Beastmaster: Symbiosis

A LitRPG science fantasy adventure

By: Kory Shen

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

An alien cat turned me into a superweapon. I was homeless on the streets of Third York when it happened. Then the military arrived and gave me a choice. Enlist or die. The next thing I knew, I was fighting giant robots at the Xenoforce Academy's boot camp. Figuring out superpowers and energy levels was hard enough, but I had to deal with a mind-reading alien princess, a team of gorgeous women, and a femme fatale in charge of the whole operation. Oh, and a galactic conspiracy is threatening all of humanity. It's up to me and my new feline friend to set things right. A civil war's brewing on the homeworld of our allies from space, and hidden traitors are sabotaging Earth's defenses. We'll have to gain the trust of my hot teammates and — Did I mention how tight their bodysuits are? Warning: May not be suitable for all audiences. This book contains sensual and comedic adult scenes of questionable taste, anime-style harem situations, and gamelit/litrpg mechanics.

unique story, terrible narration

I enjoyed the concept, the style, and the world design. I really feel like the AI narrator took a huge chunk from the story, really distracted from the emotions the characters should have portrayed. it's unfortunate. I was able to get past it, but I doubt many will. Id go so far as to say I would enjoy listening it again if it was redone. I still hope for a second book.

AI voice

should have gone with female voice it sounds more human at least although it mispronounced a lot

Won't purchase a computer narrated book again.

The story was very entertaining. Really like the author's style. Almost couldn't finish it because of the horrid computer narration. Purchased book 2 for kindle. Looking forward to reading it.

Good start for a new series! The hero is an underdog who is trying to make the best out of his life when goes down the drain!

Thrown out on the street with nowhere to go and no hope, he meets a cat. That’s when everything changes! Lots of excitement and powering up!

the story itself was amazing

I do NOT like the AI narrator. the story would have been 100 times better, if the narrator had real emotions

Ai voice was aweful

I enjoyed the story and listened to the full book for that reason alone but the AI voice telling the story turned me away from listening to any using ai in the future

quite the interesting story

I actually kind of can't wait for the second one I'm pretty sure it's going to be extremely interesting

God Awful

This is one of the worst books I have ever encountered, and the fact that it is read by a soulless AI doesn't do it any favors. It's cringey, weird, juvenile, awkward, and just plain bad. I didn't pay any money for this and I still feel cheated out of my time and attention.

Complete trash

I'm not sure what is worse the story or the narrator. MC is a deviant sex crazed moron. one step away from bestiality

Interesting Concept Poorly Executed

I don't like to leave bad reviews, but in this case, I feel kinda compelled. I wanted to like this book and support new fiction. In this case, I cannot.

First, the Virtual Voice narration for this was a bad choice. AI cannot effectively emote or understand how text translates to human speech. It completely screwed up tone, mispronounced words, inserted awkward pauses, and I'm reasonably certain it read multiple spelling and grammar errors into the "recording". Virtual Voice might be a cheap way to create an audiobook version of a text, but you get what you pay for (and maybe less, in this case).

In terms of the story itself, there were just so many loose ends and plot holes and forced "choices" and such that it was hard to know what to pay attention to, and it really didn't generate any empathy for any of the characters. Moody teenager bonds with weird alien to become a super-soldier-giant-animal fighting against a different alien robot race invading Earth? This had so much potential. Pretty much all of it wasted.



*** Spoilers ahead ***



It's classified as LitRPG, which I'm familiar with, but the only RPG aspect was the melded form's energy bar, level up tracker, and ability choice. There was no explanation at all as to why these mechanisms existed. I kept wondering if it would turn out the Chimeric aliens (which look like various normal earth animals) were actually using humans as some sort of weird video game characters in a 6-D MMORG or something. Nope. That would have made sense.

In terms of the main character's backstory, it was just ... way too abrupt. Foster kid living with Nth foster family (the only nice ones) a year past aging out because ... ? They're nice people, but then their 18 year old daughter abruptly comes on to MC, who rejects her, so she cries rape to mom and dad. Super nice foster dad kicks out MC 5 minutes later with no warning or explanation? Then the military unit who picks him up in an alley just ... finds out the truth in less than a day but there are no consequences? Why?

The portal to the main base. Used once in the story at the very beginning and it ... only goes one way? Why? And Drake didn't use it save them sooner later ... why? They have portal technology and never use it ... why?

The Mechanics. Giant alien robots that periodically attack Earth and destroy cities and kill lots of humans. Why? No explanation (at least nothing I remember). Earth military is good enough to capture a bunch intact and control them enough to be training dummies, but Earth scientists can't, say ... repurpose any of those parts to kill Mechanics? Reverse engineer the super tech? Do ... anything other than leave them around like tackling dummies filled with live grenades?

The Chimerics. How did the Earth scientists track them (to find MC in the beginning)? Why does Zoe's princess education de facto include Earth history? Why do the Chimerics OR the Mechanics give a crap about Earth at all? Why are they at war with each other? Didn't Zoe say that bonded Beastmasters and Chimerics did pretty much simultaneously? So ... how did that work for Staccato? Can chimerics bond with other sentient alien species? If not, why just humans?

I understand that leaving a lot of these questions dangling leaves hooks for a sequel, but it's a sequel I'm never going to read.

Also, the book tries to be sexy without ever really being sexy and, at least to me, comes off both racist and sexist. It leans into the worst stereotypes.

All the girls, who outnumber MC in the Beastmaster group, are super hot. So is the middle aged doctor who runs the program. Nearly all of them seem to want to bone him and several try ... unsuccessfully. The lesbian couple even invites him for a threesome and he just ... declines? We get lots of descriptions of the girls/women as to how they look in their clothes and how horny this makes MC, but ... they generally never get out of their clothes. Ever. Only one compromised girl, manipulated (?) by a double agent has any narrated nudity at all, and that's PG-13, tops. And her relationship with Staccato is just ... wrong. Like, a drill sergeant f**king a recruit doesn't ring any alarm bells for ANYONE else? Seriously? Seems only evil men are allowed to have heterosexual sex in this story? Anyway, also, pretty much every major character in the book except one seems to be coded White except one of the girls. She's Asian. Guess which girl practices martial arts and has a pretty meek personality, despite being stronger than almost any of the others? I do respect Zoe (the alien "cat") for calling out MC's repeated hypocrisy around his horniness, though. That was at least appropriate. MC is the only character "seen" naked, jerking off in the shower, ONTO THE CAT! Yeesh.

All of the soldiers, except one super hot commander, are male and scared of MC. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't think of any male in the entire story (not counting terrified soldiers) who isn't an asshole to the MC or otherwise betrays or back-stabs him. Wait! Correction. Drake, who is in the story for 1/8 of a scene, isn't mean.

So, yeah. This book, this audio book, it's problematic. In lots of ways. Respect to the author for getting something out there, but please do better next time.