Earthborn

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Jacen, a 21st-century young man, opened his eyes in the year 30XX.

Besides not understanding the year's strange nomenclature, he is now forced to navigate the complex and strange concept of an intersolar society—all because of an oracle's likely bad trip.

From there, things get only more complicated.

Armed with nothing but his fists, a crew composing the diaspora of humanity, and a very much experimental vessel, Jacen embarks on adventures across the Solar System as he braces himself to face his alledged destiny as the first of his kind—anEarthborn.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: Black Beanie

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 152
Views: 63,236

Chapters(83 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

Abraham-DeWittRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall, I would say that the story is great. I always enjoy a good sci-fi story where the main character explores a large and mostly uncaring universe. It really fills the void left in my heart when I finished the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
To briefly speak on Earthborn overall, I think it's really interesting that the main character's primary attribute is Intelligence. Even in the first few chapters, one can see Quentin's resourcefulness in his use of tools in his fight against a much more physical enemy.
Spoilers for up to Chapter 5.
I think the book really picks up once Quentin reaches his spaceship. He escapes from the starting planet within one or two chapters, so you get to the action really quickly.
Also, I liked that the universe at large generally seems to disdain humanity. That angle works pretty well in stories like this.
Style: This fiction's style is direct. There is no unnecessary fluff, so the pacing is pretty fast. There are pros and cons to this kind of style.
Story: I have no complaints for the story. It's a classic story of a human exploring the universe and trying to get home. This kind of story is right up my alley. Five stars.
Grammar: No problems as far as I could tell.
Character: I enjoyed the large diversity of characters, though I felt that the dialogue was a bit clunky from time to time. The characters are, understandably, alien, and I think that is one of the strengths of this fiction.
DimensionalWriter27Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall - Earthborn is a story that sets to achieving its premise and succeeds at It, an SCI-FI adventure with a dark tone which although rough in a few places I still think its a solid read for anyone looking for sci-fi adventures with a variety of planets and races.
Style - If I had to say, the style is very to the point, and direct, its one where there aren't unnecessary words and you don't get lost in pointless narration.
Grammar - English isn't my first language, so I can't really objectively judge the grammar...but I managed to read it, so, I'll say it's fine.
Story - The story feels like a mix between episodic and serialized. Where there's a larger scale story stringed together by episodic adventures that by themselves don't really affect the plot too much, but they do help to develop the characters so the transition from one adventure to the next feels more natural.
The world building although kind of inconsequential in the larger narrative due to the main goal of the same, it DOES help to give the reader the idea that this universe is dangerous and that death can come when you least expect it if you're not careful.
Characters - The highlight, the crux, what ties all this story together and makes it work in the first place. Although a few of the characters could have stayed a little while longer, get more development or maybe an little bit of focus to flesh them out, the characters that DO get the spotlight are pretty well written with character arcs that expand throughout the adventures they go through. By the way, I was rooting for them to get back to Earth.
Final analysis - Why are you still reading this? *Waves for you to go away* Go read it already!
Edge ValmondRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Story:
So, a dude is basically taken to another planet where he has to battle to survive. And as it goes along, the gravity of situation becomes more clear as it is basically a life and death thing. Where he doesn't want to kill others, but is forced to do so. This is more like a survival, but there are elements to more.
Style:
I do not grade style, but if I have to give something. It is written in their person PoV, I've always been fine with this. So, just know this is it.
Grammar Score:
Nothing I can spot, whatever was there looks to have been corrected as far as I can tell. This just means it is good enough.
Characters:
Given the life and death battle thing, it might take a bit of time to get things going. Though, you do get a good grip on the main character. And later on, you get a better idea on why those other ones are there. They really do work well with the setting.
Overall:
This is a good story, if there is a slight thing. Some text can be adjusted to paint a more immersive experience. Though, the story itself does quite well to draw in the reader. So, that is about it, head on into the story. There is a lot in here, and you'll find yourself just sitting back, and enjoying the ride. I should also mention it has slavery, so take this as a warning as well.
Nick11179 (Nick Timm)Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall - Earthborn is a great piece of work. It covers exactly what Sci-Fi should - it's got aliens, tech, some weird psychic powers, and attractive green women. And a fox woman. It's a pick your own adventure type for potential romantic entanglements.
