Station Cores Complete Compilation

A Dungeon Core Epic Books 1 through 5

By: Jonathan Brooks

Narrated by: Miles Meili

Length: 56 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

Contains all five books in the Station Cores series: 

• The Station Core - Book 1 
• The Quizard Mountains - Book 2 
• The Guardian Guild - Book 3 
• The Kingdom Rises - Book 4 
• The Other Core - Book 5 

In addition, there are some bonuses: 

• Hand-drawn maps (admittedly done by me without much artistic talent) that I used to help me write the series 
• A fun 12,000-word short story that combines the Dungeon World and Station Cores universes. 

Milton Frederick was originally abducted from his apartment to help defend one batch of pacifistic aliens called The Collective against another set of homicidal aliens called Heliothropes...but he never quite made it that far. Instead, during the process where his human consciousness was ripped from his body and inserted into a massive metal contraption called a Station Core, the ship that he was being transported on blew up and he was sent hurtling through space. 

Crash-landing on an unknown planet with just a foot-and-a-half tall, foul-mouthed, nanite-formed AI guide called ALANNA to tell him what happened, Milton has to come to terms with his new existence as a giant metal egg, defend his hazardously-in-need-of-repair outer shell from the dangerous local wildlife (including blood-thirsty squirrels), and manage the unique radiation spewing from his damaged internal reactor - all while figuring out how the heck to get off the planet. 

All of his work building a “dungeon” underground, defending it with makeshift traps, and filling it with small Combat Units may work well enough against the random beasts wandering around, but they’re next to useless when something else even more dangerous shows up knocking on his door: people. Not humans, of course, but the local equivalent - Proctans - who are similar enough to Milton’s original species...though with one major difference. 

They all have unique special abilities that looks suspiciously like “magic”. 

However, there is an even bigger threat that looms on the horizon not only for Milton, but all the Proctans as well....

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Jonathan L. Brooks (P)2020 Jonathan L. Brooks

No more stats please

Decent story but please no more stats. every stats chapter is like pulling teeth and makes a decent story into a headache.

Great Series!

This series is what got me hooked on Brooks as an author. It is a series that I have gone back and listened to and read a few times now. The nice thing about the audio book is that during the stats recitation if you don't care about them you can skip to the next chapter and not miss any story. The stats are on their own chapter and are not needed for the enjoyment of the book.

Too many damn stat chapters

Overall the story and narration is fine.

But there’s just too many god damned stats pages. Most of them are 1-2 minutes, but some are at least 9 minutes of listening to someone reading stats.

If the story was in book form, it would be super easy to skip ahead. But in audio form, the stats are superfluous and basically distracting and time wasting.

The overall book lengths would probably be 20% shorter if none of the nonsense was included.

Good story WAY TOO MANY STAT BLOCKS

the story its self is very good. However The massive amount of space dedicated to repeating OVER AND OVER stat block really takes away from the book. As an audo book it is verry difficult to skip past this annoyance as the author indicated could be done. For an audio book this should have been rearranged with the stats left for last.

Need a Different Way to Read Stats but Make More

The only complaint I have which is slightly nullified to a disclaimer at the start is the stats. I think some of the other reviews are a bit harsh when you literally have disclaimers and even say feel free to skip. Something I know quite a bit about from peoples comments in yt let's plays I make where you say your playing blind, blind is in the title then people cry that your not a master at the game. It's like you need to personally show up to their house and be like hey bud, blind means look elsey if you don't like seeing a nooby tripping over their own feet. Anyway, for future ones I'd say it might be better to designate sections of the book, maybe dice it up into quarters and have a big stat reading then. That way if you want to skip it would be easier to do so. It happening every time a random person levels up or beast is acquired and it goes through all the beasts again is a bit jarring. Over all I'm a sucker for any stories and this was a pretty neat surprise as it's a new genre for me. I might look into more core books but being able to listen to this 5 book epic over 3-4 days at work was a treat. Please consider making more compilations available or grouping them up as doubles would be nice since spending $12 on a audiobook that doesn't even fill my work day would be hard for me to do. Also please consider continuing this series in the future, you have a pretty unique point to continue from and I'm sure *spoilers* there is a universe of opportunities for Milton and his children to get themselves in trouble but in space this time.

So, Very, Frustrating

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this series, and I will likely get back to it again later this year. That being said, I’m having a really hard time caring about the protagonist Milton, or the greater story as a whole. Without getting into spoilers, things kinda just happen, and Milton is very passive for a lot of the time. Sure, I found the otherworldly people interesting, but it’s hard to care about people who in Milton’s eyes would die and disappear if he took a particularly long nap.

There’s some effort made to conceptualize who Milton was before he starts his journey through the series, but his stakes are tepid at best. If he were to encounter actual peers that he was forced to compete with, I think that would be a lot more compelling. His helper is just there and there interactions are bizarre. How can Milton barely care about his previous life before the book and still be terrified of squirrels and hate cursing? Why does his helper curse all the time, in ways I’ve never heard people cursing? Why give an AI who barely has a personality a personality disorder?

Then there are some very strange choices that don’t seem to add up for me. Milton evolves constantly, but I’m on book 2 and he’s still leveling his primitive weaponry skill. People that are echoes of who Milton used to be but are now like pets to him are thought of by him as his “friends?” While Brent constantly refers to him as “the Milton,” like he’s some god-like alien entity, which for all intents and purposes he is. I just don’t understand why Milton cares, he’s not introspective enough to interrogate his feelings about missing his younger brother who he will never see again and … eh … this is why I keep getting frustrated with this series.

