book, Naofumi is magically summoned to another world where he is one of those four heroes...the worst and most useless one, the Shield Hero. He can only defend, not attack, and his magical shield won't permit him to carry any additional weapons. He can't even team up with any of the other three heroes, because their weapons cancel each other out.
Because he's so weak and knows even less about this new world than the other heroes, he has trouble getting anyone to join his party, and what help he does receive turns out to be a trap. Is there no one in this horrible world that he can trust? Somehow he has to survive the waves of enemies that he and the other heroes have been summoned to fight, so that he can hopefully figure out a way to return home.
