Marcus was never a hero . . . and he never wanted to be. He never wanted to be a lot of things. He didn’t want to go to school for a pointless degree. He didn’t want to be an office drone; working nine-to-five to barely make ends meet. Most importantly, he didn’t want to play by other people’s rules. He wanted to do things his way, and live life on his terms. Some people might have called him a criminal, but he called it freedom.
Too bad it got him killed.
But when everything changed, death didn’t take like it used too. Marcus returned to find everything was different; the people, the places, the world, and most importantly . . . himself. Heroes and villains were more real than in any comic book, and it was up to him to find his place in the city he used to call home. Unlike before, this time, he had the power to make people respect him.
In order to figure things out, he will need some help. Thankfully, he has some interesting women to guide him on his path to discovery. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll join him in a little criminal activity along the way.
The Adventures of Grave is for 18+. It contains adult situations, language, and violence. You've been warned.
This was a weird mix of fun pulp superhero action/adventure and trashy harem romance. It ended up being a bit cringey in places while also still being fun. This book definitely had flaws but for all that the fantasy world was a decent enough one and G.S. D'Moore had a pretty engaging writing style so this ended up being a pretty fast-paced and easy read.
The Adventures of Grave followed the story of Marcus, a career criminal and small time mid-tier mobster. The tale starts in the 90s as Marcus and his crew pull off a bank heist during the midst of a global pandemic outbreak. Marcus is killed during the escape! The story really begins when he is resurrected 25 years later in a post-apocalyptic version of the world. The population is massively reduced and some folks have superpowers! Marcus has to learn how to use his new powers and find a place in this crazy new world.
The tale had some really fun elements. The world had the feel of your typical comic book superhero world mixed with a bit of fun post-apocalyptic vibes. Both of those dynamics were used quite well in the story. I liked the fact that there was two different types of powers in this new world. You had your regular comic book superhero powers but there was also Eldritch magic. Marcus ended up with a mix of both which is what made him a bit of a special snowflake.
Marcus himself was an interesting enough character. As a career criminal he was not your typical indie fantasy hero but in this first tale he was still easy enough to root for as he tried to find his feet in this weird new world. He gathered two friends/companions/lovers early in the tale in the form of lifelong friends Ramona (a socialite and combat style super with super strength and resilience) and Gabby (a tech genius). They proved a pretty easy to like duo. The story added depth by offering the occasional POV from some random villain characters plus some occasional POV time with one of the 3 big superheroes of city Marcus found himself in. I felt like those glimpses helped offer a bit of depth to the worldbuilding and made the story more interesting.
The cringe in the tale came in the form of the harem romance elements and the hit-or-miss humour. The harem set-up was actually not too bad. The pandemic that altered this world, and granted superpowers, also killed a bunch of people and killed men at a far higher rate than women. In this new world women outnumber men by 150 to 1. Which helped G.S. D'Moore shoehorn in a reasonable explanation of why guys were getting plenty of girls. A fun twist of this dynamic was that it meant Marcus awakened to a world where some of the traditional gender dynamics had been flipped!
This did lean more romance than erotica in tone as the tale ran 15 hours in audio and only had two real sex/erotica scenes. Which is pretty standard even for regular romance books. It had a ton of mostly cringe but occasionally funny innuendo though! I actually liked Marcus’s romance with both Ramona and Gabby and found the relationship dynamic pretty workable. I’m sure it I’ll get worse as Marcus collects more girls in the sequels but since he only collected Ramona and Gabby in this first instalment things were OK. I felt like both Ramona and Gabby had plenty of time to shine. They both had POV scenes and a fun dynamic with each other as well as their new relationship with Marcus.
The humour was definitely hit-or-miss. This was a tale that never took itself too seriously while still managing to be a bit gritty. The humour ranged from cringey, to eye-roll inducing through to amusing and occasionally even laugh out loud funny.
The harem fantasy stuff was a bit cringey but if you have watched any Isekai harem fantasy anime you will easily know the vibe. My feeling is that all modern day indie harem authors are big anime fans. Expect some male wish-fulfilment for sure. A bit of unintentional humour, for me, was how all the girls thought exactly like guys in this story!
