What do you think?
Rate this book
Not My First (Space?) Rodeo: A Sci-Fi LitRPG Adventure
Transported to an alien world, a young soldier and his family are forced into servitude and must fight for survival, in this action-packed SF adventure.
Shad Williams joined the army to fight for his country, not to fight aliens. But when he's abducted through a portal along with his terminally ill grandfather and kid sister, that’s exactly what he finds himself doing.
Now, deep below the surface of the planet Ganymede, they find themselves with other equally confused groups of humans drafted into serving under extraterrestrials battling for control over the Reality Engine, an advanced supercomputer capable of producing miraculous resources and technologies. Forced to undertake quests to survive, Shad’s family encounters odd pairings of monstrous creatures and dangerous people ripped from Earthly mythology, history, and pop culture. With every victory, they level up superhuman skills and magical abilities beyond imagination. Classified as a Gunslinger, Shad’s quick reflexes and dead-shot accuracy make him a warrior without peer.
But as Shad’s family makes their way through voodoo zombies, dinosaurs, and Al Capone’s gangsters on one deadly mission after another, their real enemy continues to exploit them. To save his loved ones—and all of humanity—Shad must band with his fellow kidnapped Earthlings to take the fight to their alien captors and seize the Reality Engine for themselves . . .
The first volume of the hit sci-fi LitRPG series—with more than 500,000 views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!
Shad Williams joined the army to fight for his country, not to fight aliens. But when he's abducted through a portal along with his terminally ill grandfather and kid sister, that’s exactly what he finds himself doing.
Now, deep below the surface of the planet Ganymede, they find themselves with other equally confused groups of humans drafted into serving under extraterrestrials battling for control over the Reality Engine, an advanced supercomputer capable of producing miraculous resources and technologies. Forced to undertake quests to survive, Shad’s family encounters odd pairings of monstrous creatures and dangerous people ripped from Earthly mythology, history, and pop culture. With every victory, they level up superhuman skills and magical abilities beyond imagination. Classified as a Gunslinger, Shad’s quick reflexes and dead-shot accuracy make him a warrior without peer.
But as Shad’s family makes their way through voodoo zombies, dinosaurs, and Al Capone’s gangsters on one deadly mission after another, their real enemy continues to exploit them. To save his loved ones—and all of humanity—Shad must band with his fellow kidnapped Earthlings to take the fight to their alien captors and seize the Reality Engine for themselves . . .
The first volume of the hit sci-fi LitRPG series—with more than 500,000 views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!
- GenresScience Fiction
281 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 17, 2024
12 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 22, 2025
Another Isekai?
This not-quite-Isekai/dungeon crawler/reality engine/alien invasion was good and I enjoyed it. But I don't think I'll be reading on. Didn't grab me like some of the others. Still, a decent 4-stars.
EDIT: Change of plans. I've downloaded the next in the series as I can't stop thinking about this one.
This not-quite-Isekai/dungeon crawler/reality engine/alien invasion was good and I enjoyed it. But I don't think I'll be reading on. Didn't grab me like some of the others. Still, a decent 4-stars.
EDIT: Change of plans. I've downloaded the next in the series as I can't stop thinking about this one.
didn-t-like-it
July 29, 2025Note to self: Not bad, just didn't grab me. It feels like a weird mix of unique and generic, while managing not to hit either and landing nowhere/in the middle for me. I'd rather move on and live my life with something else in my ears.
May 25, 2025
A fun homage to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
I'm a big fan of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, and this looked similar so I thought I'd give it a go. And while I did enjoy Not My First (Space?) Rodeo, at times, especially in the first half of the book, it was almost too heavily inspired by DCC—not the characters, but much of the world building was incredibly similar, so much so that nothing felt surprising or new for a little while around the half way point in the story.
That being said, I enjoyed the family dynamic between the three main characters and when the story started to find it's own feet towards the end, with more of the dynamics between the different groups of cr̶a̶w̶l̶e̶r̶s̶ miners I started to enjoy it a lot more.
Overall, I enjoyed it enough to give the second book a go.
I'm a big fan of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, and this looked similar so I thought I'd give it a go. And while I did enjoy Not My First (Space?) Rodeo, at times, especially in the first half of the book, it was almost too heavily inspired by DCC—not the characters, but much of the world building was incredibly similar, so much so that nothing felt surprising or new for a little while around the half way point in the story.
That being said, I enjoyed the family dynamic between the three main characters and when the story started to find it's own feet towards the end, with more of the dynamics between the different groups of cr̶a̶w̶l̶e̶r̶s̶ miners I started to enjoy it a lot more.
Overall, I enjoyed it enough to give the second book a go.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews