Daedalus

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Daedalus is back.

The story begins in the early years of a military academy where cadets learn to pilot exos (power armor with exo-skeleton) and mechs.

Daedo is a boy genius who makes enemies quickly and friends gravitate towards his genius if not his personality.

The story is my original work but many readers say it reminds them of Enders Game. The story begins after 2135 where the world has had first contact and embraced mech technology as their military industrial complex of choice.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: Skully

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 999
Views: 488,808

Chapters(139 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(7)

CestarianRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I read this back during it's first run on RR and was pretty sad to see it go on KU cuz amazon hates my country and doesn't want anything to do with my money (e.g. kindle unavailable)
I still remember it well, the protagonist is a genius mech designer more or less, but unlike, say the mech touch this story is actually well written, with good, believable characters, an increasingly exciting plot (starts slow, ramps up over time) and perhaps most important of all, imperfect characters, most characters, mc included make mistakes, everyone has character development and there isn't any mary sue.
MC is a genius mech engineer and an eventually solid mech pilot. That is pretty much the extent of his abilities, he's not a chemist or a carpenter (is a great programmer though but doesn't do it very much, he focuses on hardware), below average physical strength compared to peers, I suppose he's also great strategist in development.
And despite being a genius, he doesn't get everything right first try, he develops with iterations upon iterations and he doesn't solve all the world's issues by himself.
He's not OP except within reason for what you can expect from a genius engineer in a sci-fi world.
And that's what makes the story so exciting, the victories so much sweeter, the losses so much more bitter, and the tension so much higher.
Most stories today I get this strong feeling of boredom because I know the mc always wins and gets his way anyways. But in this story I notably do not get such a feeling, I always felt like this author might pull a fast one on me and something really bad could happen at any moment. Somehow Skully kept me on my toes.
Merritt Weber (Doom)Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I read this when it was originally posted on the site. I'm not sure why it was removed and is now being re-posted, but I'm glad it's available again.
This was one of the better, if not the best, mech related progression sci-fi stories on the site. It had a good set of characters that all felt important tot he plot and progression.
While I think the world building ended up being pretty good, the majority of the first chunk of the story took place at an academy, it was only later that they left and you got to see the wider world.
All in all well worth a read. I will likely go back and reread it as well.
caerulexRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This fic is a reposting of the RR story by the same name (it was stubbed, on Amazon, then went on hiatus. Now it’s back on RR, completely free to read, and off hiatus).
I’ll be honest, there are a lot of books in the world. I like to binge stuff, then stop, with the intention of coming back later and reading more, but usually I don’t ever come back. But there are some books that you come back to and always wonder about, especially when they’ve gone on hiatus. Books you just… really wish you had more chapters to read, even years later. I think a very (in)famous example of this is the Kingkiller Chronicles (Rothfuss).
Anyway. I wanted to paint a picture for you of the kind of book that you wait for because it’s unique and damn well written/compelling. The kind of book I actually still do think about when I consider craft in my own books.
For me, this book series.
I highly recommend giving it a shot.
Mechs done possibly the best I’ve ever seen/read in any medium, extremely intelligent MC/competence porn, interesting futuristic setting that’s still close enough to modern earth to be relatable. Definitely has Ender’s Game vibes. A really good mix of combat and crafting. The prose doesn’t get in the way and the grammar is totally fine. Good pacing and story.
👍👍
AberrantEntityRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I read this during the original run a few years ago so I am glad this is returning. The one gripe I have with this story though is the author keeps using commas when they don't need to, which breaks the flow of the sentences and makes it hard to follow on some occasions. Other than that the story and characters are pretty good. There are a few moments though that lack emotional weight when I think the author intended there to be.
to doRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Rereading this again I had much the same impression all over.
The grammar is pretty good, some strange commas or weird phrasing but overall well written.
Suffers from overly formal language, especially given the age of the characters, which can somewhat be explained by cultural differences but still is somewhat off-putting. This makes it hard to connect to the characters, as they can come off as somewhat robotic at times.
The story itself is pretty interesting in concept, but almost 150 chapters in the characters are still children and the main conflict of the plot hasn't even really begun yet and it seems like it'll take a few hundred more chapters before it does. Personally I find the pace way too slow, I don't mind an academy arc, but the whole story so far has been an academy arc and is setting up to continue as such for the foreseeable future.
ilvaltarRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Honestly I remember reading this story a long time ago and absolutely loving it.
Now I can't stop making the comparison with some sort of cliché OP Xianxia story. The ridiculously prodigious MC, predictive plot, very one dimensional characters; this is even worse due to the sci-fi setting since basically we need to believe that the MC can surpass a multiple billion empire on multiple scientific field while also being a genius in everything else.
In the end, everything seems meaningless, the mc is 'perfect', we never really fear for him and it just becomes tedious...
ShaneL2018Royal Road
★★★ 2.5
This is a very good compiled story until about book 3. It does have a bit of an enders game field to it, but I have seen the Academy Mac trope where the protagonist events, amazing things before on Royal Road and I don't mind that. some of the plot devices use throat are a little simplistic, but I could live with that up until about chapter 100 they started to get very weak… I.e. the main character acts like a robot for most of the book, and then suddenly starts acting odd…especially his interaction with Mace, which is when I bailed