Engineered Magic - Abandoned by the gods

Information

Status

Hiatus

Year

2026

Author

WhereTheSunSets

• Now Available on Amazon.
  Feb 2, 2026

Reviews

Community Reviews(7)

• Crescent0033Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  A fantastic story about a succesful generation ship exploring an alien planet-spanning structure that grants its inhabitants 'magic powers'. Follow the story of Irene, a competant good person as she delves the secrets of aliens, humans and the structure itself.
  Irene is a great character to follow. She is trying to find the secrets of the enigmatic structure to allow humanity to survive. She is smart and collects a band of motivated people to assist.
  The world building is great. Internally consistent and suitably grounded. Who built the structure? What are its rules? Can humanity survive it?
  A genuine joy to read, I look forward to every chapter.
• SparifankerlRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Ok, there’s a sort of magic. There’s a sort of LitRPG with a system. But the story makes it clear from the beginning that the magic isn’t real magic; it’s just extremely advanced alien technology that’s made to look like a game. And a bunch of human spacefarers stumble across this technology, get sucked into the game, start living their life inside the game even though they don’t have to.
  The writing is good, the characters are well developed, the story development is properly planned. It’s not some contrived apocalyptic hero-against-the-world situation; all the various shades moral grey exist. Both disaster and significant progress are possible but it’s not like the heroes are fighting against the end of the world/humanity/universe. Most humans are presumably still safe on earth. (No faster than light miracle comms back home to check on them.) I’m not easily giving a full 5 stars but this story deserves it.
• Zilvarsux88Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  The first thing that makes this story so great is the author's skill in articulating the honest humility of the main character.  Add into that, a System that doesn't reward with free skills or abilities, but makes everyone work for every bit of knowledge needed to become more powerful, and you have a well written story that falls in a rarely found subgenre amongst the LitRPG writings.  In nearly every chapter, the author will introduce something, someone, or some scenario that could not be seen coming, even for those reader's who take joy in trying to predict what will happen next, like myself.  The author has introduced a mix of supporting characters for the main character to interact with, in both both cooperative and confrontational rolls.  These supporting characters are unique individuals within the story which the author takes proper time to reveal the characteristics and backgrounds in memorial chunks spaced over multiple chapters.  This process makes it much easier for a reader to not mixup the recurring characters.
  The story is primarily a survival story focusing on crafting and combat. It mixes in a bit of space adventure, alien species, magic, technology, and colony building to create a complex world for the inhabitants to navigate.  It offers challenges for the characters to overcome through conflict, diplomacy, and creative solutions.
  The only complaint I have with the story, and it is a small one, occurs during parts were there are flashbacks or time skips.  Sometimes the author will let the reader know how much time has passed and other times it is a mystery.  I recognize that some of these omissions were necessary in order to not provide a spoiler for a plot point or other surprises, but there are other occasions that I cannot identify the reason for not informing the reader where in the timeline the scene is occuring.
• ChameshiRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Incredible world building and magic system! There’s lots of detail, it’s logical without getting too technical, and just enough left unexplained/unknown that gives it depth.
  Grammar is good, sentences and dialogue flow well.
  Story plot takes more effort to follow, especially at the start when everything is new. There’s no omniscient pov introduction, and the reader is left to make the connections themselves. While I thoroughly enjoyed slowly seeing the setting come together like pieces of a puzzle, it may be frustrating for some readers.
  There are also many descriptions of how buildings, rooms, and entrances are laid out. They are written clearly, but I sometimes had to carefully re-read a section to picture the layout correctly in my head. Providing diagrams or maps may help readers keep track, for example showing a settlement layout or the relative locations of places later on.
  Characters are well rounded, and there is a good balance between main and supporting characters. It’s easy to get invested in a character, with the different povs.
  Is it LitRPG? Yes and no; it does have elements of game mechanics, but reads a lot more like magic fantasy stories instead of focusing on powering/levelling up as many LitRPG do.
  Overall, it’s right up my alley and I look forward to reading more 😊 (and perhaps some side stories that we miss out on due to the time skip or characters going their own way? am hopeful lol)
• Big_ReaderRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Story is great. This is very much the Authors work of refinement.  Every so often a grammatical error that the author actively responds to & fixes. Much respect with how responsive the author is. I have read all & keep up with the updates.  This story feels good to read, it isn't high octane / action most of the time, but it is in a few spots & does that well too. Its got lots of slice of life in the challenges of a scifi setting that acts like a game with magic. It does that very well, & does great world building & what goods sci fi does poses questions & ideas in ways that other mediums don't. I think most sci fi enjoyers will enjoy this read.  I think this is one of those RR gems.
• MagikerRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 3.5

  So the writing is good and the grammar and vocabulary are all just fine.
  There doesn’t seem to be a plot. At least not one that I can figure out. Whatever is happening in the first 10 chapters in no way reflects what I expected when I read the summary.
  I'll also add that a story with a litrpg tag ought to have some litrpg in it.  Or remove the tag.
  I think the author should take a harder look at the story outline before proceeding.
• BrGastlRoyal Road

  ★★★ 2.5

  The chapters on its own seem to be okay. Not the most interesting, but also not the least I have read. But somehow the book doesn't make any sense so far. It seems that the synopsis isn't really explaining what is shown, since we have several tags I would add, like Multi-POV. Also the readers gets thrown into the story without any exposition. You have to make with what you see. And regsrding the topic of this book one is needed I don't understand at all what is going on in the big picture. It feels like witnessing a armed robbery and not being sure if thats undercover police taking care of a bad citizen or a drug dealer robbing his customer. This book doesn't feliver any context, nor information to decioher it. This book isn't a lost case don't understand me wrong, but unless the author goes for a reedit. Which will be more than a bit I can't see myself understanding this book, its purpose and the context of the story. While the characters seem to be not overly boring they hurt under the bad exposition you don't understand what they are doing why and whats makes them interesting. I just can't put 1+1 together. Though the grammsr is fine and you at least understand whats happening you cannot find even a little bit of reason behind it it just is. It makes no sense.