The Apocalypse Is a Side Quest: Book One

Sometimes the best way to save the world is to ignore it completely.

Nathan Lee has exactly three talents: overthinking social encounters, avoiding responsibility, and farming in video games. When the apocalypse hits, he accidentally dumps all his rare skill points into… fishing. Just his luck.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the kind of apocalypse he can dodge by hiding in his room. Humanity has been ripped from Earth and dropped into a colossal multidimensional dungeon—a nine-realm gauntlet straight out of a nightmare. Legends armed with [Gigantic Sword of Doom] and [Fireball Barrage] are fighting to carve a path home. Nathan? He’s busy maxing out [Ability to Sit Quietly in a Boat]. He’ll leave the hero stuff to someone who doesn’t get queasy at the sight of blood.

Too bad the universe has other plans.

On his first day in the tutorial, he accidentally deletes a monster from reality thanks to a system bug. Then he feeds a snail radishes and gets a rare skill. Now he's taking down ogres with his fishing rod!? It turns out that side quest rewards and weak classes are more powerful than anyone expected.

So grab your tackle box and buckle your overalls. It's sink or swim in this side-questing calamity!

©2025 Shadow Alley Press (P)2025 Shadow Alley Press

An interesting concept, but very 1 dimensional

I wish this was a fun as the title and cover made it seem.

I was expecting a fun, humorous story with either a smart or light hearted main character that focused on fishing or fishing related objectives in a crazy world.

I got a idiot MC who just kept making stupid mistakes, and not in a comedic way. Fishing was more of an after thought in most places...

The fishing pole and harpoon used as weapons could have basically just been a reskinned regular weapon. The interesting way of using the fishing pole in combat got patched out after the first time it was used.

Finally, the side characters were extremely one dimensional for most of the book. Just... disappointing.

loved this book got hooked in the first chapter

I think this book has great story and I love it can't wait for book 2.

A reasonably good listen

At first I thought he was stealing heretical fishing. That said, it’s different enough that maybe he took some ideas but he diverted just fine. I enjoy the characters and the unique way the MC has to figure his way through things. I’ll listen to the next one when it comes out.

This isn't a story.This is an event

This isn't a story. This is an event. The has a really good main character, and the psi characters harmonize with that character so much. They fill in the areas that he just can't accessed it himself. Especially when it comes to the dark side, he's fighting so hard But there's something more important, and that's how they deal with the amputees that's the main character has, and played for sympathy. It's just a part of his experience, which makes it so much more powerful. And when he gets his prosthetic and the way he gets the prosthetic, set things up for the next book, the only problem i'm having is that.It'll probably i want this series every month. This is the one you spend your credit on. If you really want to support a great writer, I do wish she would do some collaborations, though, with some of the other great authors, jonathan brooks, I.'m mentioning you

Nice

Happened upstairs n this series at random and thought I’d give it a go. I wasn’t disappointed. Looking forward to more!