Bunker Core

Core Control, Book 1

By: Andrew Seiple

Narrated by: Mark Boyett

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Wynne might have been human once. It's hard to say.

Now he's a bunker core, a nanomachine controller responsible for an entire complex.

Of course, the place is a bit wrecked. And the world outside is in ruins. And he's pretty sure that whoever put him here is going to come looking for him at some point. And then there's the raiders....

Bunker Core is dungeon core, post-apocalyptic style. Come for the mutants, stay for the dystopian adventure!

©2018 Andrew Seiple (P)2019 Podium Publishing

awesome take on post apoc dungeons

I like that there are other cores for the MC to worry about. there is perspective on every group which gives more info on the world. interesting secondary charcters. I would say more but i fear spoiling such a good story.

Great Book

The story is intriguing and enjoyable. Characters are interesting. I've never heard this narrator before but he's excellent. He's now in my top 3. Try it, you wont be disappointed.

Good book!

I normally don't like dungeon core books. This one kinda started out in a way that drew me in to the story. Worth the credit.

DC Done Right: Easily my Favorite in the Subgenre

Let me just first say that Dungeon Core LITRPG is my favorite LITRPG.

Pros of this story:
*No "I'm stuck in a game and I miss my family." BS.
*No "I just shot 50 people and set two hospitals on fire to stare down the bad guy, but I will not kill him because that would be unethical!" BS
*The MC is both competent and a pragmatist, and a good "person" when he can be. This is pleasant.
*I really liked the universe with DC-on-DC politics overlaying the typical political forces.
*I really liked how even the MC's allies were self-interested and slightly manipulative within the larger mutual goals.
*Conflict resolution was largely handled with out-of-the-box thinking rather than the usual suspects: Luck and OP stats.
*The action always seemed to escalate.
*Having the MC learn the UI during battle was expertly done.
*We got to find out more and more about the MC in what I thought felt entirely organic and natural.
*I really liked the military background of the MC.
*The "special facility" (no spoilers) to the east really piqued my interest.
*Minimal digression from the DC narrative. It's there, and there' were perhaps about 8 minutes I thought could have been edited out, but it was like 95%+ on track.

Cons:
*I didn't care for some of the jokes between characters, but I also don't care for many things that many people like. It's saving grace for me was that the intended characters responded to it as though they liked it. So, it became just a quirk of the characters. I don't need to like the television show Seinfield for millions of other people to like it.
*The book is almost too ambitious. I enjoyed this book about as much as I enjoyed the first time I watched Episode 4 of Star Wars. So, it's almost going to be a shame if this ends up being a stand-alone story in the same way that Episode 4 would somehow be diminished without episodes 5 & 6. From a writing perspective, I'm trusting that Seiple has a tight and refined outline put together. A story like this could shake to pieces like a diesel engine running on alcohol. The biggest challenge in my mind is that although the MC is demonstrably wily, how will he react when he has a chance to breathe and take the initiative?

Dungeon Core books are a new and experimental subgenre. They don't have standardized set-piece scenes yet, and --if not done properly-- reading about grinding levels can be even more boring than grinding said levels. It is not easy to pull this sort of thing off. Done right, Dungeon Core LITRPG is a frontier in fiction, and this book is easily my favorite in the subgenre. Thank you Seiple!

good start

i liked this series after not being able to get into the authors others. Like some of the other reviews i felt the book was to short for the pacing. It your going to have a word dense story with several POVs and side stories less than 8 hours is more of a intro than a full book.

Loved it

A little slow to get started, but a fun twist on the scifi dungeon core genre, with a dash of military scifi for spice.
in my top 10 liitrpg dungeon core series for sure.. reccomended

Excellent. Exciting. Endearing. Will be want more.

Give it a try, you won't be disappointed. A story you'll want to listen to even after you go to bed.

Great Take on Dungeon Core

Bunker Core, written by Andrew Seiple, is a bit of a different take on your typical dungeon core style books that tend to be in the more D&D style setting. This merges the dungeon core setting with advanced tech in a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Wynne, the core, wakes to find his bunker is under attack. With only another AI, Argus, to help him work out what is going on and how to repel the intruders. Wynne has no memories of his life before, save for a few echos of the past that taunt him occasionally.

The plot quickly builds from there as we learn of the world outside of the bunker. A lot has happened, and we get to learn of what exactly through these interludes.

There's a lot of world-building going on and plenty of plot being added to keep the books going into the future that I'll be for sure getting. Book 2 is already available on Audible, so I might need to get that into my rotation sooner rather than later.

This was a delightful story from start to finish. No harem rubbish, no character lamenting their fate of becoming a core, yet plenty of level-up style achievements with a believable set of rules.

Narrated by the brilliant Mark Boyett, who I enjoyed in previous narrations, did another cracker of a job here. The voice of Wynne was touched with a wry swagger that I think suited the core to the ground.

Full marks for this one. I'll certainly be returning to this world again soon.

A Promising Start!

A promising start to a series. I enjoyed listening to the book and the only con I have is that story is slow for a book that is 9hrs long versus other books that are longer but seem to fly by. I get this is a setup for future books and am looking forward to others and see what happens.

A novel with a novel take on VR

This is my first encounter with an Andrew Seiple book and there is a lot I like about it; not the least which is his choice of Mark Boyett to provide the audio performance. In many ways it's similar to the litRPG sub-genre but I was pleased to discover that he doesn't flood the story telling with a constant protagonist stat-laden list of upgrades as he progresses.

The protagonist himself is somewhat of a mystery, even to himself, which adds a subtle layer of intrigue to the story.

Well worth the credit and and while I'm waiting for book 2 of the series, I noted that the author has been busy, not caring to wait for me to discover him so, I plan to invest in some of his other offerings, also performed by renowned narrators.