A jokester crashes the System. He angers the gods. And he becomes more powerful with every climactic battle. A weak to strong progression with Gravity Magic.
Jay Luckrun has many interests. Street dancing, anime, action movies, comedy. And dashing across rooftops to the point where his bullies nicknamed him Rooftop Weirdo. But after struggling to confront his untouchable high school crush at her seventeenth birthday party, Jay adds another interest to his list:
Dungeon Crawling in the face of the Apocalypse.
Jay meets a divine creature who chooses him to become a Champion. Someone with a leveling System, stats, Skills, access to other dimensions containing dungeons filled with supernatural loot, and magical powers that’ll alter reality as they know it. Becoming a Champion comes with some issues.
Global assassins want Jay and other Champions dead. Monsters are hungering to break out of their dungeons and raze Jay’s world. And Jay’s just one young guy trying to have fun with a Class that gets weirder as he evolves and masters his new gravity powers.
What to expect?
- An action adventure LitRPG with some comedy - The main character has an unusual mindset and background - A unique Apocalypse story where tropes can give extra power - Wombo Combos: when Jay teams up with others for big attacks - A weak to strong progression System that explores magic and gravity
Some reviewers compare it to He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon!
Did not finish, I made it 35% in before I had to give up.
This is a cringe book that tries to be funny/over the top, but ends up being painful to read.
I didn't care about the MC or his party mates, and I don't really care about the rest of the book. It compares itself to HWFWM in the blurb, but it is not even remotely like it.
This might have been better if it was more serious, but going for flippant and hard failing ruined it.
Quit halfway through. The characters are not based on tropes, they are nothing but tropes. The comedy is lacking, the story does not flow in any proper direction, the whole thing is the worst kind of railroading. A trickster character can be witty, this one is just annoying. So bland, predictable characters with a railroaded storyline and an irritating main character and none of it is funny. You see why I quit.
This book definitely has errors scattered throughout it. I didn’t mark them all. I just marked some of them. It’s a good story, but for me the luck Ron family is just too odd. I actually enjoyed the characters of Lilith and Britt more. Those two just seemed more lifelike and more realistic. I’ll check out book to when it comes out.
I wavered on the rating a bit. At my age, books about smart-ass teens running rings around adults with shit-loads more life experience don't have the draw they might have 35 years ago, so it had a bit of a headwind out of the gate.
However, the story realizes the ridiculousness of a bunch of random Florida teens being the "chosen ones", so I will give it that one. In many ways teenagers are a better choice for something radically different, so that also works. It then comes down to the characters and the overall story.
This is where it doesn't clear the 5th star for me. The finale is a 5, but the earlier parts dragged a bit. The dungeon and the switching POVs ran a bit too long for me, also I found the early version of the MC's character to be annoying. They all had to grow up pretty fast, and he did as well, so in the end he was less relentlessly flip, at least in terms of personality.
I will definitely read more of this, mainly on the strength of the last 1/4 of the book. I'm interested to see where this goes.
I really was not sure about this book at the beginning. It seemed kind of ridiculous and there were some anime tropes I wasn’t sure about especially with the high school queen that I thought would be cringy horny pining and I was anticipating paper thin female characters. The book is ridiculous and there is horny pining there but it’s extremely self aware and the female characters are anything but paper thin. This book has a breakneck pace and a madcap energy that turned out to be the most fun I’ve had reading a book in awhile. It’s anime inspired it seems though I have limited exposure to anime and to be honest what I’ve seen I haven’t loved (not to discount a whole genre I just don’t think it’s for me) but I loved this book. It really embodies lit rpg not just in its crunch but in the joyfully off the rails tone and plot. I will also say this is a book that is very humorous and though not every joke landed for me most did but I think it’s commendable how that humour is interwoven with very strong characterisation and a compelling if insane plot. Sometimes this kind of self aware and comedic kind of writing can be a crutch but it didn’t felt like that here. The plot was good and the characters feel very distinct and well developed. They’re all lovable lunatics. The way the supporting cast gets a distinct voice and odd idiosyncrasies really shows this I feel. No character feels like filler.
I will say though there were some grammatical issues and some just truly bizzare sentences that made no sense. There were a few points where I had to read something a few times and still came away being like that makes no sense in the context of that paragraph. I’m still rating it 5 stars though cause I read lit RPG for pure enjoyment and I had a great time reading this book. I feel this book will be marmite if you give it a shot either you’ll absolutely love it or despise it but I think there’s a very real chance you’ll love it. Give it a shot and stick to at least the first dungeon cause that’s the point where you really see what kind of book this is.
