The God Machine: An Isekai LitRPG

The God Machine, Book 1

By: EmergencyComplaints

Narrated by: Sean William Doyle

A scrappy young off-worlder fights for his life while searching for his missing family in this thrilling LitRPG fantasy series from the author of Ascendant.

When Luke Bennet wakes in a world where time flows differently than it does on Earth, he discovers his family, gone missing over the last year, has been dead for a hundred years here. Left to survive in the wilderness as marmots, murderous goblins, giant spiders, and a two-ton raccoon all try to kill him, Aros's latest off-worlder must depend on his newly acquired system to help him level up and live to fight another day.

When Luke finally wends his way to civilization, the locals think he's a Guardian—whatever that means. Soon he's brawling in a fight club to earn his keep and hone his skills. But danger finds him both in and outside the ring, and now the dreaded inquisitors are on his tail. With the beautiful, sharp-tongued Zea by his side, he'll have to up his stats and locate the God Machine as quickly as possible if he wants to bring his family back.

But nothing's as it appears in this new city, and Luke's own system seems to be trying to manipulate him. If he can't trust it, who can he trust?

The first volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with more than 600,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 David Sherman (P)2023 Podium Audio

Good world building

A new twist on world building. A simple leveling and good leveling speed nothing like some where it goes zero to hero. It’s good and simple.

Good story

I enjoyed the plot of the book. It moved quickly and Luke is a nice guy. No, he isn't the sharpest crayon in the box, but he is able to overcome that handicap. I'm part way through book 2 and it is continuing to be full of action and getting stronger. Definitely a good read.

First half was great

But it started getting crappy after new characters get introduced. Won’t get the next one.

For a Podium Audio it was sadly lackluster

Despite the interesting premise and some twists in how “the system” operates in this world the book is really just another murder hobo story, lacking any character development, a shoehorned sexual romance between the main character and the first female to treat him nicely, and an over reliance on certain turns of phrase (especially “it was all he could do”), demonstrating that while this series might have its fans it lacks any real editorial insight to help deepen the story, characters, or just overall writing style.

The narration was fine, but occasionally the narrator is guilty of reading literally what is written rather than providing the appropriate audio interpretation for what the author intended (generally in the stats and status moments).

Great take on the genre

Found myself laughing more than once like some demented kid. I pretty much only listen to litrpg and this was a wonderful and unique plot that I really enjoyed

system mechanics were painful

took more effort than I expected to ignore how imbalanced the mechanics were for the stats, I started making up reasonings for the mc to stat the way they did, too many things were horribly under tuned.

Great story

The story was great it differs from mainstream Isekia and left me ready to read the next book.

interesting Family Legacy, Fun Systems

Way overdelivered on expectations. I like a solid 'unprepared' isekai concept without handing the MC an overpowered toolset/edge (usually in the form of a hypercompetent femme love interest) within the first few chapters. Great series of wins amd losses and growth for protagonist, fun in-Univers unreliable system. Great drawbacks and uncertainty to choices and power.

Started off pretty decent, turned frustrating

It feels like the author tried too hard to dumb down his protagonist. Why someone would do that deliberately, I couldn't say.


There are just too many times in this story where Luke would say or do something so unbelievably stupid and naive that it would completely draw me out of the narrative. It contrasts so drastically with how he is 70% of the time that it feels forced.


It doesn't help that he's always bitching and moaning - one of the ugliest, insufferable traits a protagonist can have.


Basically, we've got a protagonist put in a world with such a hilariously overpowered set of abilities and boons that are completely outweighed by his lack of guile or basic intelligence. He's the kind of naive that I'd feel it irresponsible for a parent to let him out of the house without an escort, less he walked right into a stranger's van.


I'd have honestly rather he had NO advantages, but just wasn't an idiot.

Most idiotic MC in all progression fantasy

This author has two other series with very intelligent MC’s. I highly recommend those titles (Keiran: The eternal mage and Ascendant).

I bought this audible after thoroughly enjoying those other series and wanting more.
Unlike those titles, this MC is so stupid, it’s like the book was written by a different author. His stupidity is obvious to everyone around him too, so I suspect the author is intentionally making him frustratingly dimwitted.

This makes the story incredibly unenjoyable. The protagonist of this story is the equivalent of the blond girl in 90’s slasher movies that chooses to hide in a corner with no escape route and is the first character to get killed off.

Unlike those horror movies however, the MC skates by despite his dumb decisions either thanks to sheet luck or plot armour shenanigans.

I’m disappointed by this series and will not finish it.