Lighthearted fun fantasy adventure story

Apocalypse Core is a very fun story.

The male narrator is new to me, but he did a wonderful job. Melanie Hastings once again delivers her terrific kittenish voice and imbues each of her characters with a distinctive voice.

While the story does have LitRPG/stats, it also doesn’t take itself too seriously. I loved it when a voice intoned “-7 damage, -7 damage, -5 damage” and the MC shouts “I don’t need a blow-by-blow account”! The entity “helping” guide the MC through the altered world is snarky and openly hopes our hero will die on multiple occasions!

The characters are interesting and fun, with distinct personalities, and the women have initial conflicts with the concept of sharing the MC.

A fun story with terrific narration; 5* and I look forward to book #2 in the series!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. Receiving a review copy did not influence my rating or my review.

3 people found this helpful

A Unique Cultivation Story Worth Your Time

I had been thinking about how to describe this story and this is what I came up with. Take one part ego from Guardians of the Galaxy, on part snap from Infinity War, and then add cultivation with a video game element and you get a unique story set in a post-apocalyptic world complete with mutants in a game of life and death musical chairs. The writing was top notch, and the narration team did a fantastic job helping to bring the characters to life. I enjoyed the story and I recommend it to anybody reading this review. Well done to the team that helped bring this story to us the audible listeners and I can't wait to see what comes next.

2 people found this helpful

A bit underwhelming but has a lot of promise

I do think this series has promise, and I’ll be waiting for the next books.

The start is quite good, and was very fun and entertaining, giving a nice look into the character before the events. Plus the dog was epic. The ML, Mark, acts a bit too much like a good guy and doesn’t seem to take things very seriously, and it comes to bite him in the ass. Trin just seems to be there and does not really do anything except for interacting with the ML until later on in the book when she starts do interact more with the characters. Ripper seems to be fun and I want to see more of her in the following book. Blue looks to be a more mischievous character, but as with Ripper we don’t get much of her either. The dog while very entertaining at the start now seems to just tag along and not do much at all.

The premise of the story was a decent twist on the genre, while not overly unique it has interesting moments. With a bit of trimming it would have been quite good, there is just to much excessive first person narration on the part of Mark, making it all feel boring. When there is actual dialogue it seems to bloom and flow better, especially during the interactions between Mark and Harbinger. The last third of the book is where it gets really good and interesting, and makes it worth reading.

One good thing is that there is a moment where they actually get into the aspects of their relationship and there's even some arguing that gets solved eventually. A good aspect and hope to see more things like these and development of the emotional aspects of what they have going on combined with more intimate moments. If they do this and put less focus on the combat, which drags a lot, it can be elevated even more.

Narration was good, Mark’s voice feels a bit flat and emotionless sometimes, but that of the other male characters is very good. The female voices felt ok, but it doesn’t get much chance to shine since she (the narrator) has very few lines.

In the end, it’s worth a read and it has potential for the future. While the mid of the book was a bit boring and dull, the start and the last third of the book are where it shines. Looking forward for more.

2 people found this helpful

Fresh concept; Nicely Worked

Nice fresh combination of Sci-Fi gamer and apocalypse. Nicely worked and written. Can't wait on the next.

1 person found this helpful

A Solid Entry

This was a strong first book. System apoc with humans changing into half monsters and a chi foundation. Definitely going to have more than one interest but it's a nice crunchy litrpg read as well.

Dial narration was on point as always. I'll be picking up the next one for sure.

1 person found this helpful

Amazing book

My favorite things, apocalypse and monster girls.
This is a great book! Humphrey is freaking hilarious. Harbinger is a condescending douch but in a funny way. From the start I was hooked. Great fight scenes murdering monsters and some sexy shenanigans.

1 person found this helpful

good listen

good system litrpg book definitely worth a listen love the story progression and narrator .

Couldn’t finish this one

Performance was top notch, but I found the story too predictable and somewhat cartoonish. MC is dense, AI overly snarky, cringey escape artist villain, etc. The mc’s dog is hands down best part of the book. Pure gold there.

Slow start but it gets pretty good.

The beginning was kind of slow. It took a while for things to start moving. Once that happened though it got pretty interesting. I liked the new take on the end of the world trope. Might not really enjoy the planet core aspect so much but it is still pretty interesting. I wonder how the story will go from here. Also can't help but question the need for a harem in this story. I mean sure why not but it seemed that the harem aspect could have been downplayed a bit.

cool book

this book has an interesting take on the whole core thing that's hot right now