Just as a side note too this book features a black MC which truly should not be noteworthy but I think this might be the first litRPG I’ve read where that’s the case (we all know it’s a rather whitewashed genre) so I quite liked that.
I wonder if Tao Wong wants to sue this guy, seeing as "Apocalypse" and "System" are in or near the title.
For some reason I am getting a Scott Pilgrim feel from the start of this book. Hopefully the High School angst gets gone soon.
I was going to ignore this until someone I don't usually take recommendations from said it was okay. My original stance of ignoring seems to have been the correct action. The book is uninteresting. The protagonist is trying to be as quirky as possible, and it's beyond cliched.
I was willing to give this a fair shake, but more than a quarter of the book is gone, and they are still in this boring toy dungeon. Now they are cutting to another team because the protagonist said "if we were in a story, it sure would switch to others right now". Spoilers. It did switch at that exact moment.
I already see unless something changes drastically, this will be the first and probably last book I read from this author.
Yeah. I'm half way through this book. I'm definitely not reading anything after this.
This wasn't bad, but it also isn't for me. If you have teens, they may enjoy this, but it is too YA for my tastes.
Before I read this book I read rogue ascension by the same other which was really good then i read this and was extremley disappointed. I made it through 29% of the book before i gave up. Every second line I was cringing it was really bad. There is no world or characterbuilding whatsoever. The book doesn't give you any real background just dives right in and hits you with cringy lines.
If you want to read a good book by this author read rogue ascension. In the blurb is compared itself to HWFWM and a book by Shane Purdy. The author has that level of writing the book just doesn't use it. All in all not worth a read.
It’s really two books worth of plot. The beginning is a bit rough, as it’s not really clear what direction it’s going. but that’s more because the MC is functioning on meta levels.
Speaking of the MC, Haitian. But raised American and with a full multicultural friend group. A nice addition to the genre, especially as it leans heavily on high school cliques.
This book took litrpg and turned it into something else. The litrpg aspect is there but thr comedy, the "story arcs" as the characters talk about make it seem like I could almost live it
I've rated this 4/5 for the story. For the book as a whole its closer to 2.5/5
Far too many spelling, grammar, syntax, mistakes. I would honestly leave a point by point break down of everything wrong, however, I've been swayed by the fact I actually love the story.
I enjoyed the characters, they are just anime enough to push all my nerd buttons, without being too far over the top as to be cliché and annoying. Each has their own twist.
Main character is weird, goofy, and very likeable in a broad sense. He also had some darker, sharper edges that were interesting to see from the self styled "comedy hero". It was extremely weird that we didn't have a clear physical description of him until more than halfway through the book though. That was a choice, didn't read as a good one.
The powers were great. Whether it was deliberate or by accident it gave me Gravity Rush, which is one of my favourite games. And the story was contrived but in the best way possible. It was entertaining, and at each possible moment where it could have fallen into something cringe it swerved into something more interesting and remained light hearted and different.
I particularly enjoy the fact that a big thing in this story is that its very meta. It subtlety but also very openly mocks the concept of plot armour. Then has a major plot twist where that rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper as characters start understanding they have a stat that allows them to mess with their own plot armour to a degree. That was extremely new and I love the idea.
It wasn't all good fun though. As I said above, spelling, grammar, syntax, and a few occasions of just making up a new word in place of the correct word, or maybe a different sentence structure ("discluded" instead of excluded springs to mind among others). There were several places in this book where reading a sentence or paragraph would generate a headache based on the number of different perspectives (3rd person/1st person) and tenses being used at once (past, present, future). Notable standouts were on a few occasions, when a character was talking about something that had happened (past tense) but was using both present and future tense language to describe it. It was a mess, and those in particular completely threw me out of enjoying narrative, and into "omg I want to edit this book so it stops hurting my brain with these mistakes".
I'm always harsh on this issue from any author because if your book is not ready, you shouldn't be selling it to people. This book is wonderful, but it needs a thorough copy edit.
There is my dilemma. Do I give a good book a bad review for being unready even though I kinda loved it? Or do I go full hypocrisy considering my review history and say "this is fine"😬
Hypocrisy it is, but at least I'm disclosing it. I really loved this story. But seriously please edit and re-edit your book before selling. Everything about this should be good but those edits...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
So why the four stars? Because the book wasn't really bad, it wasn't my taste. Everything in the writing felt like when you put a group of people in front of a camera and ask them to act naturally, and, of course, everyone acts in the most awkward and stilted way possible.
