Cyber Squad - Level 3

By: A.K. Mocikat

Narrated by: Jared Kedzia

Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Nothing is as it seems….

After the hacker attack that almost killed Kai and his entire team, everyone at Helltek is on edge. Worse, all evidence points to the saboteur being an employee of the company. Kai not only fears for his and his friends’ safety but the suspicion someone close to him might be the one responsible is disturbing. And that’s just one of Kai’s problems.

His nightmares have worsened and he almost suffers another heart attack in his sleep. The God in the Machine is after him, and he’s getting closer every day. If that wasn’t bad enough, Raven, Alice’s sociopathic boyfriend, has sworn to kill Kai. This doesn’t stop Kai from meeting Alice in secret, and it is her who reveals to him what the God in the Machine truly is—a truth far more horrifying than Kai ever could have imagined.

Kai finds himself in the center of conspiracies and intrigues that redefine everything he thought he knew about VR. Everyone has their own agenda and it’s becoming more difficult to distinguish between friend and foe. Meanwhile, the saboteur and the people they work for are preparing their final blow and the God is lurking in the Dark Net, waiting to strike….

©2022 A.K. Mocikat (P)2022 A.K. Mocikat

Even better than the first two books!

CYBER SQUAD - LEVEL 3 by Anna Mocikat is the third volume of the Cyber Squad series. I'm not a big fan of Lit-RPG in general but I've made an exception with this series. I also note that it has gradually deemphasized the number crunching and moved the series more toward GameLit in general. I think this is to the series benefit as Anna Mocikat seems much more interested in the characterization as well as world-building versus "leveling up."

Generally, I enjoyed the book and really like Kai as a protagonist. I'm not a fan of Kai and Alice, the latter coming off as manipulative as well as somewhat scummy versus the other girls that are interested in our hero. Indeed, it's a bit like Kvothe and Deanna, except the former has eyes for other women on occasion while Kai is in love with his image of Alice. I don't expect this to change but it's interesting to see how the story develops even as Kai continues to lose himself toward the exact wrong kind of woman.

The book is full of action, adventure, and lots of twists and turns. I also love Anna Mocikat's parody of Cyberpunk 2077 with Steampunk 2020. It's a bug-ridden mess our heroes know isn't going to be able to be cleaned up before launch day and watching Kai try to deal with it was hilarious. I am a bit sad we didn't see our permanently shy and awkward hero forced to try "adult mode" though. That was promised!

Overall, if you liked the previous two books, you'll like this but I actually think this is the best one of the series yet. There's a lot more plot going on here than level grinding and the characters seem richer and the stakes higher. Good cyberpunk all round. The narration is great as well and I'm actually excited for the next installment.

Two worlds one heart

I am loving that Alice really likes Kai and that Kai would do anything for her. It was interesting that two of the testers were really government agents. I want to know what happens next. I guess I will have to wait.

Another wonderful addition

This perfectly captures Kai's struggle between his dream life, and the love of his life.

Great Story GREAT Narrator!

I loved how much energy and emotion this narrator put into this story. Fantastic choice. I definitely recommend the series to anyone who loves scifi and gaming! I wanted to listen to all of it in one day but I had to stop myself from getting carried away. Look for more from these two in the future!

another amazing book

Kai and the team finally get to move on to the next big game! Steampunk 2020!

This book is full of twists and reveals I was on the edge of my seat every reveal.

Jared Kedzai did a great job bringing the cast to life.

I want to rant and rave more about the book but there are so many answers in this book it would spoil tons of the story!

so in short book good, buy book.

great continuation of the series

the twists, the betrayals, the game mechanics. all solid. romance was a bit overdone

Ending was awesome

This book was pretty short, but I liked it alot. There are some reservations I have about this book, but overall I like it. The cliffhanger was so awesome, the whole last chapter kept me on my toes.


The new narrator isn't as good as the old one I my opinion, but I feel he grew into the role. At the start of the book, I didn't really like him, but as the story went on he became more bearable. He's not a bad narrator, he actually has alot of voices and his voices are pretty good. Zachary just fit the whole mysterious dark web vibe I got from this book. I do feel by book four I will have gotten used to Jared just as much as I have Zachary. So basically, if you think the change in narrators is gonna be a problem Don't. Jared for sure deserves a 4 start to a 4.5.



We're just gonna go over everything in one big paragraph.
Alot of plot twists were in this book (especially at the end) I personally liked them, and book four is gonna be a ride for sure. (I just hope it's longer) I do still have the problem I had for the last book. I don't see a main goal or where the story is heading. It seems like the story progressed in this book, but I can't really tell. Him and Alice have progressed, but that's the only real solid progression besides him learning more about the dark web.
I also feel that Kai is kind of a weakling, yea he has his moments where he does something awesome, I guess weakling isn't the right word, but he keeps on getting deeper and deeper into these plans and whatnot and he's still the same, no sweet skills that only he can use in vr or something like that. He's just way above his pay grade and I thought that would've been fixed in this book. Characters are also pretty cool, but I haven't really had a problem with them. A.K Mocikat has done really good with them.
I'd also like to add, the romance doesn't seem as forced. it's more realistic in this book besides some of his dumb thoughts and some of the tropes him and Alice fall into. it certainly has gotten better then book one and two.



I overall recommend this sequel, I've waited for this book since the prequel and I wasn't disappointed. I'm for sure gonna be here for book 4.

Level 3 Goes Deeper

With everything that's happened to this point, the pool only gets deeper for Kai. The hidden dangers of VR are closing in around him both in the game and in the real world. As always, no one is what they seem...

Usually a Narrator change is terrible...

... But in this case it was not. As listeners usually are, I was very disappointed to see a new narrator mid-series because it almost always throws off the listening experience with new voices, tones, and delivery making for a frustrating transition. This however was not the case in this instance. This series revolves around a relatively small cast of humans, none of which feature particularly odd or unique voices, allowing the new narrator to use his own voices to decently replicate what came before. I could hear the changes immediately but it only took a few minutes before my mind had made the transition and I was able to mostly ignore the change. The tone and delivery were close enough to the original that it was only a minor bump in the road that I was able to quickly adjust to.
The character Topher is inexplicably changed to "Toffer" and the Machine God's voice is not as synthesized as before but these are small issues considering how awful narrator swaps usually are. I definitely recommend that you not let the narrator change keep you from listening... Jared is a talented narrator and you will enjoy his performance as much as the original.

Best story yet. cant wait for level 4

This series keeps getting better and better. My only criticism is on the narration. It wasnt that he was a bad narrator but he pronounces a few things different from the narrator of the first two.