The God Machine: An Isekai LitRPG

The God Machine, Book 1

By: EmergencyComplaints

Narrated by: Sean William Doyle

A scrappy young off-worlder fights for his life while searching for his missing family in this thrilling LitRPG fantasy series from the author of Ascendant.

When Luke Bennet wakes in a world where time flows differently than it does on Earth, he discovers his family, gone missing over the last year, has been dead for a hundred years here. Left to survive in the wilderness as marmots, murderous goblins, giant spiders, and a two-ton raccoon all try to kill him, Aros's latest off-worlder must depend on his newly acquired system to help him level up and live to fight another day.

When Luke finally wends his way to civilization, the locals think he's a Guardian—whatever that means. Soon he's brawling in a fight club to earn his keep and hone his skills. But danger finds him both in and outside the ring, and now the dreaded inquisitors are on his tail. With the beautiful, sharp-tongued Zea by his side, he'll have to up his stats and locate the God Machine as quickly as possible if he wants to bring his family back.

But nothing's as it appears in this new city, and Luke's own system seems to be trying to manipulate him. If he can't trust it, who can he trust?

The first volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with more than 600,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 David Sherman (P)2023 Podium Audio

Great World Building and litRPG progression

"Pit Fighter meets The Land- A well done litRPG series"

The world building and stat progression are done well in this series. The main character progresses quickly with his skills and it's fun to see his power increase. It almost feels like two books in one here with the changing of location and characters half way through the book. The stakes are appropriately high to warrant further books in the series and I find myself looking forward to book 2.

interesting Family Legacy, Fun Systems

Way overdelivered on expectations. I like a solid 'unprepared' isekai concept without handing the MC an overpowered toolset/edge (usually in the form of a hypercompetent femme love interest) within the first few chapters. Great series of wins amd losses and growth for protagonist, fun in-Univers unreliable system. Great drawbacks and uncertainty to choices and power.

First half was great

But it started getting crappy after new characters get introduced. Won’t get the next one.

For a Podium Audio it was sadly lackluster

Despite the interesting premise and some twists in how “the system” operates in this world the book is really just another murder hobo story, lacking any character development, a shoehorned sexual romance between the main character and the first female to treat him nicely, and an over reliance on certain turns of phrase (especially “it was all he could do”), demonstrating that while this series might have its fans it lacks any real editorial insight to help deepen the story, characters, or just overall writing style.

The narration was fine, but occasionally the narrator is guilty of reading literally what is written rather than providing the appropriate audio interpretation for what the author intended (generally in the stats and status moments).

Entitled MC lamenting his woes

I love reading a book to break away from reality, and taken on an adventure.
If you love that about books as well, then this is not the book for you.
Got the first book from the plus catalog thankfully so I saved a credit.