The series feels like I’m watching a friend play StarCraft while constantly getting bored or distracted by random things. The more I am told about the details of each unit and their names and skills seems to hide an equal amount of what Milton is actually thinking or doing at any moment. Where I am now, he can think and command his units in parallel fifty times over. And yet he’s learning to delegate because he’s bored of doing chores like managing his economy. We don’t even really pay that much attention to what his gene-manipulation is doing, or why he “levels” up in some ways as a fantasy element but is completely sci-fi.

Why not let him have an avatar so he can actually interact with the people he thinks of as friends? He could make one. Why is Milton not growing exponentially? Why does he get quests that give him bonus stars based on how fast he does them? How would that work? Is Milton magic? Do fantasy rules apply? Is there some kind of special quark or quantum level development happening inside him that makes his AI have god-like powers that can effect him at a microscopic level when he pleases her by fulfilling his quests faster than she asked for? Why doesn’t Milton have any questions about how all this functions, he just accepts it as par for the course.

There are so many good ideas in this series, but they seem to be more haphazardly thrown together than pivotal or plot related. Milton doesn’t seem to have learned any lessons so far, he’s just focused on the RTS game he’s been hooked into. He’s changed while not changing at all. So, all in all, this series is a frustrating one that I may come back to once I’ve read the other books in my pile. Until then, here’s hoping the the later books raise the stakes or give Milton a tangible personal goal and growth, not just the RTS stuff. Or maybe a competitor where the RTS can really tick up with action and consequences. Who knows, he could literally take over the entire economy from the anthropomorphized populace, a villainous Milton might be more interesting than the milk toast one he’s been so far.

awesome listen

loved this compilation. very nice long satisfying story about a futuristic dungeon core forced into a medieval, alien world. Has aspects of personal development, armies, village buildings, system learning and smoothly incorporated stats.

Station cores

This is a really fun series and well worth the cost ,I believe it is a must have .

always a good read, listen

Even though Jonathan Brooks is a stat happy guy always look forward to read, listen to the books that he puts out this compilation of one through five other than a hour-long extra at the end of the book is still the original one through five but always willing to give a little money to where and who deserves it also when authors make these compilation books it's always nice to not have to switch between books every eight to 12 hours especially when I drive haul truck in a mine, MSHA area and picking up my phone and switching over a book is a construction hazard
As always five stars Mr Brooks keep it up I'll keep buying

Great story

I really enjoyed this series and it was a great value, to warn the casual listener there is a lot of stat pages but they are thier own chapters and the story is written in a way that they are not needed at all. That being said, it was great I really enjoyed it, can’t wait to read the rest of his books.

Decent, if you can get past the start

Honestly, I had discarded this audiobook, but I picked it up again after several months.

I hated the dreadfully slow pace, the overdone stats and the first support character

After I came back, I skipped to chapter 25 of the first book, set the narrator to 1.1x speed and gave it another go.

There is a decent story here, but it is buried under stats and painfully longwinded explanations of every little thing.

If is very heavy on the LitRPG elements making it feel as if the story takes a backseat to level notifications, skills explanation and quest updates. This may not have been so bad in print where you could just glance over these, in audio form, YOU HAVE TO SKIP EVERY ONE, for your own sanity.

Which is a shame, because the story is actually pretty decent, with some new ideas and concepts on the 'dungeon core' theme.

The characters are not amazing, very little if any progression, and limited personalities, but likeable enough (with exception of the 'dungeon helper' maybe).

Its a good thing these books are combined, between them a story can be gleamed but individually as audiobooks, ouch!

The performance of the narrator is good, but the author performance in presenting the story is terrible.

rubbish, so boring

this is such a hard book to enjoy. the narrator sucks. it would have more life if a potato read it. I understand the author wants to put stat sheets in but come on! there's more stats than actual story. litrpg should be funny with lost of ester eggs to games. the worst book I've ever listen to on audible.

Brilliant and addictive!

Brooks delivers again with this epic series that has massive dungeon building and progression to fighting and crafting, well worth a read and definitely worth a credit for over 40hrs on audible!
Highly recommended!

56 hours of simple enjoyment

So there were a few little things that bugged me but, they were only little things over 56 hours!!! The premise is solid, the characters likable and the suspense level consistent.

good

was a bit hesitant to start with this one but ones I got into it a bit I really enjoyed it

Great listen, didn’t want it too end

To get all the books in one set is brilliant ! I really enjoy listening to the worlds Jonathan creates and this is another one I hardly put down. Can be stat heavy at times, but Jonathan has done a great thing in putting the stats in to separate chapters so can be skipped if you want, although I never did personally ! It’s def worth a listen in my opinion

Not what I was expecting

Wow. What a ride. This is a real entertaining, well written and well voiced bargain of a book. Even if the title and blurb hints otherwise, it is a fantasy dungeon core story. Just replaced Magic with some sciency terms. And what an epic story it is!
Almost the whole 56 hours (yes, really 56 hours for just one credit!) take place on a fantasy-like planet.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book for everyone who liked the genre!

A great book but..

the story itself is awesome and I had a little to many late nights listening to this.

one negative thing though (and it's the only one)
even tho I like stats etc and the lit RPG genre. this book is extremely repetitive and reads up all stats over and over again.. it is to an extent that it almost interrupts the story to many times.
most stats are separate chapter readings and can be skipped by going to the next chapter.

bad language unnecessary.

I have no idea what the issue with the bad language is here, but it's put me off from even finishing book 1.
the performance was fantastic, representing all the different alien races and traits with their voices. pity that was only in the prologue.

A lot of book for one token!

I really liked this tale and hope the is another in the series.
There are a lot of stat update chapters but it has been made so that you can skip past them without ruining the story.
Also this is all 5 books so you get the full tale rather than being left on cliff hangers.