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Mod Superhero #1
Initialize
For this cyborg, power is just an upgrade away.
Emmett was used to being caught between college and his engineering internship, but when he gets caught between a powerful hero and an even stronger villain, he becomes collateral damage. Instead of dying, he wakes up a cyborg—a melding of flesh and machine. Turns out his boss wasn’t just an eccentric inventor, and the old man just gave him a shining opportunity to be a hero.
Except that’s just the beginning, and things are about to get a lot more complicated.
His boss has his own agenda. The boss’s daughter has her own power armor. His roommate works for an evil corporation.
And Emmett is just a Class 1 hero.
Superheroes aren’t just masks—some work for corporations, or for the government and the military, and even as mercenaries in wars. Shadowy cabals pull the strings of hero and villain alike. The city of Belport might be peaceful for now, but most of the world is in turmoil. If Emmett is going to have any chance at making a difference, he needs to get stronger. A lot stronger.
How much of his humanity will he hold onto and how much will he trade away?
4.4 Stars on Royal Road!
A new Superhero Progression Fantasy series. This series features a zero-to-hero protagonist, dystopian intrigue, superhero action, occasional swearing and gore, and Ship of Theseus-style power progression.
Emmett was used to being caught between college and his engineering internship, but when he gets caught between a powerful hero and an even stronger villain, he becomes collateral damage. Instead of dying, he wakes up a cyborg—a melding of flesh and machine. Turns out his boss wasn’t just an eccentric inventor, and the old man just gave him a shining opportunity to be a hero.
Except that’s just the beginning, and things are about to get a lot more complicated.
His boss has his own agenda. The boss’s daughter has her own power armor. His roommate works for an evil corporation.
And Emmett is just a Class 1 hero.
Superheroes aren’t just masks—some work for corporations, or for the government and the military, and even as mercenaries in wars. Shadowy cabals pull the strings of hero and villain alike. The city of Belport might be peaceful for now, but most of the world is in turmoil. If Emmett is going to have any chance at making a difference, he needs to get stronger. A lot stronger.
How much of his humanity will he hold onto and how much will he trade away?
4.4 Stars on Royal Road!
A new Superhero Progression Fantasy series. This series features a zero-to-hero protagonist, dystopian intrigue, superhero action, occasional swearing and gore, and Ship of Theseus-style power progression.
375 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2023
330 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Fleming
50 books12 followersSamuel Fleming is a Science Fiction and Fantasy author.
He grew up in Maryland, spending most of his time swimming and writing. The thing about swimming is that it gives you a lot of time to daydream, so the two hobbies complemented each other well. Idle dray dreams turned into stories, some of which stuck with him for years. These days he swims a little less and writes a lot more.
He loves a good story no matter the medium: Books, TV, video games, comics, tabletop RPG’s, or podcasts–most of which he attempts to share with his wife and three kids, and occasionally on his blog.
He grew up in Maryland, spending most of his time swimming and writing. The thing about swimming is that it gives you a lot of time to daydream, so the two hobbies complemented each other well. Idle dray dreams turned into stories, some of which stuck with him for years. These days he swims a little less and writes a lot more.
He loves a good story no matter the medium: Books, TV, video games, comics, tabletop RPG’s, or podcasts–most of which he attempts to share with his wife and three kids, and occasionally on his blog.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 30, 2024
I reviewed this for SPFBO and mostly really enjoyed it. It's a pretty good example of LitRPG with the coming of age drama of a guy becoming a superhero and his awkwardness around girls. Unlike normal in these books, he doesn't magically become Charlie Sheen and have all of them fall over for him. He also doesn't become an instant badass either. I'm intrigued with the setting and will probably continue the series. The hero is a bit vanilla but that's not a dealbreaker.
dnf
January 11, 2024I sampled this as a judge for SPSFC3 (Hybrid team). The opinion is mine alone. This book held very little appeal for me personally and think it would work better as a comic for the main reason that one doesn't have much time or space to be in any any character's head. The characters felt steropical and 2 dimensional. I will be saying no to moving this forward.
January 26, 2024
I am one of the judges of the special hybrid team Epic Space Stars for the SPSFC3 contest. This review is my personal opinion. Officially, it is still in the running for the contest, pending any official team announcements.
Status: Pending
Read: 100%
To be honest, I believe chapters 1 and part of chapter 2 need extra polishing. There is lots of infodumps at first with very little action (and I am not referring to explosions, more like even a subdued sensation of conflict for the 1st chapter). The closest action the initial chapter gets is a person from Emmett's university yapping at him for doing the bare minimum to get A's in class. That scene also seemed weird to me. In my experience at college, you could be stressed out of your mind or have some kind of grevious personal problem that is making your GPA to collapse in a freefall. Universities will do their best to let you flounder for as long as possible to get more money and then kick you out of the program without a care in the world. There is a reason why the suicide rate of med students in US schools is so absurdly high.
Once chapter 3 starts, the book really picks up and becomes quite hard to put down. Yes, the plot is rather predictable and we all know Emmett will sooner rather than later become involved in the mysterious Supers world. Since I have read so few superhero books, this story feels fresh to me. I liked it how Supers in this world tend to be very lowkey and the only time most people will encounter one is during a battle where they might end up injured. So, it makes sense Emmett feels lured by them despite having a very normal and totally untragic childhood. I am liking all the important characters so far: Lock (who I have a hunch will become a supervillain because he just gives those vibes), Clara, and Dr. Venture with his disdain for decent pizza cuisine.
Now that I have finished the book, I dare say despite being a story that seems to have been done before, I enjoyed the execution, the characters and the interesting variety of superowers. It felt most refreshing Emmett is a weakling among so many invincible titans and he is well aware of his limits.
Despite loving the overall story and characters, I did feel the middle to be very sluggish with far too many chapters focusing on Emmett's beginner training. The reader could skip two chapters and would still understand the rest of the book. Other than that and the beginning that could use more polishing, I enjoyed reading this book quite a lot and would be interested in reading the sequel when I have the chance.
Status: Pending
Read: 100%
To be honest, I believe chapters 1 and part of chapter 2 need extra polishing. There is lots of infodumps at first with very little action (and I am not referring to explosions, more like even a subdued sensation of conflict for the 1st chapter). The closest action the initial chapter gets is a person from Emmett's university yapping at him for doing the bare minimum to get A's in class. That scene also seemed weird to me. In my experience at college, you could be stressed out of your mind or have some kind of grevious personal problem that is making your GPA to collapse in a freefall. Universities will do their best to let you flounder for as long as possible to get more money and then kick you out of the program without a care in the world. There is a reason why the suicide rate of med students in US schools is so absurdly high.
Once chapter 3 starts, the book really picks up and becomes quite hard to put down. Yes, the plot is rather predictable and we all know Emmett will sooner rather than later become involved in the mysterious Supers world. Since I have read so few superhero books, this story feels fresh to me. I liked it how Supers in this world tend to be very lowkey and the only time most people will encounter one is during a battle where they might end up injured. So, it makes sense Emmett feels lured by them despite having a very normal and totally untragic childhood. I am liking all the important characters so far: Lock (who I have a hunch will become a supervillain because he just gives those vibes), Clara, and Dr. Venture with his disdain for decent pizza cuisine.
Now that I have finished the book, I dare say despite being a story that seems to have been done before, I enjoyed the execution, the characters and the interesting variety of superowers. It felt most refreshing Emmett is a weakling among so many invincible titans and he is well aware of his limits.
Despite loving the overall story and characters, I did feel the middle to be very sluggish with far too many chapters focusing on Emmett's beginner training. The reader could skip two chapters and would still understand the rest of the book. Other than that and the beginning that could use more polishing, I enjoyed reading this book quite a lot and would be interested in reading the sequel when I have the chance.
September 20, 2023
I tried with this one. The story started out well; college student in a world of superheros, getting drawn into the secrets that underlie the world around him. But the third act addition of a new mystery to solve, while the MC is still working on the original mystery, threw me for a loop. I would have made it past that, but the writing killed my desire to finish this book. At some point, I became so frustrated with the amount of smirking every character does (seriously, every chapter has one or more characters "smirking" at each other, over and over) I had to stop. It's like an optical illusion, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Once you notice how none of these characters smiles, or grins, or makes any facial expression at all besides a "smirk", you see it over and over again. Eventually, I heard Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
September 12, 2023
I didn’t really like any of the people in this book, so I gave up after about a 1/3rd.
September 13, 2023
Potential for a good story that just kinda drags...
Started off good, but as the story progressed our hero didn't. Felt like one very looomg training montage and his personality slipped into the juvenile fan-boy for most of the last half. Honestly was hoping for both power growth and character growth but we never got a lot of that. Add on to that fact he's essentially the one armed Robin playing to the retired Batman minus the money, theatrics, or detective angle and it just kinda all flops at the end. Not even gonna touch on the real world politics and gender theory that was thrown at us randomly...often I come to read books to escape the mess of day to day not to be reminded of it.
Hopefully there's more development in the sequel but I may just pass as I didn't really feel like this had enough of a hook to keep going.
Started off good, but as the story progressed our hero didn't. Felt like one very looomg training montage and his personality slipped into the juvenile fan-boy for most of the last half. Honestly was hoping for both power growth and character growth but we never got a lot of that. Add on to that fact he's essentially the one armed Robin playing to the retired Batman minus the money, theatrics, or detective angle and it just kinda all flops at the end. Not even gonna touch on the real world politics and gender theory that was thrown at us randomly...often I come to read books to escape the mess of day to day not to be reminded of it.
Hopefully there's more development in the sequel but I may just pass as I didn't really feel like this had enough of a hook to keep going.
August 20, 2023
Another Power Fantasy from Royal Road
This is a pure power fantasy with a cartoon character as a MC. He really does not act or respond like a human being, and I wouldn't be surprised if all the dialogue was written by an AI chat bot. The Mc has no good reason to do what he does, casually accepts anything that happens to him like a 4 year old, and has the intellectual depth of a flea. the author really wants him to be a relatable awkward Peter Parker type, but he more so comes off as a naive man-child with no attention span and narrow vision. The writing is ok, but overall it's an average superhero story. I'd recommend the superhero novels "Sidekicks", and "See These Bones" for a cool coming of age type power fantasy.
This is a pure power fantasy with a cartoon character as a MC. He really does not act or respond like a human being, and I wouldn't be surprised if all the dialogue was written by an AI chat bot. The Mc has no good reason to do what he does, casually accepts anything that happens to him like a 4 year old, and has the intellectual depth of a flea. the author really wants him to be a relatable awkward Peter Parker type, but he more so comes off as a naive man-child with no attention span and narrow vision. The writing is ok, but overall it's an average superhero story. I'd recommend the superhero novels "Sidekicks", and "See These Bones" for a cool coming of age type power fantasy.
August 22, 2023
A fun entry into the superhero genre
While our MC starts out as a “street level” hero to use some of the classic nomenclature, it doesn’t look like he will stay there. I do like the cybernetic upgrades that seem to be coming to him, or perhaps the changes will be due to the mutagens he’s taking? Hard to say but exciting either way! The fight scenes are “ok” but not great, but otherwise things were nicely solid. A good origin setup for the series!
While our MC starts out as a “street level” hero to use some of the classic nomenclature, it doesn’t look like he will stay there. I do like the cybernetic upgrades that seem to be coming to him, or perhaps the changes will be due to the mutagens he’s taking? Hard to say but exciting either way! The fight scenes are “ok” but not great, but otherwise things were nicely solid. A good origin setup for the series!
March 18, 2024
great book want the anime!!
I loved this book and the premise it presented it I kind of grew bored of the stringing along of the love interest but understood the necessity of it overall this book only got a 4 because I feel like the main character needed to exemplify more of the intelligence the story was hinting at & think an anime of this would be awesome if it was along the lines of the new show Solo leveling.
I loved this book and the premise it presented it I kind of grew bored of the stringing along of the love interest but understood the necessity of it overall this book only got a 4 because I feel like the main character needed to exemplify more of the intelligence the story was hinting at & think an anime of this would be awesome if it was along the lines of the new show Solo leveling.
August 6, 2024
A promising start.
