The Bedlam Galaxy lies at the heart of the Laniakea Supercluster and is a focal point for all of the wormhole transits spanning that great expanse. Among the many races drawn to and inhabiting its 10,000+ stars, humanity is one of the most recent and longest anticipated additions. Once nearly driven to the brink of extinction by violent and irreconcilable gender divides within the dominant cultures of their homeworld, new technologies emerged to save the species from their own folly and helped propel them into a new age of interstellar exploration. Inevitably, that drive into the stars led to the discovery of their own wormhole transit at the edge of the solar system, and from there they ran straight into the waiting arms of Bedlam's great multi-species intergalactic trade and defense alliance, known colloquially as the Alliant.
Vahkis Greye was born a century after those treaties were signed, but such lofty things held little interest to the son of a poor asteroid miner and his synthetic companion. All Greye wanted out of life was to make enough coin to open his own service and repair shop somewhere in the galactic rim, where his talents were really needed and would be appreciated. No more bouncing between odd jobs on far-star space stations, outer-system asteroid mines, and deep space hauler lanes. He wanted a place he could call home, and after two decades of scrimping and saving every last coin he earned, he finally had just enough for tuition to an accredited Systems Repair Tech simulatorium and the rare and expensive Adjustable Hard Light Projection multi-tool required to complete it. Degree in one hand, A.H.L.P in the other, Greye thought he might finally have a shot at his dream.
Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.
An unexpected early-morning service call from one Captain Rita Mari of the Prison Ship Sheol arrived with an offer he literally couldn't refuse. Within hours the unlucky technician found himself alone and trapped aboard an un-crewed and mortally damaged Megalith Class Supercarrier surrounded by violent gangs of murderous female inmates, hounded by a genocidal race of alien shock troopers, demonized and hunted by his own kind, and welcome pretty much nowhere within the galactic spiral.
All he'd ever wanted was to be left alone with his reasonable little dream of repairing the space ships he'd always found so interesting. Instead, fate threw him into a situation so absurd even a life-long survivor of the worst hives of scum and villainy the Rim had to offer cannot see a way out of it.
At least not without help.
Be forewarned! In addition to bawdy action-filled adventures, criminal hijinks, and the occasional exploration of dark and heavy topics, this series contains depictions of alien morality and cultural norms, as well as relationships that could be considered non-traditional... you know, for humans.
Full disclosure, I downloaded this one on Kindle Unlimited in the wee hours of the morning one fateful day with a glass of wine in hand. I initially thought I’d chuckle my way through a dozen pages or so, fall asleep (likely with aforementioned glass of wine in hand), then never delve back into this book’s pages. Instead, I was surprised to discover legitimate science fiction driving this harem romance novel.
Our MC lives in the distant future, where because of AI and other technologies, there are no gender normative jobs. Win! Unfortunately, men have been reclassified as second class citizens as a result. Bummer! But this MC, while male, is a savant in his field of tech-repairs so he is drafted by the military to repair a prison ship in orbit. An unexpected attack by an alien armada ensues, the crew is killed, and our MC is left to somehow salvage the massive prison ship whose denizens are under-sexed and extremely horny alien prisoners. Hilarity ensues…
I’m dating myself, but this book had major LEXX vibes and the techno-babble felt truly Trek.
Lacks cohesion, lacks a main theme and secondary arcs, the author is writing this story by the seat of his literary pants...Story starts at a party, then main character goes to a ship that was bigger than most cities, that encounters problems and more problems and ends up in bedlam (insane asylum) (dystopian apocalyptic ship that used to be filled with women and beast/monster girls that were in a jail-ship). So a handy-man has a lot of strange sensual liaisons in a prison ship that is being destroyed, thousands die, most in cringe-worthy terrible ways, without the author warning that this is a horror-terror story with no real point, no real story, no character development no real world-building describing the systems in place in this other universe (economic, social, political, geographic, religious, etc.) No maps. I do not recommend this story or the series.
