A Potato a Day Keeps Monsters Away

Shelter in Spacetime, Book 1

De: Dmitry Dornichev, Nathan Klausner - translator

Narrado por: Kevin T. Collins

Get this: you wake up in the hospital. You're not feeling so hot—to put it mildly—and also, you're surrounded by hordes of zombies! After trying to run away, you eventually find a map of the building, but guess what? It's in French! Why? 'Cuz you're in France!

You've got nothing on you but a baseball bat, and the zombies are just one step away from biting you on your bare backside. But don't worry, there's still hope, because you've got your own personal shelter in spacetime.

©2024 Dmitry Dornichev; English translation copyright 2024 by Nathan Klausner (P)2024 Tantor

Based MC

Funny, gritty, Russian no BS takes on the apocalypse and thrives. Even helps others along the way .. kinda

Really good!

this was really entertaining it was a mix of dark and humorous but do be warned that the author is Russian and if you have listened or read anything by Russian author you know what to expect competent and morally grey MC but also their point of view of men and women. overall it was a good story and im definitely getting the next one when it comes out

Good start

Very good start to an interesting story. I know a few lady friends of mine would not find it very amusing. The misogynistic lead male character would definitely not play well too many audiences here in the United States. Though it was quite amusing.

Hella misogynistic, but fun looking at it as satire.

every thing in it is so playing into 12 yr old boy stereotypes, that it's hilarious.

Interesting premise, unlikeable MC

I liked the premise, the system seems interesting. While I understand that this is a translation, the overall writing feels shallow. The characters are lacking in depth. All the males characters are misogynistic pigs and the women are nothing more than boobs and "stress relief". I could not not finish.

Uncomfortable misogyny.

Apparently the writer is an aggressive misogynist. Main character is an obvious incel. Females are regularly called stupid and every Female is identified by breast size and looks more often than her name. Also, every female is constantly throwing herself at the main character and drowning him in compliments. The whole thing comes across as laughably stupid. It’s like if the world‘s biggest incel wrote a story. The main hero has a camp filled with horny beautiful women who idolize him…. And just a handful of men who could never compete with him because he is so awesome. All of the women totally understand why the main character talks to them in an incredibly degrading way and occasionally hits them. And in spite of verbal and physical abuse, they are constantly drooling over him.

Also, I have no clue why this book was associated with LGBTQIA plus fiction. There is one background character who might be a lesbian but her whole existence is to satisfy a lesbian fantasy for the male reader… a lesbian fantasy that doesn’t come true because she is busy throwing herself at the main character.

Seriously, this book is really fracking stupid.

Extremely Misogynistic

First off, the writing and performance are actually pretty good, with a fun concept, some funny jokes and a few clever turns of phrase i'm genuinely impressed by. The world and the system are clearly thought out, the main character is consistent in being a complete ass, and you can understand why he is the way he is.

That said, i think some other reviewers think its just the main character who is extremely misogynistic. I don't think thats the case. If it were the case, we would be shown that women are useable for things other than looking pretty and to "relieve stress."
The issue isnt for how women are treated in the book, though i'd understand that while it may be "realistic" it would be uncomfortable for many who may just want a silly post apocalypse book that this portrays itself as. The issue is that to me, at-least it seems the author agrees with the character. Rarely is a woman in this book described by anything other than her looks, and rarely do they do anything but fawn over the main character.

Overall, the book was a fun time but it really became hard by the end to tell if the author was writing a character, or writing a world and people as he saw them, if that makes sense.

Not particularly entertaining.

This is a book that would have benefited from slower pacing; more attention to detail, some scene chewing would have gone along well, The setting isn’t particularly well built, and I’d give it more time for a slower burn, but that’s really not the vibe here.

The MC is incredibly unlikable, giving grace for the general cynicism of Eastern European literature, there’s not a whole lot going on for the man. He’s not particularly clever, nothing really stands out about him besides the series entitled power. Now, if the combat was exciting, or the system structure was interesting/ well planned, some of this might be salvageable; not every MC has especially interesting, but at that point you need something else going on to support the story.

Now that’s not to say it’s a bad book, it’s okay, I’ve read worse, it’s just not particularly captivating and the approach leaves much to be desired. There’s an attempt here to make a gritty, desperate zombie/system story, but not nearly enough care is given to the setting to make that work. Perhaps the original language helped, maybe the original Russian created more captivating word choices, or raised the level of literary finesse, but this version at least falls flat.!!

Harem, proceed at your own risk

For those who do not enjoy harems, this book is chock full of definite harem accents.

I'm not going to knock this book just because the MC is a misogynist jerk, because the world building it novel and the plot is awesome.

But be warned that the MC is not a hero (which is perfectly fine) and makes no bones about the fact that he's not a hero. What he is, is a man trying to survive after waking in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.

Concept - 5 - Great
world – 4
Story- 4
Character – 1 unrepentant misogynist
Character progr. - 2 perhaps he will become better? I don't know and will not be interested in finding out
Dialogue – great dialogue
writing – awesome
conflict– will he survive or will he fail to secure his little world.

Overall rating = 4
Comment: Read at your own risk, rated for misogyny and harem