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Starbreaker #1

Starbreaker: Volume 1

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Born of a pyre ten thousand souls strong. When stars are right his home will die.
Hollow of heart; black hunger unending. Eater of light. Vanquishing kings.
Doom in hand; pour loose the sands of time. Ender of hope. Feller of storms.
Twinmaidens blood stains; on sorrowful soles. Fast claimed war’s domain. Glad of war. Glad of pain.
Beast eyes close for him. Vault’s gates open.
Starbreaker, thrice named.
Starbreaker, awake.”


—Prophecy of Aion Origin, date unknown

Sylvas Vail is a big fish in a small pond, the most powerful mage on his planet. But when the doors to the cosmos come crashing open and all the untold wonders and terrors of the universe come pouring in, he is left with only two


Ascend or die.

447 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 4, 2025

585 people are currently reading
281 people want to read

About the author

Luke Chmilenko

40 books1,567 followers
Born in 1987, Luke Chmilenko grew up in the city of Mississauga, Ontario spending the majority of his life within the city. Always a fan of writing and storytelling, Luke continuously wrote small short stories over the years, but never embarked on writing a full novel until much later in life, thinking it was something beyond his ability.

With his interesting in writing waxing and waning as the years passed, Luke focused on his studies, eventually finding a job in the field of IT Security and working between various jobs for several years. It wasn't until after he was married and with his wife's encouragement that he finally decided to try writing a novel, this time deciding to focus on a new genre that he had just discovered called LitRPG.

Diving into his work, Luke wrote his first book over the course of several months, releasing the book as a web serial chapter by chapter for free online, garnering valuable feedback and confidence from his readers. By the time Luke finished his first book and published it on amazon, he already had a hungry audience waiting for next installation, to which he immediately threw himself into working tirelessly at his newfound passion.

Today, Luke now writes full time with his wife and two cats in their Burlington home, working away on his next issue of his Ascend Online series and a brand new science fiction series named Starfall.

Books of Ascend Online:
Ascend Online (Book 1) (2016)
Ascend Online: Hell to Pay (Book 1.5) (2017)
Ascend Online: Legacy of the Fallen (Book 2) (2018)
Ascend Online: Glory to the Brave (Book 3) (Forthcoming 2019)

Books of Starfall:
Starfall (Book 1) (Forthcoming 2019)

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5 stars
389 (51%)
4 stars
225 (29%)
3 stars
96 (12%)
2 stars
28 (3%)
1 star
18 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
Profile Image for Jesse Kiser.
12 reviews
April 29, 2025
A Magical School Story that wants to be Battle Royale

**SPOILERS**

We start with our MC being brought into a secret magic school as a prodigy. He is trained to not ask questions and do as his masters say. This leads to a world-ending cataclysm. He is rescued and decides to join his rescuers, so he is brought to another training school; and taught to not ask questions, and do as he’s told.

This new school does not do any teaching or instruction, instead relying on all out battles between its student body as a form of training (they’re supposed to be training to fight monsters, not people, but whatever). The teachers are all aggressively abusive, and completely absent during the fights, which always end in either hospitalization or death.

Our MC, who spent years at the first school as a teacher, reverts to YA mentality at this new school, and on his first day encounters an unsubtle psychopathic bully that the instructors either ignore or encourage. The only time any concern for the MC is shown is after he unlocks his “special” powers, and it’s mostly encouragement to enslave himself to a corporation or noble family.

The final battle ends without any sort of resolution, just a cliffhanger to make you buy the next book, and I haven’t mentioned the scifi/space aspect of the book because it only exists in the form of a space ship ride from school A to school B. No other real tech or science in this fantasy cultivation story.

By the end, I was really rooting for the Cthulhu monsters to show up and kill everyone.

Profile Image for Brian Heckman.
153 reviews6 followers
March 14, 2025
More bland lit progression writing. It all blends together and feels the same. I think this genre needs to die or somehow rejuvenate itself.
Profile Image for Urhierefe .
159 reviews
August 20, 2025
Empty!

This book left me feeling sick, as if I were wasting my time and fast tracking my way towards my grave.
Profile Image for Maximiliano Hernandez.
26 reviews2 followers
July 5, 2025
This review is for the three books. To be honest, to me the only really good part of the books it is the beggining, From the second part of the first book, to the end of the third book, it is just a generic school magic book. I do not recommend to read this series.
32 reviews5 followers
October 11, 2025
Terrible pacing

I can't decide if Chmilenko is autistic, or if he's writing an autistic character...

The entire story vacilates between long meandering summaries, like the perspective of a hyper focused atypical emotional robot can't really keep day to day details and interactions as important enough to take note of.

So instead we get extreme description of the same things over... and over... and over... and over again. Again, is the character autistic? Or is the author trying to fill up page requirements with pointless non-informative information?

All of the interactions are stilted. They appear as though viewed through a fishbowl of someone who can't quite grasp anything of emotional intelligence.

It's just not a good book. Spending 3/4 on repetitious extremely drawn out description. Yeah. No. This is a pass. I won't be continuing the series to be so utterly turned off a character as I have ever been.
Profile Image for John-Torleif  Harris.
2,725 reviews12 followers
May 31, 2025
Fascinating MC, but questionable setting

Sylvan’s progression and development were fascinating to experience, but I have some very serious questions/issues with the Ardent and their training methods.

If this organization’s entire purpose is to fight eidolons in small, specialized teams, then why don’t they train their cadets/recruits to achieve that goal? Why would any organization, especially a military one, allow personal vendettas to interfere with training, like Hammerheart’s clearly did? Why are the military instructors in this boot camp so indifferent to the regulations and protocols of military rank? The Ardent instructors honestly feel more like pirates or brigands than elite special forces trainers.
65 reviews4 followers
June 10, 2025
Overall, a fun story with some head-scratching details. Rating is considerate of it being self-published.

We first meet the main character when he is a 12 year old boy at an orphanage. He soon is selected by what is, basically, a cult and spends 8 years in an Eye of the Tiger montage. At 20, he is the most powerful caster in the world, a teacher, and the main caster of the spell of all spells.

By 30% of the way through the book.

I found the introduction to be sparse in some areas, and the time jumps were not very clear. One moment he is twelve, then a teen, then… 20. I almost wish we skipped this section entirely, but I know it is necessary for developing an emotional attachment to the characters, despite its flaws.

Then we get to the Ardent. The elite mage corps of a star-spanning “democratic” government. And this elite mage corps manages to enlist our main character, hurrying him away to a new world where he… continues his Eye of the Tiger montage. By the end of the book, I’m not sure how long he is supposed to have been there. I think it is only a few weeks, but some dialogue implies much longer. Who knows?

Despite my comments, the story is fun and enjoyable. The writer may want to consider an editor that can help them tighten up these timelines and better fill in the gaps on why some things are the way they are (like, why is brutal combat exercises on day one the way he is being trained? Doesn’t seem effective. The story’s simple of explanation of “We’re Ardent, and we’re hardcore AF!” doesn’t cut it.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for John.
173 reviews6 followers
December 9, 2025
A lot going on, but, not a lot done.


The plot:

MC starts as an orphan, gets adopted by a cult, learns magic, summons Not Cthulhu, watches lots of people (including his love interest) die, helps stop NC, gets recruited to join the space magician infantry, goes to boot camp.

On his world he was the preeminent magician of the entire planet, at boot camp he is just someone with greater magic reserves.
He makes an enemy, enemy kills female friend, vengeance sworn, unlocks his super specialness (Gravity Affinity), defeats his enemy by knocking him through a wall, but no resolution on what happened to him.

Epilogue expands the universe by giving us our first peek into the other big group in the galaxy and explains why they have been summoning Eidolons. Oh and the sneaky figure following the MC reports in to their Emperor.

The first 20% of the book being about the MC going from orphan to greatest spellcaster in the world felt superfluous.
Him exploring the spaceship after the Ardent rescued the remains of his planet started to be interesting, but his information was fairly locked down so we missed out on any universe building.

Final battle was unsatisfying. Epilogue was more interesting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
3 reviews
August 13, 2025
For transparency it should be noted that I received a copy of this book from the author.

I went into this book expecting a space fantasy litrpg. To be fair, that's totally what I got. However, it sure doesn't start that way. It took maybe a quarter of the book to get to that space part of the space fantasy and to the litrpg part. That said, that early part of the book was entertaining in its own right. it had something in common with another genre that I really like (call it Lovecraftian horror sort of...but maybe with a better outcome?)

I like most of the characters. I hope in the next book the main character can learn some dwarves though.

Though it does have some litrpg elements to it, they are fairly limited, but that worked good in the story.

All in all, an enjoyable read that im looking forward to following up on.
16 reviews
June 9, 2025
I don't like to say things like this, but it has to be said: this is a pile of garbage.

No major plot no major arcs No conclusion, no build-up, so what is the reason why this exists? 🤷You get to know the characters, and then after a while, they just die, and there is not a moment for anything to breed. Everything goes to the next moment and the next thing, and I don't even know what that beginning was. It's like the author was like, I want to go to the interesting parts, but I don't want to write this part that I begin with, and then the book goes to outer space 😭 wtf. I'll give the author that he created a very interesting magic system, even though it's so vague, and with the magic, the MC gets the rarest magic in the entire universe 🤦.



Profile Image for David Brideson.
44 reviews2 followers
June 4, 2025
I dont seem to care about anyone including mc. MC has been bullied, bullied so much that its nostalgic. Except we've never actually witnessed this bullying, its just because i said so. MC is an orphan, and gets taken off to special mage school, where he's does everything because he's a child and is told so. Sure fine whatever. Then his ignorance causes an apocalypse , causing the death of most of his world and death of his fiancee. Which we dont really care about, shes a bit of a bully until she isn't.

Then MC gets taken to military "school" where he acts like a child and gets upset about things introduced 2 seconds ago. Just to accept it and forget about it. And this happens constantly.
331 reviews5 followers
March 7, 2025
A solid new entry by one of the greats

If you read and enjoyed Iron Prince then you’ll probably like this one. The MC is another “driven by willpower” type, but is different and interesting in his own way. The magic affinity system is good, and the premise is solid for the future set up and how we move the plot forward. The MC both makes mistakes and learns from them, which is nice. A bit system apocalypse almost, a bit magical academy, a bit military fiction, a lot sci-fi and fantasy mixed. Definitely a promising start for a new series.
Profile Image for Lynn Larson.
16 reviews
March 4, 2025
This book is an incredible ride from start to finish. I love a unique magic system, and this blends seamlessly with an exciting sci-fi world.

The worldbuilding is well written. Luke creates clear pictures of the characters and environment without oversaturating the details, making it a thrilling read that is clear and thought out, and very easy to devour. It was so hard to put down for things like work and sleep! I am very excited to see where this adventure takes me.
25 reviews
March 6, 2025
A new and excellent contender to the sci-fi/fantasy genre

For lovers of Iron Prince, Stargazer's War and litrpg this book certainly hits the mark. An excellent opener to a series I will be following closely, world building is excellent and the characters feel so real. Not to mention the action really sweeps you up into it. So good if you like this genre do not skip, it's really really good.
Profile Image for Daniel Immke.
42 reviews3 followers
April 14, 2025
I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the entire series! The premise is interesting, magic system too and it even manages to have some magic academy-ness that feels very fresh.

It's incredibly rare that I stop listening to something in audiobook form which is when I'm usually doing other stuff and switch to actually reading it physically as my only activity. It's been years since a book has sucked me in that much. Highly recommend!
Profile Image for Chris.
53 reviews5 followers
April 23, 2025
A familiar story for this type of book, but with an interesting twist that keeps things fresh. No spoilers but the setting and the way the book starts definitely kept me hooked through the fairly familiar setting that the rest of the book takes place in. Very little focus on stats or levels, it's more a cultivation-type style I guess I'd call it, which I appreciate. Fun set-up to the overall plot with some foreshadowing at the end, I'm really looking forward to the next book!
Profile Image for Thorsten.
310 reviews4 followers
July 15, 2025
Fun read. The opening certainly sets vastly different expectations than what the book pivots into, but it also isn't a shocking development since the book blurb already heavily hints at it. I wasn't particularly fond of it turning into a magic school story, complete with uncaring teachers, dubious curriculum and the mindlessly aggressive arch-nemesis that we may or may not meet almost immediately. It makes for an entertaining, albeit predictable, read.
137 reviews
August 7, 2025
8-7-2025:
I was really looking forward to reading this book.

I am 12% of the way through the story and the contrived "Jack & Jill" go to mage school together, puppy love story angle is really grating on my nerves.

I hope to God that this does not continue through the whole book. I would rather cut my losses for having bought this book, than read more juvenile (Harry Potter) drivel.

I will amend this review later if this weak romance sub-plot forces me to quit the book.
154 reviews
March 8, 2025
Absolutely loved it

This book combines my love for space opera and progression fantasy. There isn’t too much crunchy litRPG bloat, but yet enough of a system that readers can track the MCs progress. I wish there was more nitty gritty of the process of spell casting however, but otherwise enjoyed this great start to the series.
Profile Image for William Howe.
1,800 reviews87 followers
March 9, 2025
interesting

I like the faux beginning. Not happy that the MC doesn’t get a lot of agency, but it’s fitting for his circumstance. I also appreciate how much of his starting skillset has to be thrown out once he has advanced; a well-designed ‘reset’ mechanism.

Gonna pre-order the sequel.
41 reviews5 followers
March 22, 2025
Final Fantasy meets Star Ocean with High Fantasy

So good! Space fantasy is a favorite of mine and this one fits the bill! The loss of a certain character at the beginning of the story was hard, but all the side characters were fun to read. The progression is really good! Can’t wait for #2!!
24 reviews
March 31, 2025
So good!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book as the description did not do it justice. It was not the classic trope of an OP hero who effortlessly conquered all his challenges but a journey with a hero who overcame all the obstacles placed before him. Can’t wait to read the next book!
6 reviews
October 31, 2025
My opinion:
Story idea: 4/5 felt a little like halo with magic.
Plot: 2/5 after the first 20% the book was very predictable and also didn’t build to a big picture for me.
Writing: 4/5 writting style was good, fairly descriptive yet not repetitive
Pacing: 3/5 was decent nothing special
Characters: 3/5 characters were ok, nothing special.
Profile Image for Kelly Flynn.
27 reviews6 followers
March 8, 2025
Yet another amazing story by Luke. I have yet to read one of his that I have not enjoyed.
Just the right amount of everything. World building, character development, action, it's all there.
I am looking forward to reading book 2.
112 reviews
March 20, 2025
A wonderful find!

The story is told quite well, with a thoughtful and fast paced plot. Characters are well developed, and multifaceted. I quite enjoyed the movement of the story as it built to a nice and satisfying conclusion I can't wait to read the next book.
102 reviews1 follower
April 13, 2025
great read

Great read, was not what I was expecting at the start, but glad I stuck with it, I really enjoyed the story, even though I usually like more stats.
I will definitely get the next one.
69 reviews
April 28, 2025
This was a good read

It was a weird start to how the story was described, but it made perfect sense soon after. A different twist on litrpg world building, with magitech and galactic space travel. Would recommend to any litrpg fan as a series to try out.
50 reviews1 follower
May 10, 2025
I couldn’t put it down

This book is many things. On one level it’s somewhat of a standard progression story, but in another level it is a well written tale with plot twists and turns that you don’t readily anticipate.
If you are a fan of this genre it’s well worth reading.
27 reviews2 followers
May 12, 2025
Average

Full of tropes and empty of anything other than one dimensional characters, this is not a bad book for someone wanting to pass some time. All that this book has, others have done it better. In one word, average.
186 reviews
May 30, 2025
Great first entry!

After reading other books by this author, I had very high expectations, and this book went above and beyond even that. I could not put it down once I started and I plan on jumping into the second one right away.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews

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