Style - Style is always a hard thing for me since every writer has their own voice and they express it in their own way. If pressed, I'd say the style of Earthborn is legitimate and strong. the key points of the story are shown and presented in a way which are accessible and fun. This is a good read with good characters.
Grammar - No issues here.
Story - I grew up reading pulp fiction from the height of the 80's and early 90's. Give me a fun, space-y world to explore and inhabit and I'm a happy man. Quentin is a great sort of everyman for the reader to project onto and you can feel yourself feeling what he's going through - that's the magic of writing I think.
Characters - As mentioned above, Quentin is great. He's authentic and easy to know. Scarlett is a wonderful foil to his character and I can see them getting into a lot of trouble as time goes on. The other members of the supporting cast are all very 3 dimensional feeling and they appear as if they could leap right off the page. Much props to that! Hard to do.
Final analysis - Way worth a read. I favorited it and followed - I want to keep up on Earthborn and see where things go!
ObnoxiousGuyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story is good, exactly what I'm looking for!
The GOOD:
It has a very big potential! Being a real life, Sci-Fi LitRPG is hard to come by, especially one that explore the galaxy with a space ship (this has been my dream since childhood hahaha). Characters so far are good and not one dimensional, better than most on RR. Although, what I want to praise the most is the prose, it's easy to consume and almost equal to popular stories on NovelUpdate, which is better than average on RR.
Honestly, I'm confused why there are so little followers following this story.
The bad:
Nothing much. My only complain is that verb is almost constantly changing from present to past without any reason whatsoever. Author, if you read this, be sure to stick either to present or past, which I recomend to be past tense. If you want to add inner thought in present tense, then be sure to italic it.
I would have given this story 4.5 for this petty mistake, but decided not to considering that no one else has given any sort of rating.
TheGreatGazpachoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I've thoroughly enjoyed Quentin's escapades as he tries to get home to Earth. The story initially confused me, as I wondered if it was set in the future or if it was in modern times. The latter appears to be true, and if that's the case, Quentin and even Scarlett might have adjusted a bit too quickly to this advanced technology, but I can look past it as the story has places to go and people to see.
I'm enjoying the characters we've come to know over the first eight chapters. Quentin, as a fish-out-of-water protagonist, doesn't have the strongest characterization, which is a somewhat common occurrence in stories like this. We do a least see that he has strong morals about killing and plays peacekeeper between his crewmates.
Gruma is very Klingon-coded, but I don't mind; I enjoy Klingon antics. I do hope this doesn't tread through the old, dated trope of educating the savage; while not the most mentally acute of the crew, she was also listed as "psionically deaf," which, if my logic is correct, might mean she's immune to psionic attacks. The onboard computer to their ship states that psionic users are a known variety of humans, so that may come into play.
A half-woman/half-fox slave for sale? I wonder what's going to happen. But no, I appreciate that the narrative immediately frees her, both emotionally and legally. Other stories would have gone weird routes with this. Being the newest member up to the point, we don't know much about her except her backstory and the fact that she tends to pick on people. I hope she turns out to be a cool character; she has a fun design, at the very least.
Aside from one minor story nitpick I have about leaving the obvious thief with the ship, this space odyssey has been a neat treat. Keep it up!
William FlattenerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
“Let me guess, I’m in some sort of video game. That’s so cliché.
Our protagonist sets the self-aware and comedic tone for this progression sci-fi on page 1, which lets me know this is exactly my kind of thing. This is confirmed again in Chapter 2 in the best possible way. The author understands what’s funny and doesn’t over- or under-do it.
Style
This fiction prioritizes story over system specifics. From a narrative style perspective, it swaps between prose and italic inner monologue at times to give us a bit more about what our MC is thinking.
Story
Quentin Alexander Smith wakes up after a night of revelry in a bit of a pickle, thrust into an alien gameshow. He immediately learns about his stats (would that we all had this level of introspection) and begins getting accustomed to the mechanics at play. Opponents in this green-blood-soaked LitRPG find out early on that Quentin is more than fodder for the mill.
There’s a lot of action and settings that gamers will find familiar, but not overdone. This is well thought-out in my opinion. LitRPGs are at their best when the dissonance between player and environment are constantly tested, and you get this when Quentin asks things like “How are you speaking English?”
As new characters enter the scene, we start to get a greater understanding of the state of this world and the nature of what’s going on.
Grammar
There may be typos here and there, but flawless grammar and no distracting bad habits here.
Character
Quentin is here to guide us through this roller coaster of aliens, machines, and combat and provides just a smidgen of self-awareness that I find endearing. (Not hitting us over the head Deadpool-style meta goofs.)
Overall
I enjoyed what I have read and look forward to more. This author has a good approach to humor and cultural satire, and a vision for a fun adventure here. The LitRPG trappings are used to sustain an already good story.
I will also say I appreciate the author’s thoughtful and granular content warnings
JavonHindelburgRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall: Right from the start I was hooked. I liked the first chapter a lot. It has a good start with some action, but doesn't have a problem explaining what's going on. The dialogue doesn't overburden you and there's almost no infodump.
The characters are great and this story is really fantastic. I enjoy space action/sci-fi in this style so it was refreshing to read something like this.
Now lets get into the specifics.
Style: The authors writing style is great. Sometimes the "I"-action statements can get a little burdensome. But writing in first person can be very challenging and for that I give the author five stars.
I think the author can concisely convey their meaning, and paint a good picture at the same time. There are points that are confusing to understand, but they're things that would be smoothed out in editing. We'll get to that in a second though.
Story: The story is very good. I absolutely love Star Trek, Star Wars, and 40K so it was easy for me to like this kind of story.
I think the SAD system could be a little less RPG system and more utility system. I enjoy that it's a translator and that it registers it user.
However, I would consider more functional applications than RPG applications as I think it would fit better. I am of the minority of this opinion on the platform I know. LitRPGs are very popular on here so I can see that people like it. But I think it needs to be baked into the story, not a sideways attempt to cram it in.
Grammar: The grammar is very good. The author clearly know what they're doing for most points. I can cretique certain things though.
1. Dialogue tags (He shouted, she whispered, he yelled, she spat, he snarled). I hate them in general and try to use them as little in my own writing as possible. Indirect refrence to the speech is acceptable ("You did it now boah!" Arthur yelled. Vs. Arthur sternly looked at the boy and his voice thundered out. "You did it now boah!").
Force yourself to think outside the box and not use them as
VioletMoonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall, I gave this a 4.5. It has a lot of good aspects, but I think its strength lies in being unabashedly an adventure story. It doesn't try to pretend to be anything other than that. It's not my usual genre, so it was a bit hard for me to get into, but I found myself caught up in the sense of exploring new things that came with the randomness in this story. The character immediately gets swept up into things and then just goes with the flow.
Style: Pretty solid here, there weren't any major POV issues. It was slightly difficult to tell what was going on at times, but I think that could be because it was slightly chaotic overall. It got better the further you got into the story.
Grammar: I didn't notice any issues, or if there were any, they were quite minor.
Story: Fairly unique concept, so I gave this a good rating. The hunger games stuff was pretty cliche, but getting yeeted around the universe with little understanding of what was going on, was not. It sort of reminded me of some of the Hyperion books from Dan Simmons, where they're exploring the universe in an intelligent ship.
Character: I docked this one because frankly, I didn't feel like I had enough development into who Quentin was and why he would adapt so well to such a situation. Everything felt slightly too one dimensional for me. I think it would help to have more direct dialogue that delved into the characters background more. I noticed that the author apologized for slower chapters, which I didn't understand. If everything is all action, the action doesn't mean as much. Having slow chapters to invest the reader into the character enhances the tension that the reader feels in the harrowing fights.
Overall, I thought this was good, but could easily be improved by increasing the depth of the characters. Would recommend to someone looking for a nice action story.
Reccos21Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The first chapter pretty quickly drew me into what I knew would be a story full of imaginitive fun. After the initial sequence of the protagonist, Quentin, waking up to be part of a multiversal game show, I honestly had no idea what was coming next from that point onward.
As the chapters progressed, it was kind of like Cowbop Bebop meets LitRPG, and it's hard to top how cool and innovative that concept can become.
It almost feels criminal reviewing a series this early because there is just so much potential behind Earthborn: Space Odyssey. The main character is smart and cheeky at times, while his new compatriots in Gruma and Scarlet offer an interesting dynamic as they are multi-layered and stand out from each other.
In terms of critiquing the story, there are a few grammar/spelling errors here and there but they in no way take away from the enjoyment of the novel, and there's always time for edits later. Also, I would recommend using italics for inner monologue, they just keeps things better organized for the reader (I myself have started using italics more and more and honestly, I've found that italics also help out a lot while writing too!)
Really looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here!