The Crucible

Reclaimer, Book 1

By: Waldo Rodriguez

Narrated by: BJ Harrison

Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

From the ashes of a dying world, a god will rise.

As an out of shape nerd, Gabriel Rivera had more pressing issues than outlandish things like godhood: Evacuating the city, joining the military, and protecting his family. Simple right?

Everything changed when the PAC invaded.

When the grim fate of his world is revealed, Gabriel joins the Reclaimer Project to save his family. A lowly F ranker, he's weaker than even the worst recruits. Good thing he's too stubborn for his own good.

Through blood and sweat Gabriel aims to grow stronger and rise above the rest.

Deadly traps lurk around every corner, mysterious factions move in the shadows, and dormant powers within him manifest in wild and dangerous ways.

Battered, bruised, and beaten, Gabriel refuses to stay down. For only in the fires of The Crucible are legends forged.

©2022 Waldo Rodriguez-Santiago (P)2023 Tantor

Noice.

I enjoyed it. Not ground breaking but at the end of the day I was entertained.

Teen with bad stats trains to be Top Gun

It's the future, and the world is near collapse with huge storms and lack of resources.

The teen MC is rated as having average intellect but all other stats the worst possible. In D&D parlance, where stats range from 3 to 18 at the start, he has INT&WIS 10 with all other stats 3. One incongruity right off is his "lowest possible charisma". The MC does not act like a person everyone wants to avoid. The military training exercises mainly just make him short of breath.

In short, his F-rank status (worst possible) doesn't seem earned. However, he's also been evaluated as having a "high potential." Still, he has really low stats, so he asks why he is there. "That's above your pay grade." And then the young MC sent into training with lots of expensive equipment. The other recruits then tell the MC how terrible he is over and over and over and over and over again.

If you like a book in which the MC is insulted for the same reason and in the same way many dozens of times, maybe you'll like it. For me, this fails “Show, don't tell” -- we don't need to be told about terrible stats this many times. A similar story is Summoned! -- The MC there really does have terrible stats, but works hard them. This story tries to be a Recruit Teenagers with Attitude trope, but fumbles.

Narrator does a fine job with what he's given.

It has potential

So, it's interesting and little plot armor to be found, rather brutal.

Now there is tons of moral questioning and self doubt and loathing, tons and tons of teenage angst of doing the right thing.

Then there is niave points where the "bad guy" of the book is in the right and the MC just throw a fit because he doesnt like the fact. Like leaving someone to die who would die and couldn't be saved but trying to could get them all killed. He doesnt like that fact so whines and blames the other guy for it, even though it's not the others guys fault. The MC is just upset at the other guys brutal blunt honesty about the fact of the situation and not sugar coating it to make the MC feel better.

So if you like the holes idealist who ignores facts to try to make everything seem black or white. This might be for you. If not you might at times lean towards the bad guy of the story and find the MC a niave idiot.

While the premise is interesting the program is supposed to take place over 2 years and 3 phases with the first phase being the first 3 months. Without to much spoiler, this book only covers the first phase. So the pacing is a little slow and makes on worry the whole series might be about training and not what comes after or takes 5 books to get to it.

So if you like school training completion books this is great, if you want them to get on with the actual story of what the training is for this might be a slow series for that if at all.

fantastic new world, very compelling characters

this is a fantastic new world with really compelling characters. we do not yet get to the root cause of what is going on to make this training happen but it is building!

It’s good

this book is great, don’t sit on it it’s worth the listen
I want more!

12 hrs & only training

12 hours into the story and it’s nothing but training. It seems like it could have a very interesting story but I need to know every single detail about them training. I like training arcs not training books. When training is more important then the story I lose interest. Maybe it gets awesome later but I’ll never know

Super stupid MC

MC reminds of people I knew in bootcamp. He is completely incapable of shutting the fuck up. Always goes and does stupid shit and always has a million excuses for why it's ok to do it. He seriously finds the concept of standing still and not talking to be to complicated. I don't know why authors write these kind of characters as MC Because in real life bootcamp these guys were hated and avoided as much as possible.

torture on my ears

Ever feel that sense of loss when a good story is over with? Ever wish that just one more chapter would magically appear? Well not with this book, the best part is when it was over. An eighteen year old overweight kid is going to magically get into peak physical shape in less than a month by doing every exercise wrong, ignoring the advice of people who had been doing their job for years. The best way to describe this book is to take the worst aspect of MAZE RUNNER mix in even worse story telling, blend and print. I wasted a credit, hopefully you won't.

20 hour training arc that goes nowhere

Ok I tried I really did but this has to be the most long winded pitty party ever....... " spoilers tldr it's a bad book"

MC is sad because his dad died then MC is sad because he couldn't save a random girl. Then MC is sad because his family won't know he is alive ect.... the problem with this is the book straight tells you the Mc is sad then has him act and perform like everything is ok only to "self destruct" by over training that turns out to be "not hard enough training". I'm 10 hours in and I can't continue. The needless if I told you I have to kill you theim / there are secret stats and powers that we will hint at but not explain for 20 hours..... I may edit this review, but as far as I can tell this is a 20 hour training arc for book two. Why anyone would want a book two when no one even likes anything going on in book one other than the basic world building established. I use that term "established" generously..... is a wonder to me.

I don’t get it

I gave up 3/4 of the way through, I couldn’t get over the uselessness of the training, 90% of the characters got killed and for no reason, Your telling me that the most technological/poweful organization in the world’s best way of training is to run them through a obstacle course over and over to kill off the undeserving. I can’t believe I wasted a credit on this book.