Mistrunner: A Cyberpunk LitRPG

Mistrunner, Book 1

By: Nicholas Searcy

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

Length: 24 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Imbued with superhuman power, a young woman becomes the ultimate weapon, in this post-apocalyptic cyberpunk series from the bestselling author of Death: Genesis.

Ninety years ago, Earth was consumed—and irrevocably transformed—by a cloud of alien nanites known as the Mist, bestowing humanity with uncanny abilities and enhancing technology far beyond early twenty-first century science. But these advancements came at a high price: Billions are dead. The planet has been overrun by vicious monsters. And alien overlords await the opportunity to swoop in and exploit what remains of Earth and its people for all their worth.

Mirabelle Braddock was born into this much-changed world. In the megacity of Nova, built above the flooded ruins of New Orleans, she lives a privileged, though isolated, life as the niece of Jeremiah Braddock. Jeremiah survived the onset of the Mist to become one of the planet's most dangerous men, and he intends to use his hard-earned power to accomplish a single goal: train Mira to withstand Earth's imminent Integration into the larger galaxy.

Soon, the alien factions waiting in the wings will descend and strip the planet bare, leaving little more than a wasteland. To ensure Mira's survival, Jeremiah has given her a unique Tier 7 Nexus Implant, granting her abilities heretofore unseen. Further augmented with cybernetics and an arsenal of advanced weaponry, Mira has the potential to become the most powerful being on Earth—and possibly even save the world from its seemingly inevitable destruction.

The first volume of the hit cyberpunk LitRPG series—with more than 500,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 Nicholas Searcy (P)2023 Podium Audio

Very good

I really well-thought-out setup for a future. Of a technique is taking on the world harshness of her new reality. Very strong, interesting character with a lot of adventures in her future..

Great, but stats!

Solid story, pacing, and plot. Status and skill parts could be better optimized for audio. They were way too long at times. Instead of doing a full list of stats and then a summary of changes/skill ups, why not reverse the order? Also sucked to hear the full tree just about every single time, including abilities that were out of range. Like why keep repeating T5 abilities if character is only T1 or T2?

Still liked the book and would recommend to others.

Good

Overall I enjoyed this story. Four stars because of the repetitiveness of the writing. After the 4th or fifth time, we understand that her Constitution and [combat utility] are allowing her to keep going. It seemed to get better as the book progressed, so I am continuing this series.

Not perfect, but pretty damn good besides..

I would say that this is one of the more realistic litrpg's i have heard/read. the action is horrifying and gruesome, the MC acts like a real teen girl and not the over the top parodies that they usually get depicted as. Sure she has some dumb, or selfish moments but who didn't at that age? It is helped that she quickly grows beyond it. I really enjoy the whole horrors of war aspect. Many of Mira's enemies are often victims themselves, yet she must fight them or be consumed by them. I also love that while it is very dark at times, it is not without it's genuine lighter moments. Most of the character are quite likable and their motivations are sympathetic even if you don't entirely agree with their actions. Overall if you want a hard as nails story with consequences that stick this book just might be for you.
All that said there are some minor annoyances, for one the story gets a bit predictable after a while once you catch onto the theme. It often feels like this whole story is actually just a very long prologue. There is also some annoying inconsistencies with abilities working or not working depending on what the plot needs. Also the numbers start to blend together and become gibberish that i found i could just skip and not really lose anything in the story. Though to be fair Mistrunner is hardly unique in this problem. Litrpg authors really need to figure out how to keep track of their numbers and powers. Still while i did roll my eyes and sigh a couple times it wasn't really enough to take me out of the story and i quickly went and pre ordered the next one as soon as i was done.

In the end if you want big guns big explosions, big stakes, beg personalities and even bigger monsters this book is definitely going to scratch that itch.

Nice twist of the litrpg

I like that It is realistic to a certain extent of what would actually happen during a litrpg apocalypse It is also pretty dark instead of having human CEO overlords pretty much we now have alien CEO OVERLORDS I enjoyed listening to it and I like how there is a period of time that the aliens don't come to Earth but not out of kindness of their hearts instead it's a quarantine so they are sure to not spread diseases or other things But there are aliens that break these rules and break the quarantine to do illegal stuff very realistic

Production good. Story weak.

Seems as if written for teenagers. Narration and production were good. Not terrible and not great. Leveling up stats were tedious and overly lengthy for an audio book. I found myself fast forwarding through most of them.

Pretty good.

Pretty solid story. The voice acting was well done. It felt very YA. something I would give a high schooler to read. Good stuff.

This is the beginning of something GREAT!

If you weren't a fan of LITRPG's, you will be by the end of this book. You will also be thirsty for the second book. So read up, and let yourself sink into the pages or get lulled away by Soneela. Enjoy the experience.

Alacrity and leaped

A good book. The main protagonist is well written if not a little naive and it’s a slow start at least for me but the world building and system was well done. Though there comes a point in the book that the author uses alacrity and leaped so many times it makes me wonder if he didn’t have a thesaurus handy he could use or just change leaped to leapt a few times but overall great book

Character development 

Love this book and will be buying and getting the next one and can’t wait for the third one