Starbreaker: Volume 2

Starbreaker

By: Luke Chmilenko

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

“Blind eyes closed, but all-seeing. What was broken, mend and shatter.

Orphan child, man of letters, tower keeper, castle feller.

Body render, never feeling. What was severed, consume.

Left hand hunger. Right devour.

Starbreaker, death’s victor.

Starbreaker, world eater.

Starbreaker, awake.”

—Prophecy of Aion Origin, date unknown

©2024 Luke Chmilenko (P)2025 Audible, Inc.

Except for one sub-plot this book was captivating

The sub-plot involved him getting blitzed and his teammates pulling the wool over his eyes. Even that would have been okay if it didn't stop the pace of the the story for as long as it did. Otherwise, the story unfolded well and Sylvas continues to discover strange skills and powers come to fore that couldn't be explained by the formal training he receives. The final live combat drill was both thrilling and unexpected.

All the while, unbeknownst to him or the Ardent, he is continued to be spied on by the Dominion who continues to take a predatory interest in him.

Neil Hellegers' performance is still stand-out great.

Weak Follow up to the First

The first book of the series portrays a competent and likeable MC with interesting mostly likeable side characters in a fairly interesting universe of magic.
Book 2 he is whiny, unimpressive, and seems to have the most stunted backbone. He rarely stands up for himself. The side characters become increasingly annoying, and every arc feels like a convoluted slog. Not to meantion the lack of progression on many fronts of the plot that seem to have been all but forgotten from book 1. Im unsure why the Author took so many unappealing turns, except maybe to show indepth character growth. But he did so at the expense of the characters likeability and the pacing of the story.
Its still competently written and not awful. Dont get me wrong. But it is a massive let down.

I cud've given this book 5 stars

There's a lot to like in this story. N truthfully, it has a lot of the elements I enjoy ...and the writing is good. Bad writing has a way of knocking me out of the immersion. So I'm grateful that wasn't the case here.
This an inverted isekai, I love the magic system n world building, n the fight scenes r exciting and invoke very cool imagery. I love all that stuff.
But I had to take away a star though, and a different person may feel that my complaint is actually something that should be admired about the story.
Its too negative n depressing n self-effacing. It takes a skillful writer to convey that tone ...so I'm not trying to criticize the author's ability to set a tone n tell a story ...clearly he is a talented writer.
But I tune into these stories to get away from life's hardships. Not that I need stories to be especially light-hearted. N this book is not all doom n gloom ...but the MC has confidence issues. N hearing him let everyone shit on him all the time is just more annoying than entertaining.
That's my 2 cents.
Neil Hellegers did his thing as per usual.
Still well worth checking out ...I'll tune in for book 3 myself, but ...just saying
****
Update -- I wanted to like this series, but I have to be honest with myself. This book was more upsetting than enjoyable. I am not a masochist, so I am not going to willingly put myself thru this again.
You guys can mess with it if u want, but its not for me.

Nothing Happens?

So many bloat chapters where nothing happens. So little in the way of progression. I get this was a character story but it was a boring character story. The MC acts like he wants autonomy and hates manipulation but then willingly allows his autonomy to be taken, because he hates eidolons? His decisions make little sense which normally wouldn't bother me, but he insists his decisions are all logic based. I don't buy it. Someone insists his power can be used for good in an alternate way, and he fully insists on his own. He's a boot. A through and through boot. He likes the military academy because he doesn't have to think for himself not because of what they do. Also he does so little of value during his off time I got frustrated. The previous book made it feel like this would be a wall to wall action packed novel. But this book was basically slice of slice with random fights popping up. The narration was top notch though. I'm hoping book 3 is better. These books tend to have a boring, exposition one in the middle. All in All, I'd say you could get a synopsis of this book and skip to the third without missing anything.

Boring

I typically like the stories that Luke Chmilenko creates but after 1 book and 20 chapters into the 2nd, I find that I don't care about the characters, the big bad, or the magical system, I will be dropping this.

Got real acquainted with the skip button.

The narrator as always, fantastic, he does good work.

To the story and main character. You ever meet or know someone who is real negative all the time, either believes they are the worst person and the world is out to get them or their the greatest of all time. Real hot/cold type. Very neurotic? You ever wanted to hear their internal thoughts and listen to their self hate and resentment of others in real time for half to full chapters at a time? .....Yeah, me neither. I got real acquainted with the skip button. Which is a shame, cause the overall plot and theme are great!

edit: I can't take this plot serious at all i pretty much skipped the last 5 chapters, i just did not care about the stakes at all...spoiler ahead.

They gave him an objective to destroy the world soul shard thinking it was impossible but he managed to do it. So they arrest him and blame for succeeding....excuse me?!

Absolutely slog

Complete drop off in worldbuilding, the timeline is glacial, the plot has absolutely zero stakes and is completely pointless, and we spend way too much time in the most retarded training program ever imagined.

Terrible second half and poorly written characters

After the first book I was hoping the plot would progress and that the MC would step into his own and grow as a character. Instead he continues to be a spineless twat surrounded by incompetent side characters. The satellite arc is blatantly written around the MC doing the impossible by breaking the core but it’s so poorly written and dragged out that by the end of it you’re left rolling your eyes in an endless loop. And the teachers are so incompetent that it literally baffles the mind how anyone actually progresses in this stupid academy system.