Surprisingly little happened plot wise in this tale. G.S. D'Moore established the world and the characters. Marcus settled into the new world, hooked up with Ramona and Gabby, and tried to learn a bit about his new powers but nothing major happened outside of that but we got hints that things will definitely start happening in the sequels. It was a bit superhero/supervillain slice of life or romance but it was weirdly engaging despite the lack of big plot happenings so that aspect of the story never hurt it.
All in all I enjoyed this tale despite its obvious flaws. I’ll read the next one for sure even though I’m sure Ramona and Gabby being sidelined while Marcus collects new girls will drive me crazy. One day I need to find a harem tale where the guy sticks to a 2-3 girls. I tend to stop caring about them after that.
Rating: 4 stars. I’m being kindly because I got through this super quick and do love superhero tales.
Audio Note: In a shocking turn of events this trashy harem indie superhero tale actually had one of the best audio productions I’ve come across in ages! It was narrated by Thor Thom and Melanie Hastings in the duet narration style. With a few production twists such as simultaneous duel voicing to reflect when two characters said the same thing at the same time. It was well produced. Thor Thom was a good voice for Marcus and did a good job with his general narration. If he had a flaw it was the fact he occasionally struggled with the voices for the additional male characters. Melanie Hasting was just all around outstanding with her performance. General narration was good and her voice acting of all the female characters was fantastic. She really leaned into the cringe humour and the ridiculous elements of the tale in a way that I’m sure made it far more tolerable via audio than it would have been on the written page. It is so crazy that a book like this one gets such a top quality audio production while some of the bigger books in the fantasy, sci-fi, and romance genres are lumbered with plain old regular narration or even sub-par narration!
Despite a glowing review by a goodreads friend, I nearly didn't get past the first chapter. While I like a pragmatic MC, I draw the line at sociopathic, and that's this guy.
But then he died. That's not a spoiler, it's the plot. Reborn, he has an incomplete grasp of his former incarnation. This allows him to develop a more connected personality, someone who cares about people other than himself.
That doesn't change his fundamental "don't tread on me" self interest and lack of concern (let alone respect) for authority and societal conventions. There is room for him to carve out his own thing, but a clash with existing power structures is inevitable. That will be the next book, so we'll see how that one goes.
Way too much time sent on side characters and the main characters past activities that have nothing to do with the main plot. I mean the main characters do not even actually meet each other until 33% of the way into the book. After they do meet the story starts to pick up only for the book to end somewhat abruptly.
I might get the second book, but a sharper focus on story and plot would be appreciated.
I didn’t want it to end!!! Wonderful world building, excellent character and relationship development, smart antihero mc, and a fun romp of a plot all the while. Lately I’ve been reading books that just dont have the oopmh this one does its a cut above your normal story and I eagerly await the next installment!!!!
Our protagonist is unusual: pragmatic, lacking somewhat in empathy and definitely evil. Interesting characters, amusing dialogue and a very different world make for a great read
I like the MC but the author’s approach to story telling is somewhat shallow. The MC dies during a bank robbery and then is revived years later due to a confluence of events. The author never explains how the many events came to together to revive the MC or really even connects them in anyway. The author just says “these things matter to MC’s revival” and then relates three different scenes. Then MC is alive again.
After MC’s death a virus swept the world killing mostly men and giving some superpowers. So the late 90’s MC wakes up in a world where women out number men 150 to 1 and there are thousands of superpowered people (presumably as only about a dozen show up in any meaningful way in the story). This apparently completely flips the script turning all women into sexual predators, or, if they are shy, wanna be sexual predators. Seriously, the shallowness of this handling of sex is disconcerting.
MC revives hungry, walks into a bar where the women all aggressively come at him resulting in him being saved by the two women who accidentally participated in his revival. MC develops relationships with these two women and leaves the safety of the city to train his new superpowers. While training a supervillain attacks them and MC and co. defeat the supervillain so and take over his base. The end. I should add that the MC is teasing some great plan all along so now that he has comrades and a secret base he spills it. This great plan? Rob a bank! (Did the sarcasm land?) This is moronic if for no other reason than one of his girlfriends is a broke super genus and the other is rich. MC could make more money by just selling the super genus’ creations. I suppose that since the book literally ends on this reveal the next book will cover why MC will be robing banks instead of making money the intelligent way.
Summary: MC is an interesting character and most of the story is enticing. However the author handling of sex is immature and he fails to provide any story resolution.
