What's worse than Australian wildlife? Mutated Australian wildlife.
The System Apocalypse has come to Australia, altering native organisms and importing even more menacing creatures to the most dangerous continent on Earth. For Kira Kent, plant biologist, the System arrives while she's pulling an all nighter at work with her pair of kids in tow.
Now, instead of mundane parental concerns like childcare and paying the bills, she's got to figure out how to survive a world where already deadly flora and fauna have grown even more perilous - all while dealing with the minutiae of the System’s pesky blue screens and Levels and somehow putting together a community of survivors to forge a safe zone to shelter her son and daughter.
It almost makes her miss the PTA fundraising sales. Almost.
Town Under is the first book in a new series, The System Apocalypse: Australia. It's set in the same universe as Tao Wong's The System Apocalypse and starts in the same time period as Life in the North but focuses on the changes in the deadliest of continents, Australia. Fans of the original series, LitRPG, fantasy, science-fiction and post-apocalyptic novels will want to take a look
My Opinion: 487 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
This is an entertaining story from a couple of my favorite authors. Tao Wong’s flexible System Apocalypse story world lends itself well to an expanded universe. K.T. Hanna does a good job of taking the few hard rules and making the setting her own by putting the story in Australia and having a relatable female main character (MC) who is a mom who has to not only survive the RPG apocalypse, but also make sure her kids do too. The story itself is pretty slice of life with regular action, some town building, and good class progression.
A few minor gripes which I don’t think are deal breakers for any of the readers that will enjoy this. The first half of the story could have been a bit tighter. The pacing started to drag a bit as the MC kept trying to find other survivors. But once the antagonists shift from just mutated animals to other more complex forces and people, things pick up again. Though I’ll note that the big quest conflict isn’t actually resolved by the end of the story and instead is left as a cliffhanger, which some readers will find frustrating.
Other than those minor things, the story was rather good and I think it’s my favorite story from K.T. Hanna. The RPG stuff is in line with what appears in the main System Apocalypse series and the MC and the other survivors all have their own well developed RPG classes with lots of numbers and notifications.
Overall good stuff.
Score: 7.7 out of 10
Town Under: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG (The System Apocalypse: Australia Book 1)