Bridgebuilder

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Alex Sorenson has finally realized his lifelong dream - to become a scoutship Pilot. The best of the best, pushing the edges of Human claimed space. Seeing things no one else has seen. Scanning so many celestial objects. The expedition he was assigned to was not what he was hoping for, his engineer a secretive, often abrasive alien. The mission? To find them habitable worlds after the near total destruction of their homeworld. No pressure.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2023
Author: icallshogun

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 384
Views: 327,544

What readers say about Bridgebuilder

“Every Monday I see the notification that this updated, and I get a little bit giddy. It’s definitely one of the stories that I look forward to the most whenever it updates. Despite the somewhat heavy topics that it covers, the tone tends to stay fairly ligh…”
UwertaRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Wonderful story. Pacing is brilliant, never feels to fast or two slow, and it reads perfectly. I rarely do reviews like this but I couldn’t not do it for a story like this, it deserves more attention. Author’s writing style keeps you engaged no matter what’…”
blyinxRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(6)

UwertaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Every Monday I see the notification that this updated, and I get a little bit giddy. It’s definitely one of the stories that I look forward to the most whenever it updates.
Despite the somewhat heavy topics that it covers, the tone tends to stay fairly lighthearted, with a lot of nice slice-of-life interspersed among the political drama.
The plot itself isn’t the most complex, usually with only a few threads going on simultaneously. There are a couple more major long-term plot lines, but most of the smaller one get introduce and the resolved without too much overlap. Which I think all works pretty well in the serial format.
The characters and the relationships/chemistry between them are all excellent, taking the front position in this story ahead of the plot. If anything the MC is a little bit flat, but not in a way that I noticed while reading. If I wasn’t trying to think of critiques to put in this review, I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me.
In terms of grammar, I didn’t notice any issues while reading it (granted, I wasn’t exactly looking for them, but still).
Overall, a solid, lighthearted story that effectively mixes slice-of-life with a political drama space opera.
blyinxRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Wonderful story.
Pacing is brilliant, never feels to fast or two slow, and it reads perfectly. I rarely do reviews like this but I couldn’t not do it for a story like this, it deserves more attention.
Author’s writing style keeps you engaged no matter what’s happening, and the premise is perhaps not unique - two people adrift in space - but the authors take on it is wonderfully compelling.
grammatically there are no qualms, I didn’t find my self stumped by I’ll grammar even once and the characters thus far are lovable and vibrantly alive with their own personalities and differences.
Just a perfect Webnovel, really. I hope to read much more of it.
Healers_Choose_Who_DiesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Bridgebuilder is a great space opera for both fresh and experienced with the genre. Packed with plenty of drama, romance and some action between the two lead characters in the story.
A mix of both pleasant interactions and struggle, both physically and mentally as the two work together to survive and to discover new and unfamiliar territory that comes with working with an alien race different from your own. Let alone the limitations to those differences in both culture, appearance and abilities.
An experience that is friendly to both young and old audiences that is well paced and projected to the reader. Anything relating to gore or sexual in nature (or attempt of) is present, but at a minimal, colorful basis. Nothing that will cause a younger reader to stare up at their ceiling at night, and contemplate where their innocence went.
Pace itself can feel a bit dragged out while also leaving you still hungry for more. The cliff hangers are the authors go to specialty that makes you want to groan in frustration when you have to wait for a new chapter to come out.
The alien races in this story are few, only being four (maybe five), all are detailed and unique in their own way when it comes to looks, culture, forms of government and how they behave towards other races. Only two being the close enough to be allies and similar enough to not outright slaughter the other, and even that is shaky.
The romance aspect of the story is quite grounded. You know it's there and established, however you still feel the struggles and natural coarse of things that come with trying to make a relationship work, while the two involved literally come from two different worlds. There is definitely plenty of pros and cons either result could be the outcome. And they both are aware of it, one being in their early thirties while the other is in his early twenties still, (had word from the author himself on that one.) They at least both have a mature and cautious approach to their relationship.
Ov
cursedclarkeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Bridgebuilder is a science fiction novel that begins conventionally and then veers, unexpectedly and impressively, into deeply personal territory. What looks at first like a generic deep-space anomaly mission becomes a psychological survival story between two damaged people who have nothing in common except the shared trauma of barely surviving something they were never meant to face. The book refuses to expand outward. It turns inward. The focus is never on the galaxy. It is on the room, the body, the injuries, the silence, the moment before panic, and what it means to need someone you do not even understand.
The prose begins carefully, almost mechanically. Sentences are precise but sometimes antiseptic. There is a heavy reliance on exposition through internal monologue or utilitarian dialogue. The author clearly knows their setting but chooses to reveal it through inference rather than grand declarations. This is both a strength and a flaw. It allows the world to feel lived-in, but it also risks leaving the reader stranded during key moments of tension. The early chapters in particular are too quiet. Dialogue is tight but unremarkable, and the emotional stakes are minimal until the action spikes. Once the characters are injured and isolated, however, the writing takes on new weight. Sentences become sharper. Dialogue cuts deeper. The emotions of the text stop being implied and start being felt. It is as if the author themselves did not realize what kind of story they were telling until pain made it clear.
Grammar throughout is mostly solid. The style leans toward functional and clipped, especially during scenes involving diagnostics or ship systems. This suits the atmosphere but sometimes undercuts the emotional resonance. At times it reads like a technical manual that accidentally started caring. There are occasional moments where sentence rhythm becomes repetitive or the prose feels too restrained to carry the depth the story deserves. The best writing occurs wh
FrofroRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I started reading this an was happy, it is well written and the beginning was about space survival/exploration. Then they went home and I lost intrest. It went and became some sort of political drama. Not my cup of hot leafe juice.
The male lead is a bit emotionally stunted, he barely have any reaction to some really bad things that happens to him. To be fair he is an exploration pilot but still he is a bit flat.
RedPineRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Main Caste, by which I mean Alex, Carbon, and eventually Neya, were not evil and made deliberate efforts to become better people as of the chapter I stopped at. They make mistakes, but they try.
Sadly, at the time this was written, the author was much better at writing characters than writing factions and faction leaders. The incompetence on display broke all my suspension of disbelief. Ymmv.
Example: If the only human to encounter a precursor warpgate and receive a precursor implant goes missing on board the capital ship of an xenophobic elitist alien race known to have the ability to read and deliver memories via contact telepathy for over 24 hours, would you:
A) start asking questions when the aliens suddenly decide they want medical machines calibrated to humans after all, despite having no human crew aside from the aforementioned guest.
B) assign specops body guards to the VIP to prevent him going unescorted onto an alien ship in the first place.
C) demand proof of life of the vip or open fire on the alien capital ship that is outgunned and outnumbered because it is a near peer that visited earth unescorted and is now surrounded by earths largest planetary defense force.
D) ignore everything even after over a day with no communication from the vip.
If I kept reading, I'm sure I'd keep encountering greater and greater incompetence from all factions and characters. Which is a shame, as the world building is solid and the characters are great.