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Stray Cat Strut #6
Stray Cat Strut 6: A Cyberpunk LitRPG: Stray Cat Strut, Book 6
Confronted with corruption and crime, cyborg samurai Cat LeBlanc fights to protect a city targeted by aliens, in this action-packed cyberpunk adventure.
The megacity of New Montreal is under constant threat by the Antithesis, aliens who have transformed the landscape to produce swarms of creatures that feed on everything in their path. The city's infrastructure is in disrepair, and the politicians and corporations responsible for its maintenance have been slacking off, leaving angry citizens to fend for themselves.
Cat LeBlanc is supposed to be on vacation, spending time with her girlfriend, Lucy, and their clowder of adopted children, affectionately known as "the kittens." Unfortunately for the young samurai, duty calls, requiring her to take a more active role in addressing the city's woes. Cat has no patience for political games or corporate bureaucracy, and she'd prefer to spend her time supporting a nonprofit clinic by producing free prosthetics to help those in need.
But samurai tech has far greater value on the black market, enticing depraved gangs to loot the clinic. As Cat and fellow samurai Gomorrah follow the twisted trail of thievery, they learn they're not the only ones trying to track down the stolen goods. Rac, the teenage "kitten" living with Cat, has joined a crew of mercenaries looking to make a big score—only to find themselves the targets of a private military company.
Now it's up to Cat to get Rac out of harm's way and uncover who was really behind the prosthetic theft, all while the Antithesis prepares another invasion . . .
The sixth volume of the hit LitRPG sci-fi series—with more than 17 million views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!
The megacity of New Montreal is under constant threat by the Antithesis, aliens who have transformed the landscape to produce swarms of creatures that feed on everything in their path. The city's infrastructure is in disrepair, and the politicians and corporations responsible for its maintenance have been slacking off, leaving angry citizens to fend for themselves.
Cat LeBlanc is supposed to be on vacation, spending time with her girlfriend, Lucy, and their clowder of adopted children, affectionately known as "the kittens." Unfortunately for the young samurai, duty calls, requiring her to take a more active role in addressing the city's woes. Cat has no patience for political games or corporate bureaucracy, and she'd prefer to spend her time supporting a nonprofit clinic by producing free prosthetics to help those in need.
But samurai tech has far greater value on the black market, enticing depraved gangs to loot the clinic. As Cat and fellow samurai Gomorrah follow the twisted trail of thievery, they learn they're not the only ones trying to track down the stolen goods. Rac, the teenage "kitten" living with Cat, has joined a crew of mercenaries looking to make a big score—only to find themselves the targets of a private military company.
Now it's up to Cat to get Rac out of harm's way and uncover who was really behind the prosthetic theft, all while the Antithesis prepares another invasion . . .
The sixth volume of the hit LitRPG sci-fi series—with more than 17 million views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!
Audible Audio
Published July 15, 2025
42 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
RavensDagger
53 books223 followersA bird that likes comfy and happy things, and also knives. Once ate a god’s eye and awakened the ability to see all that is good in the world. Known to steal shiny ideas and baubles. Currently forbidden from writing his own bios.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 3, 2025
Stray Cat Strut is a fun cyberpunk series with a quirky heroine, her girlfriend, and the orphans they all have adopted. Cat returns back to New Montreal and kills the Mayor because he tried to use her to justify his awful plans. That, unfortunately, means she’s now in charge of trying to fix everything. I think this is a definite improvement over the battle stories we’ve been getting and seeing her try to solve complicated problems with her ability to shoot things really well.
August 2, 2025
For the most part a more mundane slice-of-life for Cat in which she deals with some loose ends from previous arcs. It comes with the expected light-hearted snark, casual violence and over-the-top tropes that come with cyberpunk. Granted, the snark can get a bit overdone, and little changes in personality and main plot, but I don't mind. So, not the best in the series, but certainly a solid addition to the series.
August 6, 2025
Stray Cat Strut started strong with an incredibly focused, action packed first entry into a new genre for this author. Nothing groundbreaking, but definitely competent, and with potential. Unfortunately, every entry since the first has been slightly less focused and interesting than the one before it. At this point, the series gives off the energy of a Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020 campaign where the GM is a coward and there aren't ever any real stakes. It pays lip service to the concepts of hypercapitalism and dystopia, but it never really impacts the protagonist or her friends. So, taking the "punk" out of "cyberpunk."