The other thing that didn't work for me was that the story felt like it was trying too hard to be quirky. Like, the MC getting a new skill that costs less mana if he dances while using it. Or, the MC approaches a monster and starts singing a pop song, then makes the fight look like dance choreography. Or, the MC making a seemingly impossible promise and justifying it to himself because his "whimsical nature" will work it out.
Teen Crawlers at the Edge of the World's Apocalypse
12 teenagers are given abilities as Champions of a freshly made teen Godling. Each has their own strengths and are given magic and skills to enhance those individuals. Jay our MC is a goofball and is given 'Freak' which allows him to use and change gravity. He can flip the angles that gravity effects him or others plus he eventually gains a fermilar that's as crazy as himself. The fights are fun and learning the ability of each teen is a blast too. The final battle was really well written and fun as heck!
Not as good as I wanted it to be, but enjoyable nonetheless
I didn’t find the MC to be all that comedic, TBH. I like how the book used each trope blatantly and explicitly throughout the story. I like the group of Champions that have been brought together to introduce the world into the System’s purview.
Will Jay actually rise to a level of divinity? Was his declaration at the end of the Toyreveler Dungeon the beginning of his path to that height?
Grabbed this one this morning from the kindle suggested pile just to kill time. Totally engrossing. Didn’t put it down. Loved everything about this book.
As the title says this is a review for Kindle Unlimited and as such is a reflection of my enjoyment of the book and in no way reflects cost to value analysis.
This one surprised me. I thought the title seemed interesting and that it would be a nice diversion, but wow this one really impressed me. The story of a group of teens to help fight the system apocalypse was unique as well as the main character Jay being crazy, fun, and relatable. An excellent story and I can't wait for book 2
I read enough to be able to tell when a book is truly great, but also to know when it is not for me. This book was truly well crafted. I liked the characters, especially the crazy doll.
It was funny too, but that's part of the problem. A lot of the times, the humor devolved into being silly.
This book runs on really weird and nonsensical logic. It's anime-esque but that just doesn't translate well in writing. Cool abilities and system but the really unrealistic character interactions make this a hard book to recommend. I guess it's just the authors writing style though because it is well written despite the janky style.
This book due to having teenage protagonists at times feels like it’s more for that audience, but was such a fun read it didn’t matter. Everyone in the book feels a bit crazy and words have power. I like how the author baked chance into everything. Will definitely be jumping right into the next one!
This was good writing but it s obvious he needs more editorial support. There are numerous grammatical errors that I can’t even begin to list here. Think the spell checker even made up a new word! Oh well. I enjoyed it and can’t wait t read the rest! Have a good day, good reading.
The story is nothing like Apocalypse: Generic System by Macronomicon, or A Practical Guide to Evil by Erraticerrata. I bought the book expecting something similar but was dissapointed. At times the character was too much like a marty sue.
This book had bite. Despite explaining how they were taking the meta story tropes and playing jump rope with it, the story still held up well and had some surprises.
Absolutely amazing story, ticked all the boxes for me. Apocalypse, dungeons, magic, system coming to earth, gods, a badass main character. Def check it out, it just gets better and better the further u read culminating in a epic fight. Can't wait for book 2
There are some Grammer errors but not enough to bring it down a star, but the story was great reminded me a lot of "He Who Fights Monsters", had it's comedy moments with it's heavy moments as well. I recommend reading it.
I usually do not write a review and just let the stars remind me later. I wanted to clarify this one though. I really enjoyed the writing style and the world. What I did not enjoy was the main character or the weird relying on tropes and stories to push things along.
I have been reading a lot of the System Universe type books lately and hands down this is an angle that is different and intriguing. If the second.book is as half as good as the first I will be happy. Thanks for the.great ride.
This is a really good book and very entertaining. I really enjoy the references to anime and 90’s cartoon and story arcs. Very enjoyable and can’t wait to read the next installment. 10/10.
Just finished book 1. I like it so far. I'm enjoying that each character is different in their own ways. They can fight one on one or as a team. I like that there are tough parts & near misses. Looking forward to reading book 2!
I tried this when it first came out and quit. It was too juvenile for me. But then this Author crushed his next series Rogue Ascension. He somehow manages to make this the prequel. I was forced to read this and by the end I liked it.
Always enjoy system based apocalypse stories, and the many various teasing and fun interactions with a healthy does of nostalgia references to Fantasy, sci fi, anime, etc made it an enjoyable read and I look forward to the rest of the series 😀