MeatSpace | Lost Ship of the Damned

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Book 1 COMPLETE (beefy one at 259,005 words). It has a satisfying conclusion as well as a good settlement of many plot-points (no Part 1 vs Part 2, this is a complete book). This was my first book so the quality steadily improves as the story progresses. Everything has a reason/purpose behind it.

A colony ship hurtles through space, it's original heading long-abandoned. Its passengers are unaware of their near future, much less of anything beyond the cold, metal walls, and the occasional scream that bounces through them.

Only one soul knows that the ship is heading toward a distant sun and is in a position to do anything about it. Survival on the ship is more than most can handle, and even fewer are aware of what is happening beyond their own little corner of this world. There is more to worry about than some distant impact when death leers around the next turn.

A man wakes up in a small, isolated room in the Cryo-Lab with only a partial message from the Bridge to guide him. As he struggles to remember who he is and what's happening, he discovers that the ship is plagued with infestations, insane computers, and other dangers both more mundane and exotic. Though it's difficult to see, there is always path to victory, in one form or another. He just needs to leverage his life and as many advantages as he can by developing new Skills through the use of nanotechnology and the assistance of an AI.

The story is set in a universe that follows the Rule of Cool and the Rule of Not Making Shit Look Stupid. It's a sci-fi world where magic doesn't exist, but technology can do amazing things. Body modifications, upgrades, and skill development are handled through the use of a HandPad and a phosphor-green Terminal.

As the man navigates the ship's sections and encounters different peoples and... other things, he slowly pieces together the world he has awoken in. Filled with violence, gore, and biological terror around every corner, he must stay on guard to survive.

On this ship, insanity is a virtue and morality is relative.

This book is being updated with 2k-3k word chapters, three days a week (M-W-F). The fights are brutal, and the damage is real. Multiple POVs will be explored, but the confused man at the center of it all will always be the main character.

If you're looking for a sci-fi adventure filled with danger, excitement, and a touch of absurdity, place your palm on the HandPad and strap in.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2022
Author: Christopher Jude

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.1/ 5.0
Followers: 480
Views: 234,576

Chapters(112 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(9)

Blind_WatcherRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Frantic. I think it sums up the mood of the story rather well :P Frantic and desperate.
Style: The paired perspectives provide a balanced blend of experiences. The description of the violence is visceral, but I think I am too desensitised to consider the gore and general situation as a 'horror'. There are certainly situations that might be considered a 'jump scare' or dramatic build up to a gruesome reveal, but like I said, I see it more as Gore and Violence than Horror. Theoldschool green and black text was an interesting touch. It made it feel sort of like Aliens use of classic text commands and prompts withotu being identical.
Story: Taking from what I said in Style. While I don't see the story as a Horror, it is certainly packed with action and gruesom violence. Assuming you are like me and gruesom violence doesn't bother you, the descripriveness really amps up the tension of the action and frantic desperation of the combat. MeatSpace has Horror elements, but I would label it Action first and horror second, like playing CoD Zombies. The omnipresent danger is useful as a devie for driving the plot forward, but it will be interesting to see how things proceed as the time limit runs down. It would be terrible for all the tension to suddenly become irrelevent by an easy fix in fifty chapters time, but from what I have read so far, I am reasonably confident that won't happen.
Character: Interesting, but not a great deal of depth so far, which is fine in this context. The most important elements of the two protagnists respective characters is given in their introductory chapters. It gets added to a little here and there, but considering the danger and how frantic the situation is, it make sense that most of the exposition and otherwise irrelevent aspects of their personalities is driven into the background while the characters fight to survive. As an example, an MC who has a doceterate in classic film studies in this situation might make a single throw away comment
MechslimeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
MeatSpace is a pretty unique book as far as books go on royal road. It has a pretty awesome system which differentiates itself from the rest, with every new skill up leaving genuinely excited to read whatever insane stuff the author can come up with. Speaking of insanity is our MC! This is the first book I've come across with a genuinely insane MC and I love it, his seeming lack of care for his own health and the manic moments of out of control hysteria. Not to mention one of my favourite parts the improv surgery! If I did have one complaint I'd say the author needs to tone down the pov switches. Whilst I understand they add to the story, I find I prefer to be left in the dark instead viewing the world through the twisted lens of jacks mind. I must say however that the other characters reactions to jacks insanity should be kept in as it adds to the horror aspect of the story. Overall great book, wish I hadn't started reading until there were more chapters though. After the slow start I found myself addicted
dandyruRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The grammar through-out the story is great, and usually consistent. Never has very noticeable grammar issues, or any for that matter. Amazing writing.
ALL the characters are amazing in thier own way, the main character has depth and is a great fit for this sorta story, most side characters are well written, and have depth. None of the characters are one sided, and even the ones that die quick don't feel cheap. The enemies are written well enough that you dislike them, and is generaly great.
STORY IS AMAZING. The story is some of the BEST. Amazing concept, amazing action writing. The story is amazing, and the author knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat. Concept is just out of this world(literally) and the world(ship?) building is amazing. I cannot recommend this book enough, with its good grammar, amazing writing and lovable characters, this is a complete breath of fresh air.
the comedy, although not exactly extremely common due to the nature of the story, is great when it does come, and is a great part of the story. All the characters are a great part of the story and anyone who likes action or sci-fi would love this book. Action is well written and stuff is consistent. No plot holes or big story gaps, and essentially everything is of good quality and amazing read.
TLDR: GREAT ACTION AND SCI-FI STORY, LOTS OF GOOD ACTION AND AMAZING CHARACTERS, GREAT HUMOR TOO.
King MichaelRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This is my second time writing a review on this site so I'm still new to this but I think it would be appropriate to write one here, after all I think that this novel deserves more popularity and if a review form me can help achieve that in any way then it would be wrong of me not to help.
Story: The story has been very engaging and immersive it really makes you feel like your in the minds of the characters, the transitioning from one characters perspective to the next is very smooth and doesn't overlap with one another. As for the characters, although not much is know about outside of their introductory chapters that can be explored gradually as the story progresses since as of right now their too business making sure that they either don't get eaten or have their brains sucked out by evil space crabs. Overall I find the story very interesting and would love to see how it progresses in the future.
Power system: If there is one thing I love in a story it is a well thought out power system with potential for growth and improvement, this novel did just that by merging the magical system interface seen in most litRPG's and the bodily enhancements and modifications seen in sci-fi genres and some how making them work perfectly together, it's honestly very interesting and I look forward to learning more about it.
BuckRodgersRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I can never get enough SciFi and the added interesting take on LitRPG doubles my fun, its a really cool package and I can't wait to learn more about this world.
The only issue is the amnesiatic MC can cause a little confusion at the start but as we learn more about the world along the MC that issue went away.
CimmerianRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Style: Space Pulp Fiction Adventure (GameLit). Spaceship setting (to date). Story includes system elements describing crew personnel level, resources allocation and physical/mental profile; they are the standard ST, DX, AGI, END, IQ, WIS, and CON (a derivitive stat?), with the addition of Emotional Quotent (EQ), Grit, Senses, Psi, Psy... and a few other goodies I won't spoil; crewmembers are able to view and nano-boost personal statistics through computer interfaces (and maybe other ways). Yes, there are "skills"/perks in this story as well. The pace is rapid and a bit chaotic ; think nonstop first-person-shooter pace with single chapter cut-scenes. The worldbuilding has mystery elements and a definite plot the author is building, wth a back-story slowly coming to light. The author is serious about "show, don't tell", and is definitely teasing out the details, slowly. Few perspective shifts are used, only when the main character is separated from one or more of the few supporting cast.
Story: Includes: Aliens. Experiments & impossible improvizational surgeries. Psychosis, and lots of insane violence. Running, lots of running. Improvised weapons. Superscience weaponse. A surprising amount of climbing and falling, for space. Occasional bursts of dialogue. Lots of things doing their best to not die in a setting where death seems to be an everyday thing, for most.
A bit bloody, for me, and the first 20-30 chapters were a bit too insane for my taste, but still very readable, especially after the Humanoid "spash art" and "MegaBrachyura" (no trademarks intended), especially with daily breaks between chapters.
Grammar: Good. If It doesn't disrupt my reading, I give full marks.
Character: Woo-hoo... we've got a live one here; the main character's personalities are very interesting. An amnesiac with shockingly low EQ, mysterious non-standard "stuff" in his body, and a strong, strong, abnormally strong survival drive who manages to find some allies on his given mission. Hi
HickupsRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Meatspace is a hfy hard sci-fi space horror action adventure with added litrpg elements. Successfully blended with surreal and violent aesthetics reminiscent of Mad Max, Matrix and the Dead Space games.
Characters are solid, with the exception of the protagonist. Jude Merry does a good job animating side and main characters in a distinct manner but Jack is fairly hit or miss. Due to circumstance and AI shenanigans he is an amnesiac saddled with 3 differrent personalities, two of which are homicidal sadists. While this may be an in-road for an intriguing plot line about who he is and why his personality is broken at such a fundamental level in the future currently it mainly serves to regularly add gore porn to the story and create additional drama.
In general, this story is excessively rife with gore on and besides the battlefield to the point of inundation. At this point a main cast character couldn't move fifty steps without horrific mutilation and subsequent gruesome triage. To me, it has reached the point where it actually detracts from the reading experience but if you have a faible for such things you might still be entertained. It is my understanding, however, that the frequency of these scenes will vary as the story progresses.
The technical side of this story is a mixed bag. Mistakes in both grammar and vocabulary are fairly common but can usually be deciphered or read over. The language is relatively simple overall and easy to digest.
However, there is a series of personal quirks of the author I find rather troubling. The narrative occasionally jumps into stream of consciousness like passages, pov switches from third to first person and, on few occassions, pov rapidly changes between actors within paragraphs. I often found this strenous and don't think dramaturgical benefit can be derived from how it was implemented so far.
In conclusion, I am fairly torn about this story. On the one hand I like the setting, atmosphere, main plot and nearly all characters.
MicroShockRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Interesting enough story, Love the general story, enemies range between cool to gross, Quite like the idea of having items to gather what is equivalent to exp points then uploading it to a computer Terminal to upgrade the character. Fun genetic modification vibe to it.
Don't particularly like some the things the crab aliens do, or the protagonist.
What I really dislike is the fact the main character is absolutely nuts at least 50% of time if not more and going full on psychpath at times..
Decent story maybe some people can look past these issues that but I am not one of them.
P.S. Minor issue, the green on black images for the computer Terminal is kinda small on a phone..
KaeinRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
So. Meat space.
It's basically Dead Space mixed with a post apocalypse on a generation ship heading... somewhere. Crabs have gotten aboard and they are eating people's brains. Protagonist has to tase them to death and gain levels via ship AI augmentation.
So, why do I say it's not for everyone?
Well the protagonist is... unhinged. And not in a very tolerable way. He enjoys violence, regards other people with an almost clinical distaste that makes him save them only due to what they can do for him, and he feels nothing about carving someone up or disfiguring them horribly if it's meant to save their life.
Which could be darkly interesting, and for some it probably is. Me personally I didn't like it. Not because he's unhinged, but more like it just comes out of nowhere. He starts out like a bewildered normal person who has to fight monster crabs out of nowhere. Then the AI system goes "yo that was kinda crazy. I guess I'm gonna crank up your insanity for no reason because you keep doing wild stuff in order to survive"
Which again, this could work if it was everyone. If it viewed all the insane steps people went to survive as crazy and cranked up the insanity in everyone then it'd make sense and the story would be dark but I'd be down for that.
But nope. Other survivors are just normal well adjusted people. Our protagonist thought gets some wierd hot/cold insanity where he becomes coldly logical at times and a gibbering laughing killer at others.
This turned me off. It felt so artificial, and the characters around him not killing him immediately on the spot felt stupid. If I'm in a ship full of monsters some dude rolls up on me holding a crab claw with a tight grin on his face while covered in blood, imma light him up and let god work out his innocence or run away screaming.
To some this could be intriguing. If you want a story of an AI system making one particular guy insane and him trying to save a ship full of people mostly for his own benefit, this could be your ja