RavensDagger is one of my favorite authors in the LitRPG space, and any time someone asks for recommendations, one of their books is always in my top 3. Cinnamon Bun and Dead Tired are both strong in their theming and characters, and Agartha Loop is shaping up to be a solid series as well, if they keep it going. That's why it's a bit disappointing to see one of their longer series hitting such a low point. This author is at their best when writing light-hearted, slice-of-life stories where there’s maybe one bad guy and all the other characters are friends. When done well, these types of stories can be wholesome and enjoyable, especially if set in an interesting fantasy or science fiction setting. The ways in which Stray Cat Strut adheres to this formula betray its cyberpunk setting, and the ways in which it deviates from it weaken the author’s writing style significantly.
In Book 6, Catherine takes some time off from fighting on the front lines to decompress and tie up loose ends. Nothing wrong with this, conceptually. The problem is that without a clear and present danger, the plot loses all sense of suspense or urgency, and the author does very little to add any back in. Couple that with the fact that there is little to no friction in the character’s relationships, because everyone is either pretty much chill or too scared of the protagonist to do anything, and there’s very little to make the story interesting besides exploring the aesthetic itself. It’s clear that inter-relational tension is not one of the author’s strengths, because the only legitimately tense moment is passed over in a blink, and there are basically no consequences. Cat isn't even asked to explain herself or justify her behavior, it’s just a non-issue.
Catherine spends a lot of time being introspective for once, instead of purely reactionary, which on paper is a good thing. However, despite all her head-scratching about how to use her power to make the most impact for the people on the street, she squanders most of her potential by thinking too small and not asking her AI companion for help. She basically has the power to drain any person’s bank account at will, which in many cases is presented as a one-size-fits-all solution to almost any problem involving uncooperative corporations, and yet she seems incapable of meaningfully capitalizing on that power.
Here’s an example. If your goal is to get a company to get off its haunches and solve the problem like it’s supposed to, and you know that the main obstacle is corrupt executives (because cyberpunk), it’s not hard to come up with a plan of action:
1. Drain the accounts of the shareholders, as well as any C-Suite execs who abandoned ship. Leave the ones who stayed alone (for now)
2. If security forces are owned by the people who run the building, use your new assets to buy the building and the security contract as a bundle. Otherwise, buy out the security company’s contract directly. Might be a good idea to buy the building regardless to avoid any potential legal hang-ups.
3. Have your AI take over all their accounts and forcibly sell all their stock to you (or a dummy account). Explain to them that they work for you now, and you make the rules. If they don’t like it, they can have their accounts drained too. Make it clear that they aren’t leaving until they fix the problem, and if they try they’ll get vaporized.
4. Have your AI restructure the company to be more equitable toward employees and reallocate resources optimally to solve the most imminent problems. Have it analyze employee performance records to reshuffle people into the best positions.
5. Once the present crisis is over, have your AI write another AI to run the company while systematically replacing the current C-Suite execs with people who are actually competent.
I know that in the novel the entire upper management already left the city, this is just a cookie-cutter strategy that can be altered as needed to perform a hostile takeover of any corp that gets in your way as a Samurai with an unstoppable AI agent. It would take about an hour of work instead of days running around. It’s so laughably easy that I don’t understand why every Samurai doesn’t just have their AI drain the bank accounts of any company they don’t like and have a bespoke AI run it instead. It would do an infinitely better job with zero chance of corruption, so economic stability would actually go up. Why every corporation isn’t owned by one Samurai or another in this setting is a mystery to me. Seems like as soon as you unlock the ability to simply yoink a billionaire’s entire fortune, you’d just do that indefinitely? And this is something a BRAND NEW Samurai could accomplish with a minimal point investment into cyberwarfare. Maybe that’s supposed to be a plot point in the future but for now it’s just a glaring hole.
I get that it’s supposed to be one of Cat’s character traits that she’s out of her element, still learning the ropes, and in general, a little dense; but in a novel where the only thing making the story interesting is the main character using her Samurai powers, it’s considerably detrimental when she’s so bad at it. I’m really praying that she gets some kind of intelligence-boosting implant soon so she can start making better decisions. It’s great that she’s learning to reach out and ask for help, but there’s very little character growth in these books so I’m not that optimistic.
I could go on about the flaws in this book (Cat isn’t the only one who needs an intelligence upgrade), but suffice to say that I think the author could really benefit from reading “This Used To Be About Dungeons” and closely studying what makes that book work. It’s a character-driven novel about a group of new adventurers learning to fit together in a cohesive team. There are a few combat scenes, but 80% of the book is down-time where characters are getting to know each other and generally doing life together. Especially for the LitRPG genre, it’s a master class on character relationships.