Does what it does quite well. Author has a lot of very thinly-veiled references to current trends in male-female relations, and does a scarily plausible extrapolation of exactly how badly that could end up.
A lot (many non-plausible) of steps between where we are now and where this ends up, but this a theme I've seen explored before. Without a procreative drive, and having other less angsty outlets for the purely sexual urges, it's quite possible in a high-tech society for women and men to find each other not worth the aggro.
It reminds me of guys looking overseas (from the USA in particular) to find women not infected with the intersectionalist BS that many Western women are today. I would be surprised if that is coincidental. Anyway, I look forward to the next one, and it had better come soon, since that was a brutal cliff-hanger.
I'd like to preface this review with the fact that I don't believe this is a bad book, however it does suit me personally.
Structurally, this book is about short-term problem solving, which leaves the pacing a little raged as well leaving a bit of a gap where major plot functions would usually be. This makes the novel less overall compelling to me personally, it's a little exhausting to read.
Additionally, I didn't have much "fun" reading this book, I still finished it in less than three days, but the experience is not one I'd prefer to repeat and I'm unlikely to return to the series, the primary cast simply have to shovel too much metaphorical shit and suffer too much from poor luck and circumstance. It's hard to call that an objectively flaw however, it's simply outside of my designated preferences, I don't do well with suffering.
I will, however, recommend this book if you like something a little darker than your standard wish-fulfilment harem fantasy, and you want to see the underdog succeed against heavy odds and a sadistic world.
This isn’t too bad as far as these things go, except that every so often we have a weird rant about ‘feminazis’ that doesn’t do the plot any favours. It’s a bit strange to write women as evil, and then complain that women are evil. Dude you literally made this up.
Has an interesting premise that's basically ruined by making the MC a figure of authority on the ship. At a high-level it also relies a bit more than I would like on telling.
Further, it just has a bunch of weird hangups or inconsistencies.
For example: -Why does the hostile, alien, slave race know how to speak English and has watched holovids of Earth culture? -Why is the Alliant military just actually stupid? This is never explained or expounded upon, they just build highly vulnerable command centers and neglect to use intercepting fire against the projectiles they should have seen coming. -Really strong "not like other girls" vibes from the main cast. Honestly, I don't know what the intention of the text is, but it comes off as very creepy and incel-like with the whole "masculinity has been ruined because men don't need to protect women anymore" or the scene in the docking bay--as if Greye won that fight because he was a man, and not because he had a mini-lightsaber in his pocket. Didn't really matter who he was facing off with.
The cast doesn't have much personality beyond "horny and really desperate to have Greye order them around" and the story has a weird fixation on teenage bodies. Yes, I understand they're adults, but it's weird when it seems like there are more small, teenage bodies running around the several decade old protag in a story like this than any other body type.
Also, has some weird progression fantasy thing going on at the very end. Not sure what's up with that. I like transhumanism but this just seems set up to obviate the protagonist's struggles and it kind of comes out of nowhere. Like yes, the twins have been making modifications to him, but there's a big jump between "we juiced up your adrenaline response" to "we've successfully made you into a human-computer hybrid in less than a week".
Sigh, this book is close to being amazing IMO. I love that the author likes to 'explore the human condition' and provides insight on the way people deal with emotions. It's all just so ridiculous though as the MC constantly stumbles from disaster to disaster and faces imminent death about as often as many people eat meals. There's no way that he would still be alive considering how little value he places on his own life and how lacking his survival instinct seems to be a times. It gets almost comically silly at times and it's difficult to take the book seriously.
The MC seems far too submissive to me and I don't like how the author has several OP sapient species that prey and feed on humans.
The author states this book is sci-fi harem, but I don't think that's technically true at this point.
I don't understand why so many people that read harem genre are so afraid of reading about people having sex (or why people are happy to read about violence, killing and torture but are disturbed by love and sex...Western culture/society is kinda psychotic if you think about it).
