The Escherian Core

Neuro-Divergence, Book 1

By: Michael Dalton

Narrated by: Trevor Jordan, Alyssa Poon

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Solve the maze. Find the girls. Win the game.

I was just an anonymous clerk at a game store. Then one day a disgruntled customer ran over me and my hot coworker Kelly–all because of an unreleased game I wouldn’t sell him.

Now we’re trapped in a huge three-dimensional maze where gravity seems optional, competing in dangerous contests with a team of fellow social outcasts.

And failure is often fatal.

But I think I know what’s going on here. We’re gathering territory, I’m gaining strange abilities, and every contest we win adds another member to my team of hot girls.

We just need get to the bottom of this maze. If only we can find it.

The Escherian Core is is a dark base-building isekai GameLit adventure.

©2022 Michael Dalton (P)2023 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Shockingly good

Not sure where to start, this was surprisingly very good and engaging.

The story itself is a huge mystery, of which only a small part seems to have been revealed to us, but enough to feel satisfactory. Basically people from all over the world/worlds have been gathered in a "cube" like experiment, having to defeat other teams and solve various puzzles all while making their own team stronger through bonding and receiving new abilities. Not all relies on using brute force, in fact quite a lot depends on using knowledge and especially by thinking outside the box. More can be said, but that would be going into spoiler territory.

The MC is likeable and avoids a lot of the tropes we usually see in these type of novels which was quite refreshing. the FL's are also very fun and unique in their own ways. Maybe the building of the team could have been done more slowly, but it kinda works like this also, and makes me wonder how it will develop in the future, while keeping all members relevant (hope this aspect will count in future books). The bonding ability was also quite fun and kept things interesting in that department.

Now for the narration. Alyssa Poon did an amazing job with the female characters, they all sound like different people with various accents and inflections, I could tell all the time which character spoke with it having the need to dwell on it. She also made them feel real and adorable in various ways. Trevor Jordan was also a good pick for the main character, but his role was a bit easier, so to say.

In the end it's a very good book that successfully combined both elements present in the genre while keeping us engaged and entertained. I really hope the next books live up to the hype because I'm quite excited for the next books to come and want to see more of these characters.

A great start to a series

Michael Dalton has had a lot of good stories and this one is continues the trend. I enjoyed everything about this story from the worldbuilding to the base building, the characters and the setting it was entertaining if a little dark. As always Alyssa Poon does an excellent job breathing life into the characters and while it was my first time listening to Trevor Jordan they also did a great job bringing the characters to life and helping make the world the characters find themselves in feel very unique. I cant wait for the next one.

Dalton does a great job writing The Escherian Core

Michael Dalton does a great job writing The Escherian Core. Sci-fi with a fun twist. Great characters, an interesting story, unique powers, and a fun ride. I look forward to book 2! Audio Version: Trevor Jordan and Alyssa Poon do an amazing job together narrating this story.

Different but good !

I like the different take. This is not an OP main character killing everyone in his path. Instead they have puzzle to solve and other teams to defeat. The harem aspects are fairly tame which is a nice change of pace.

Not bad

This is clearly meant to appeal to fans of "Hunger Games," "300" and the like. Young people in groups and couples, who apparently all died, are pitted against each other in weird puzzles and games. The losers die... again?
Oh, and part of the game is incentive to have sex with your teammates.
It's not amazing, but not bad. I dithered about whether to continue the series, but I think I'll try one more and see how it goes. There are still some mysteries to be unspooled.

Really good

I really liked this book, It's one of the best harem books I've read in the past couple months. Micheal Dalton writing was very praiseworthy and this has to be one of his best books.

Trevor Jordan and Alyssa poon did very good, they were a very good duo and its astonishing on how good they worked together.
all the voices were different, and the voices weren't annoying. I really liked Alyssas voice and I can't wait for more of her.
Trevor was also good but I honestly liked Alyssa more, they were both good, but Alyssa performance was superb.

This book was something different, I wasn't expecting this at all. I liked what I read, but it just wasn't what I was expecting.
This book is very short so this review isn't going to be really long, but let's get into the thick of it.

Now I do think this book is good, but with how short it is I don't think it's worth the credit. I do think it's a fair bargain for how much it is, and I would certainly spend money for this book.

The characters in this book are actually quite nice, I like them. not overly so, but i think all the side characters are likable and have a unique depth to them. I also like the mc and I think he's quite relatable.
I do like the premise this book is set under, but I think it could be performed better, at the start of the book I didn't really know what was going on, and what the author was trying to portray or trying to accomplish.
it all settled out later in the book, and I started to really like this book.
I do think the plot was lacking, it could've been better, or it could've been performed better. i do think it'll be better in the second book, but right now it wasn't cutting it for me.

I do have one complaint, the chapters end so suddenly for some reason. it's like the author doesn't know how to end a chapter, and it was annoying. not overly so but it was still annoying.

I really liked this book, I do think it's one of the best harems I've read lately, but don't expect something mind changing, this book is good but it's not the next best harem book of the year.

Excellent start to a promising new series!

I very much enjoyed listening to this book, and I'm very excited about the next installment! Hopefully, it will be soon. ;)

Fun concept.

I love that this book's main characters are all ADHD and "on the spectrum" like myself and many others.
The Escher style dungeon is pretty cool but I would have liked a bit more Escher things and not just the perspective defying stairs.
I definitely enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the 2nd one.

Hunger games meets the Cube

With the spirit of the Old School pulp fiction, with deliciously spicy scenes gives it the right amount of erotica goodness.

Yes please and more please

I loved this story more than I thought I would honestly like holy crap I love the characters and can’t wait for more