In essence, Stray Cat Strut 6 gives off the impression that the author had a great idea for book 7 but needed to tidy up the dangling plot threads and didn’t really put much energy into making that process interesting or engaging. It’s possible they are using this series to get more experience writing outside their strengths to try to shore up their weaknesses. Whatever the case, the author’s fanfiction roots are definitely showing, because that’s largely what this series has started to feel like; fanfiction of cyberpunk rather than actual cyberpunk.
-
It’s worth noting that I almost exclusively listen to audiobooks these days, so the skill of the narrator will obviously have an impact on my enjoyment of the book. I generally like the narrator for this series, and there are stand-out moments even in this novel where her voice acting is really enjoyable and brings a lot to the dialogue, but those are brief moments. She doesn’t inject much personality into the prose, and her reading is a bit stiff compared to the narrators of the author’s other books. That didn’t stop me from enjoying the first book, and it doesn’t really impact my criticisms of this book, but it did have an impact on my enjoyment overall and thus probably affected its star rating.
RavensDagger is one of my favorite authors in the LitRPG space, and any time someone asks for recommendations, one of their books is always in my top 3. Cinnamon Bun and Dead Tired are both strong in their theming and characters, and Agartha Loop is shaping up to be a solid series as well, if they keep it going. That's why it's a bit disappointing to see one of their longer series hitting such a low point. This author is at their best when writing light-hearted, slice-of-life stories where there’s maybe one bad guy and all the other characters are friends. When done well, these types of stories can be wholesome and enjoyable, especially if set in an interesting fantasy or science fiction setting. The ways in which Stray Cat Strut adheres to this formula betray its cyberpunk setting, and the ways in which it deviates from it weaken the author’s writing style significantly.
In Book 6, Catherine takes some time off from fighting on the front lines to decompress and tie up loose ends. Nothing wrong with this, conceptually. The problem is that without a clear and present danger, the plot loses all sense of suspense or urgency, and the author does very little to add any back in. Couple that with the fact that there is little to no friction in the character’s relationships, because everyone is either pretty much chill or too scared of the protagonist to do anything, and there’s very little to make the story interesting besides exploring the aesthetic itself. It’s clear that inter-relational tension is not one of the author’s strengths, because the only legitimately tense moment is passed over in a blink, and there are basically no consequences. Cat isn't even asked to explain herself or justify her behavior, it’s just a non-issue.
Catherine spends a lot of time being introspective for once, instead of purely reactionary, which on paper is a good thing. However, despite all her head-scratching about how to use her power to make the most impact for the people on the street, she squanders most of her potential by thinking too small and not asking her AI companion for help. She basically has the power to drain any person’s bank account at will, which in many cases is presented as a one-size-fits-all solution to almost any problem involving uncooperative corporations, and yet she seems incapable of meaningfully capitalizing on that power.
Here’s an example. If your goal is to get a company to get off its haunches and solve the problem like it’s supposed to, and you know that the main obstacle is corrupt executives (because cyberpunk), it’s not hard to come up with a plan of action:
1. Drain the accounts of the shareholders, as well as any C-Suite execs who abandoned ship. Leave the ones who stayed alone (for now)
2. If security forces are owned by the people who run the building, use your new assets to buy the building and the security contract as a bundle. Otherwise, buy out the security company’s contract directly. Might be a good idea to buy the building regardless to avoid any potential legal hang-ups.
3. Have your AI take over all their accounts and forcibly sell all their stock to you (or a dummy account). Explain to them that they work for you now, and you make the rules. If they don’t like it, they can have their accounts drained too. Make it clear that they aren’t leaving until they fix the problem, and if they try they’ll get vaporized.
4. Have your AI restructure the company to be more equitable toward employees and reallocate resources optimally to solve the most imminent problems. Have it analyze employee performance records to reshuffle people into the best positions.
5. Once the present crisis is over, have your AI write another AI to run the company while systematically replacing the current C-Suite execs with people who are actually competent.
I know that in the novel the entire upper management already left the city, this is just a cookie-cutter strategy that can be altered as needed to perform a hostile takeover of any corp that gets in your way as a Samurai with an unstoppable AI agent. It would take about an hour of work instead of days running around. It’s so laughably easy that I don’t understand why every Samurai doesn’t just have their AI drain the bank accounts of any company they don’t like and have a bespoke AI run it instead. It would do an infinitely better job with zero chance of corruption, so economic stability would actually go up. Why every corporation isn’t owned by one Samurai or another in this setting is a mystery to me. Seems like as soon as you unlock the ability to simply yoink a billionaire’s entire fortune, you’d just do that indefinitely? And this is something a BRAND NEW Samurai could accomplish with a minimal point investment into cyberwarfare. Maybe that’s supposed to be a plot point in the future but for now it’s just a glaring hole.
