The Station Core: A Dungeon Core Epic

Station Cores, Book 1

By: Jonathan Brooks

Narrated by: Miles Meili

Milton Frederick was arguably the best player of Crowned Lieges of Destiny in the entire world. As the strategy coordinator for one of the top guilds, he was beginning to actually make a living from it. That was, until he was abducted by aliens.

Instead of your stereotypical grey aliens with big black eyes who like to perform anal probes upon unsuspecting victims for unknown reasons, the Collective had a more altruistic purpose. Sure, kidnapping 100 humans from Earth, ripping them away from their lives and families, and erasing their memories doesn’t sound great - but the way they saw it, the benefits would far outweigh these side-effects. Seriously, who wouldn’t want their consciousness trapped in a Station Core, subjected to the whims of a collection of alien races, and then ordered to defend against other hostile aliens for all eternity? They’d be immortal - so...bonus!

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the Station Core now known as Milton never arrived at his destination. Severely damaged and confused about what happened to him, he woke up to find himself trapped inside a massive chicken egg on a strange, primitive world filled with curious - and deadly - creatures.

Now, in order to survive the harsh environment, Milton has to rely on a snarky, foul-mouthed AI guide to show him what it means to be a Station Core. With her help, he might just live long enough to figure out a way to get off the planet - if only he wasn’t so afraid of squirrels....

Contains litRPG/gamelit elements such as level progression and experience, optional tables, no harems, and a heavy dungeon-core emphasis.

Based on feedback, there has been an update to include the absent footnotes to the narration. Many of the longer stat table footnotes are contained in separate chapters for ease of listening.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Jonathan Brooks (P)2019 Jonathan Brooks

Brooks delivers another unique and interesting GameLit audiobook.

Just like his other series, Dungeon World, Jonathon Brooks has fleshed out a singular and enjoyable dungeon-core story. I’m impressed with his ability to move against the grain and think up scenarios and worlds that don’t even touch the tropes and well-trod story paths that the genre is saturated with.

Though not as a egregious as it was in Dungeon World, Brooks still occasionally falls into the trap of lingering a bit too much on direct exposition in the dungeon building mechanics. There were again several times where the flow and immediacy of the story was interrupted because the prose turned into more of a lab report or a text-book explanation for longer than it should have.

That said, this book is absolutely worth the credit.
Though it should be noted that one of the characters is unable to speak without including a scorching stream of profanity.

So if you are listening with little kids or are the kind of person who’s taste in art is driven by wether or not it matches your couch and curtains, you should probably go back to blissfully reading Highlights and tssk’ing at Goofus.

Fun story idea damaged by stats recitals

This is an rpg story. The issue is constant recitals of boring stats columns and repetition of game menus. Every chapter starts with several minutes of this. It is too much and is not suitable for an audiobook.

You had me at bloodthirsty squirrels 🐿

I have to say that I love dungeon core books and that I have found Jonathan brooks to be a true master of the genre. He gets the crunchy stats, the development, timelines, world building, magic systems, all of it just right. A really great feature as well Of his audio book is that he condenses the majority of the stats into sub chapters that can be skipped if it’s hot for you (personally I love the stats so listen to them as well). This is the story of a peaceful alien race being overrun. In a last ditch attempt they seek to capture great human military minds and encase them in station cores to do their fighting for them. They also took a couple gamers as a test. This is the story of that gamer and how the experiment didn’t go quite as planned. This is the first in a great series and really sets everything up well and delivers on all the great aspects one could want in a dungeon core tale. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

Great Read

Loved it cant wait for the next books to come out it's a good start for a much longer story

Fun Dungeon Core LitRPG

I requested this audiobook from Audiobooks Unleashed and have voluntarily left this review.

I enjoyed the book. It features an interesting blend of science fiction and fantasy. The main character, Milton (a gamer), is abducted from Earth by aliens and becomes a station core, a high tech dungeon core. He starts out damaged and needs to use his tech and ingenuity, along with some help from an AI companion, to defend himself, repair his core, continue to build his dungeon/station, and, someday, get off the planet he crashed on.

There is some humor in it with banter between main characters and just their peculiarities. If you like the author's Dungeon World series, you'll probably like this one as well. There are some similarities. It also features the same narrator. The narration is good.