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.
My Opinion: 204 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Asked to review novel by author. Says it is light LitRPG with a unique mechanic. The main character (MC) bonds with alien cat creature and is thus pulled into an galactic conflict. Merging with creature gives MC access to powers with an energy cost. The MC fights other beast masters while training at this academy and the bond with the alien cat evolves (no explanation of how that happens or what that means) but it unlocks new abilities and energy pool the MC uses gets bigger. So, technically there is a clear form of gamified progress for the powers in this universe, which makes it LitRPG. However, as a LitRPG story, it’s not particularly satisfying. The RPG aspect is very very light and doesn’t have much depth. It boils down to the MC choosing between 2-3 new powers every evolution. The other aspects of the story are more fleshed out and interesting.
The other aspects: combat, the sci-fi concepts, academy training, and the thriller elements at the end are more interesting. The combat is the big focus of the story with fights happening every few pages sometimes. Fights between training beastmasters, fights against machines, fights with bad guys. Lots of good fights. There was much more effort put into creating a backstory for why the alien Chimeria, including a class system and uprising. The thriller aspects while not prominent in the beginning part of the story, are rather good too.
The author writes that they intended to bring Anime style harem into the story but that doesn't come through in the story. That kind of harem involves multiple women being attracted to an MC and pursuing him romantically, no sex usually. In this story the MC is surrounded by female beastmasters but none seem to be interested romantically in him. They just exist around him and eventually fight with him as friends and comrades. There’s a minor amount of comedic moments as the MC just gets aroused alot, but that’s kind of it. So, if you’re expecting graphic sex scenes because the author used the tag ‘harem’ this doesn’t have them.
Overall, while there are some interesting and well developed aspects of the story and some decent to good combat, as LitRPG it just didn’t work for me. I think people that don’t care as much about the RPG parts will enjoy this more. Folks that like good action, sci-fantasy, or folks that like super power stories will appreciate this.
Score: 6 out of 10
Beastmaster: Symbiosis: A harem LitRPG science fantasy adventure (Beastmasters Book 1)