I get that it’s supposed to be one of Cat’s character traits that she’s out of her element, still learning the ropes, and in general, a little dense; but in a novel where the only thing making the story interesting is the main character using her Samurai powers, it’s considerably detrimental when she’s so bad at it. I’m really praying that she gets some kind of intelligence-boosting implant soon so she can start making better decisions. It’s great that she’s learning to reach out and ask for help, but there’s very little character growth in these books so I’m not that optimistic.
I could go on about the flaws in this book (Cat isn’t the only one who needs an intelligence upgrade), but suffice to say that I think the author could really benefit from reading “This Used To Be About Dungeons” and closely studying what makes that book work. It’s a character-driven novel about a group of new adventurers learning to fit together in a cohesive team. There are a few combat scenes, but 80% of the book is down-time where characters are getting to know each other and generally doing life together. Especially for the LitRPG genre, it’s a master class on character relationships.
In essence, Stray Cat Strut 6 gives off the impression that the author had a great idea for book 7 but needed to tidy up the dangling plot threads and didn’t really put much energy into making that process interesting or engaging. It’s possible they are using this series to get more experience writing outside their strengths to try to shore up their weaknesses. Whatever the case, the author’s fanfiction roots are definitely showing, because that’s largely what this series has started to feel like; fanfiction of cyberpunk rather than actual cyberpunk.
-
It’s worth noting that I almost exclusively listen to audiobooks these days, so the skill of the narrator will obviously have an impact on my enjoyment of the book. I generally like the narrator for this series, and there are stand-out moments even in this novel where her voice acting is really enjoyable and brings a lot to the dialogue, but those are brief moments. She doesn’t inject much personality into the prose, and her reading is a bit stiff compared to the narrators of the author’s other books. That didn’t stop me from enjoying the first book, and it doesn’t really impact my criticisms of this book, but it did have an impact on my enjoyment overall and thus probably affected its star rating.
July 16, 2025
In the aftermath of the huge New Montreal incursion and the trip out of the city to help save a small town, Cat is finally back home and on vacation.
Racoon side story. Cool. Then following up on the Sewers mess. I did NOT expect the Mayor thing to go that way. Then the cybernetic plotline.
Oh hey, Delilah and Franny are moving into the big cat tower. Cool.
Then back to bug hunts....
Good read, 3,5 stars.
Racoon side story. Cool. Then following up on the Sewers mess. I did NOT expect the Mayor thing to go that way. Then the cybernetic plotline.
Oh hey, Delilah and Franny are moving into the big cat tower. Cool.
Then back to bug hunts....
Good read, 3,5 stars.
July 31, 2025
nothing happened. no story progress
This was a novela seemingly meant to be between novels. It’s a bunch of side stories and there is zero progress towards the main story.
Also the “men writing women” aspect is getting a bit much and kinda gross. It was much better in previous books.
This was a novela seemingly meant to be between novels. It’s a bunch of side stories and there is zero progress towards the main story.
Also the “men writing women” aspect is getting a bit much and kinda gross. It was much better in previous books.
July 23, 2025
Just started out as an impulse buy..
This is really one interesting series. I bought the first book on impulse, just for the title. Turning out it was one of the best and plus pies I have ever done. Incredibly awesome! Please or please let there be more....
This is really one interesting series. I bought the first book on impulse, just for the title. Turning out it was one of the best and plus pies I have ever done. Incredibly awesome! Please or please let there be more....
July 24, 2025
Like book 2 and 3 this book was more about politics and less fighting aliens but it has an amazing cliff hanger at the end. I feel like this book was perfect to fill some loose ends about what’s happing outside the fighting
August 13, 2025
An enjoyable continuation of the Stray Cat series. Cat is on vacation after fighting antithesis in New Montreal and Burlington. Life happens and her vacation isn't quite as relaxing as she thought it would be. Between her new hobby, the aftermath of the sewer adventure and her household, things get interesting. No spoilers, but there is a bit of humour, a bit of tradgedy and even a little normalcy. Well worth it for light reading.
July 27, 2025
This was honestly a filler, but it was a great slice of life entry.
September 20, 2025
Another more than solid installment. 👍🏽👍🏽
December 26, 2025
Solid if a bit unfocused.
Still waiting for Cat to remember those people she said she would check up on later. And if she paid out the bounty.
Still waiting for Cat to remember those people she said she would check up on later. And if she paid out the bounty.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews