This book really feels like a Harmon Cooper or JA Cipriano story melded into William D. Arand’s Super Sales on Super Heroes. That’s not bad, but it doesn’t have its own distinctive voice per se. The story itself is a Harem/Portal/Litrpg tale about a man framed for murder and is then abducted by aliens to be placed in their intergalactic jail for super criminals. His problem is, he doesn’t have any powers, and he makes some pretty powerful enemies as soon as he arrives. The book then turns into a survival, level up, stop the big bad who is coming story. That bit isn’t bad, but the tale is really swamped by sex scenes. Now, I get why the sex is important to the story, but the MC, Breaker, stops to have sex about every five minutes, even when he is on the clock and there is a timer counting down. Granted, there are times when the sex serves a purpose, but if you did a fade to black everytime he had sex you would probably shave an hour and a half off of the run time of the book. I’m no prude, and I am not offended by sex scenes, but sometimes the story should play out a bit more before the characters engage in coitus. Just as an example, in JA Cipriano’s the Pen is Mightier 2, the MC meets a girl in Vegas, and actually takes some time to get to know her before they finally do the deed. Here it was almost like a pizza guy making a delivery in a porno. Ding dong, Hi gotcher pizza! Thanks, you want a slice? Wink Wink. And that is a real shame because Breaker, and his bevy of beautiful bouncy babes all are interesting characters, and have some pretty cool back stories that could be further expounded upon. Their powers are all fairly unique, or at least used in new ways, and the leveling worked enough for me to consider this to be Litrpg.
The real saving grace here is the audible antics provided by Soundbooth Theater. The team is on point and packing heat for this one, and you can tell they were having fun with it. The girls really know how to turn on the naughty, and JTJ manages to make you believe he is just a regular guy simultaneously having the best and worst day of his life. Jiffy Jeff Hays gets to play the heavy, and he knows how to bring the menace and monstrous to a character. I know, I sound like a fanboy, but I know that when I have SBT as my auditory attackers that I will have been handed the best quality narration I could ask for.
Again, this could have been an amazing book, if Hawke had added some more story to make up for the overriding sex scenes. Then they wouldn’t have felt so overwhelming or broken the storyline up so much. I really think that we needed a little more time in the prison, with some added danger, a few more minor characters, and a little more revelation about all the fighting going on. We could have met a few more faction leaders, or some character that Breaker did not want to have sex with or get to have sex with.
My score would have been higher if this had been more fully fleshed out. Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. Getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.
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