Anyway, the author clearly has a lot of potential, which makes it all the more disappointing when he fails to realize it. The writing is too dark, violent and morbid. Too ridiculous and silly even for a Hollywood thriller/action movie. MC is too much of a subby/clown/punching bag/target butt. Less clown, more stud and this book would be epic.
I'm so glad I took a chance on this. The blurb on the back was a little confusing and I usually haven't had great results of sci-fi but this is really good writing. The author knows his stuff. The roughest spot for him is this first chapter where he's trying to lay the whole entire world out and the hardest thing to swallow is that there's been a total separation almost between men and women. He does a great job of later explaining this further later on in the book to a much better degree that really allows you to suspend your disbelief more completely than you can at the beginning without the full explanation when he explains it to an alien girl, he rescues. That's my only gripe I can think of in the entire book and he was all set later. There's plenty of action. Plenty of sex. Not so much that it derails the plot or the action or ruins your suspension of disbelief. Also, the various alien races are very well described and imaginative. He's only going into a couple of the cultures and that made sense within the bounds of the universey set up. He just obviously put a lot of thought into this and it really shows off in his world building. I'm really looking forward to reading this the next book in the series. I would tell you more about the plot, but I don't want to ruin the book for you. I hope this help. I apologize for any spelling errors or grammatical errors because I'm writing this review with voice to text.
1. You didn’t really use anything sci-fi except the robots and repair tools.
2. There no warnings of semi-non consenting moments has they could be seen in less then favorable light.
3. Your actions scenes all happen off chapter making it hard to really get if any of the combat was dangerous.
4. Add a species codex at the end of book would’ve help with remembering what abilities and how a race looks.
5. You serious have to word on the calendar system they use in book has I doubt they human one. And the year seems strange give more details like if they do resets after major changes in the galaxy to explain why there year was only in the 2 thousands range.
I generally like the genre, and I like the novel way the MC gets roped into his harem. I'm mostly in it for character interaction, and there's a decent amount of that.
The whole first quarter of the book feels lower quality than the rest, and I feel like it should have been rewritten. In particular, Jenn's section seems to take a rather long time for someone who sounds like she won't be seen again. It felt like she got more book time than any of the girls.
I still think the story has promise, and there are many possibilities for a fun set of books.
I already this book, I already the first three, I’m waiting for the 4th. I missed my favorite Ashtori, so I’m reading it all again. And even though I only rarely leave reviews, and only when something really hits those feelz good, but sometimes it’s so good there is no damn time for a review, the adventure continues, and it’s off to the next book. I felt I had done a grievous wrong to the book and the author. So I am forcing myself to leave 5 stars in every one. It’s just that good. Read it, find out why Red is everyone’s favorite demon girl.
Novel twist up of realism and harem fantasy, with a selective dunce MC
In a lot of ways it reminds of the Jamie Hawke series that starts out on a prison ship but more personally enjoyable. There was some societal comentary in the world building that can easily be dismissed as set up or analysed more closely.
All in all decently enjoyable but I'm tired of the MC doing the exact wrong thing at the wrong time when the tension needs a bump. He even does it when it doesn't make any sense that he would.
PS- Hate cliffhangers, not that this is much of one all things considered.
An engaging, intriguing, and sexy teaser to a promising saga!
This was my first read in this genre and I was delightfully surprised at how intrigued I was to keep going and find out what Mr Greye was getting into next. The mix of thoughtfully designed scenarios and probable technological advancements created an enjoyable sci-fi adventure, while the balance of sexual tension and release made for an exciting ride. I’ll certainly be looking into the next book of the series and wish the author all the best with continued writing.
I like this book. This is a good freaking book. Setting is gritty and weirdly realistic sci-fi. The relationships and character development are top-tier. The intimate, vulnerable moments are really moving and impactful. I can't really find fault in this novel, really. The pacing is perfect for what's going on. Action scenes are confusing and fast, and the slower, personal scenes take their time in a really nice way. 10/10. Can't wait to read the next one.
So, before I get started, this is a one-male multiple-female harem novel with sex scenes. Don’t read it if you don’t want that.
If you do, I really like it! I found all of the characters compelling, enjoyed the explicit scenes, and I’m looking forward to more of both the setting and the plot. Not exactly sure how the author plans to move forward, but I think Gaumer is quite talented and both this book and likely any future ones are worth your time.
I am a very slow reader. I finish it in two 2 days.
I really despise cliffhangers like this one. Anyway. Girls. 10 out 10. Fighting 10 out 10. Short and to the point. Very brutal. Sex is there and good. The problem for me is that it is short. Probably because of the page count. I think there are too many references to current world issues. Some of the navigation descriptions confuse me, but it could be a me issue. Well, I hope there are more books coming.
pure male fantasy, but it's fun and that's the point.
what guy wouldn't love to be in Gaumer's book? there's adventure, suspense, and a girl for every day of the week and two on Sunday.
oddly for a "men's romance" there is very little and very tame sex at least in comparison to some of the standard romance I've read. This is not a bad thing, I was expecting cringe worthy fan service and got tasteful pin-ups instead.
The set up is weak, the unbalanced nature reminiscent of a soap opera. The character choices are railroaded, the general narrative feels unimportant. The plot will go where the author wants it to, storyline be da##ed. The main character is pointless, his actions are predetermined. Nothing feels authentic.
Ug... another harem .... ... But its good?!?!?????
I liked this book a lot more then I was expecting I am not much of a fan of the harem genre as I find it over saturated this poo. However, this was a fairly good story. All the ladies do blur together but that is sadly expected in a harem book.
Very intriguing story with a few twists and turns. Love the storyline and structure of this book. The MC is a fun seat of your pants type of character. The support characters are well written and filled out. Hope to see more of this and see where this little story goes off to.
A great story with fun characters and an interesting plot. The ladies are interesting enough that I want to learn more how about each one. The main character is very much the every man which makes it easy to connect with him. A great setup that I look forward to see the payoffs in the next books!
Really enjoyed it - characters are interesting and love the setting, also love that Greye is actually an intelligent person, skilled and able to make decisions! Also really enjoyed the more adult sections, felt well written and didn’t take over the story like i see in other books in the genre! Overall very excited for the next books!
Wow! Interesting idea of a divided and polarized culture of wokeness out of control! Stuck on a prison ship and learning secrets he shouldn't know, about political prisoners, after an attack. This is a fast paced book filled with action adventure and spice. Looking forward to book 2.
Having read some of the older reviews I would agree that the first 5-10% (setting the backstory) doesn’t need to be that long but persevere! Similar advice to those troubled by the “feminazi” it becomes a lot clearer in book 2 (don’t think that counts as a spoiler?)
All in all, a good start to what will develop (again I’m writing this having finished book 2) into a really interesting series. Enjoyed the character development and fast passed story.
Hard sci-fi with fantasy races. Pretty good actually, the ending sucked. Some some of the side characters don't behave believable and the fluff the MC has for the girls seems mis-used at times. Mc's not a chosen one or anything, so if you like stories about average joe(in the future)just trying to survive, this is for you.
I really liked the story and especially the diversity of the alien women aboard the prison ship. Just finished with the second book and liked that as well. Sometimes it was hard to visualize what the characters actually looked like but didn’t distract from the story. Eagerly waiting on book three.
Really great book that I very much enjoyed. Lots of action with a no nonsense hero that you can’t help but like. Definitely want to see more from this author and from this series.
I enjoyed reading this book. I like the tone and found the situation to be new and an easy to understand. Keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more of your books soon
The universe and lore felt engaging and lived in. Also the characters and their relationships felt genuine and believable. The diversity in the cast of characters was also interesting.