The only thing I didn't enjoy was the slew of errors; grammatical, punctuation, and spelling.
It's a heist book with magic, super powers, super natural creatures, 90's references, and hilarious spins on recent history. Also societal gender role reversal which I found highly entertaining.
The MC is a thinking criminal. Making it up as he goes and killing witnesses is not his way. He plans, researches, and practices before committing as any good heist does. He hits a tiny complication and ends up in the future (which is foreshadowed wonderfully).
This book is an intro and setup for what is to come. We know the MC, the side characters, the world, and the potential enemies and hurdles. Next steps: training montage, pull it off, deal with the fallout.
The dialogue is rarely cringe, the exposition can sometimes be a bit much, and there is some stereotyping, but overall enjoyable. The steamy scenes, I felt, were well done. Would love to revisit after proofreading to increase my rating and looking forward to the next book.
I had this on my list to read for a while and it took me time to get into it. But i love it. There are so many different characters and story lines going. It is written so well.
If you like bruce sentar saving supervillians. This is for you!
Marcus story starts in 1997 when a virus is going around. Marcus is a bank robber and he dies in his last heist.
He wakes up in a new world where men are seen as weak and minority and women has super powers and rule the world
I love the take on women having to cat call men. Men having to cover up or they might get attacked. Men being trafficked cause there so few of them. I love how it switched it over how modern day women feel to men perspective. How the men is expected to stay at home and be pampered.
This story is the start and I can't wait to read more
Overly descriptive. You don't hear that often with some books. I have come across some works where it is disjointed that lacks any proper details to the books settings or character development. This book however, has too much details and information on the most useless things. A simple 2 minute interaction between a main character and a forgettable character last 30 minuets because they spend a lot of time just talking about the life history of said forgettable or disposable character. I kept on screaming, "get to the point". The whole book felt padded with jargon and observations that went no where and has no real purpose to the story. Boring and just not worth it.
Story line is good. MC is Op but he is still adjusting to new reality. The characters are interesting and fun. MC has good overall development throughout the story.
Spoiler alert
Really... Rob a bank. That ending needs some work. Could have left it a mystery and been better. But the bank angle after knowing all the super power and mad scientists options and chalanges MC chooses to rob a bank.
Overall still going to read the next one in the series.
This book gets off to a rough start, as it's just not very interesting at first. If you fight through that, it gets better.
The MC dies in 1997 as a mid-level hoodlum that thinks highly of himself, at the beginning of some global pandemic. In the year 2023, he's somehow brought back to life and runs into two women who help him out.
The women are best friends, and as different as can be. They are decently fleshed out during the book. They banter and bicker, but are rock solid with each other. Their intimate scenes are fairly well done.
I enjoyed the Beijing of this book, I loved the details and break down of how the smallest detail can set utter down fall. I think the characters of the book are well rounded, and show's the frailty of man with or without power. I think this series has a great start, just like court & cabals as well as the many other works. Thank you again for a great book and I appreciate the hard work to get each and every on to publication.
Nice story with good characters. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The editing could have been better. Minor things like homonyms and some mispellings. Not enough to spoil it completely, but noticeable. I still loved the book and the story and I am looking forward to read the next book.
While I was already a fan of this author, each new subsequent book is just that much better. The characters are more fleshed out and the story is just overall excellent. Hated to finish and am absolutely buying the next one.
I haven’t like much from this author before, but it feels with each book they get more adept and mature. I’m looking forward to the next book and the continued improvements.
Wow, what an amazing beginning to what will be an awesome series!!!! Non stop action, incredible world building and a nice twist to recent real life pandemic!!! This series will have it all it seems!!! I can't wait to see.what comes next!!!
DNF. Gave up at 40% after skipping probably 50% of the pages. Quite shallow writing explaining obvious things. The worst part is that 50% of the book content seems sexually oriented and not in a good way. Feels like the target audience are dumb teen boys.
It started well enough but quickly went downhill. Having an over 20-minute real-time conversation in audiobook form while he eats a burger is a bit muchfor that sceen, but having every girl act like a frat boy with blue balls throughout the whole book was just painful
It's got parts that are a little cringe, and it's way too horny, everyone is constantly horny...feels like a trope at this point for superhero genre. Overall it's good, and I'm looking forward to the rest.