Biomedical Self-Engineering

A Blue Box Universe Series, Book 1

De: Jon Svenson

Narrado por: Justin Thomas James, Jude Erin

Divorced and working as a security guard in Portland, 73-year-old Carl is attacked by an unknown creature before he is able to taser it to death. After being released from the hospital, he discovers by accident that he is unwittingly acquiring DNA samples from other people he touches.

He discovers a number of shocking facts about himself when a blue box appears in his right eye. Most importantly, he discovers that his health is nowhere near what he assumed it would be. Can he reverse the negative aspects of his health using these blue boxes, somehow? And can he reverse his poor financial situation after his wife took half his pension just before retirement?

Biomedical Self-Engineering is a LitRPG slice-of-life adventure following Carl as he discovers new ways of living life when he is nearing the end of his own. There are no explicit scenes, no harems, and only one swear word at the very end.

©2020 Jon Svenson (P)2022 Jon Svenson, Soundbooth Theater

Hehehehe, that was fun

I'm old! I get bit by an alien aaand now I'm upgrading myself! Too fun!

A nice low stakes breather.

I gotten a copy of this audio book in a giveaway and was asked to review it once I was done.

Biomedical Self-Engineering is a litrpg slice of life centering around an elderly man named Carl who gained the ability to modify his body, with this he gain a new motivation to pursue a new lifestyle. Let me be the first to say that this is a much needed breath of fresh air from the endless amount of edge-lord power fantasy, harem fantasy, and apocalypse fantasy there is out there. The stakes are small, but there are hints of something more going on in the background and I can't wait to see what more Jon Svenson has for us.

Sound Booth Theater has once again knocked it out of the park with their performance. Justine Thomas James and Jude Erin are great narrators and gives story a whole new dimension to enjoy. SBT makes it really hard to listen to audiobooks that were not narrated by them.

fun, but predictable

Great voices, great story with a fun twist to the whole implementation of a system

A solid slice of life GameLit-ish story.

This is one of a very small number of audiobooks I’ve purchased with a run time under 8-9 hours. Normally, I see any audiobook that comes in under 9 hours as a cash grab or a book by an author who isn’t yet ready to write a “real” book and thus is probably not yet a particularly good fantasy writer.

I was pleasantly surprised in this instance. This book is by no means great, but I don’t think the author was going for that. In the end this book was an interesting tale about an old man taking a chance to try new things and change his life.

While there is a GameLit element to this story the Game aspect is more of a catalyst for the MC than a structurally integral part of the story so far. There are no “stats” in the normal sense and like you’d expect from an old man who never owned a computer the protagonist spends very little time thinking about or interacting with “the system.”

On the whole it was an enjoyable experience and the book didn’t leave me feeling like the author/publisher was trying to pull a fast one. A lot happens in the course of the book while still keeping the SoL vibe.

If you’re looking for epic then this isn’t it, but if you have space in your cue for a different kind of story then this book might be your jam.

Good Job

I was kind of hoping for a more slow build on the guy. Like he’d level up and slowly repair his body. But that got trashed by the initial points he had to curing cancer and all manner of unhealthy body problems.

The story was kind of all over the place as he goes from old dude who just got the system to slowly making a fortune on treasure hunting. Going to see if book 2 slows that down a bit.