I'll be frank, the writing is a little more amateur than I'm used to, even for a first published work. That said, writing is a skill that can be improved with practice, and it's clear the author has stories to tell, so I'm trusting that will come in time. The bones of the plot are solid, the characters are fun, and the world is intriguing, so I'm down to keep reading and see what happens next.
I'll be frank, the writing is a little more amateur than I'm used to, even for a first published work. That said, writing is a skill that can be improved with practice, and it's clear the author has stories to tell, so I'm trusting that will come in time. The bones of the plot are solid, the characters are fun, and the world is intriguing, so I'm down to keep reading and see what happens next.
September 10, 2023
A very slow start with very little set up.
The pace is off when compared to the character development. This book is clearly just a set up piece but it does a very poor job of it. And the main failing is the main character. A power hungry fanboy desperate for validation is not a good look. Even with the expected character turn around, this is a bad start.
The pace is off when compared to the character development. This book is clearly just a set up piece but it does a very poor job of it. And the main failing is the main character. A power hungry fanboy desperate for validation is not a good look. Even with the expected character turn around, this is a bad start.
August 27, 2023
One of the first super hero book I liked.
Really enjoyed it. Is progressive but slow progression. Really like it because it does not seemed to be targeted towards teenage boys. Well written story and I canot wait to read more about the world.
Really enjoyed it. Is progressive but slow progression. Really like it because it does not seemed to be targeted towards teenage boys. Well written story and I canot wait to read more about the world.
September 13, 2023
Fast and fun
Though quite a bit of time is set up in world building, and explaining the power systems in place, the story still managed to get some good plot points in.
I'm sure the next one will be even more fun since it'll be less training sequence and more hero work.
Though quite a bit of time is set up in world building, and explaining the power systems in place, the story still managed to get some good plot points in.
I'm sure the next one will be even more fun since it'll be less training sequence and more hero work.
October 17, 2023
So far so good
I came across this book due to a Facebook advert. It isn't my usual genre but I really enjoyed it and will be reading the next installment soon. The only let down was the weird side story about a truck, but luckily it only appears in a few chapters.
I came across this book due to a Facebook advert. It isn't my usual genre but I really enjoyed it and will be reading the next installment soon. The only let down was the weird side story about a truck, but luckily it only appears in a few chapters.
April 2, 2024
love the progression
Solid story and choices that play out through the chapters. Characters are fun and interesting. I would recommend to anyone that likes lit rpgs and/or superhero’s.
Solid story and choices that play out through the chapters. Characters are fun and interesting. I would recommend to anyone that likes lit rpgs and/or superhero’s.
April 12, 2024
Initialize
I felt ok about the storyline and characters of this book but it needs to be edited for grammar and possibly tightened up to get a better review and score. Emmitt and Clara are interesting. Hopefully Clara’s character will be filled in more in the next installment.
I felt ok about the storyline and characters of this book but it needs to be edited for grammar and possibly tightened up to get a better review and score. Emmitt and Clara are interesting. Hopefully Clara’s character will be filled in more in the next installment.
August 14, 2023
Very good book
This is a fine urban superhero adventure novel. It is well written and edited. I especially like the scientist. I anxiously await the sequel.
This is a fine urban superhero adventure novel. It is well written and edited. I especially like the scientist. I anxiously await the sequel.
August 28, 2023
I enjoyed it. The writing has a hard to state vibe that communicates this being a bit amatuer? It's not terrible, but it was something I noticed.
December 20, 2023
3.5 Rounded up
RTC
RTC
April 17, 2024
World building is 10/10. Everything is laid out and makes sense. It's a nice intro into the world
October 25, 2024
It's okay... I just can't get into the story. I appreciate the concept tho... it just didn't click with me.
December 24, 2024
Great Series
Definitely worth the read! This is my second read of the series and still had my attention through the book.
Definitely worth the read! This is my second read of the series and still had my attention through the book.
December 28, 2024
Awesome start of a series
I have purchased all the books in the series
Looking forward to reading them
Thanks for the adventure
I have purchased all the books in the series
Looking forward to reading them
Thanks for the adventure
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews