The Mechaneer

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

“Trust your machines, trust your family, trust yourself.”

Chloe Hughes lives on the edges of interstellar society where these principles define her life – until the day her family are kidnapped and her machines stolen. Pursued by psychics, oligarchs and government agents, Chloe has only herself to rely on. The people after her seem to fear powers she doesn't know she has, but Chloe feels all too powerless.

Enter Rudy Algreil. Tournament mechaneer, oligarch's son, smart mouthed and sexy, Rudy is everything Chloe's parents warned her about. If she goes against her spacer instincts and extends her trust to Rudy, she could lose herself all too easily. But if she tries to go it alone, she'll never see her parents again.

For Chloe, it's no choice at all.

With Rudy's help, she must confront the power-brokers who took her parents and discover the secret of her powers. Together, they'll have to face scheming oligarchs, fearless officers, exiled nobles, magisterial bureaucrats, cunning criminals, and even the sinister psychic secret police of the Federal Senate: the Animus Hunters.

The greatest danger to Chloe might be losing herself, though... either to her feelings for Rudy, or to the terrifying, addictive rush of her own powers.

The Mechaneer is a new space opera from Joshua Cole, author of Eye Opener and The Fox Who Stole Hong Kong. Within, you'll find:

A compelling and characterfullove story.

A complex web of deep spacepolitics.

A bevy of world-shakingpsychic powers.

A heroine with lots of room togrow.

And of course–

A whole lot ofmecha!

Updates every weekday. Up to twenty chapters available in advance onPatreon.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2024
Author: Joshua Cole

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 204
Views: 74,656

Reviews

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Community Reviews(9)

AleernRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The Mechaneer is an absolutely phenomenal example of the classic space opera genre that I could not recommend more to interested readers.
Style: The writing does a wonderful job putting you into the universe Mr. Cole has developed, giving you both a sense of each characters particular background just from the way they interact with themselves and with others while also allowing you to place yourselves into their shoes and see the world from their perspective. The usage of multiple perspectives allows you to really understand what motivates and drives each character, while also introducing plenty of dramatic irony setting up moments down the line where one character finally discovers something crushing their heart that we as the reader knew all along.
Story: The premise is at least to me quite unique with three major "factions"; a fallen aristocracy who used to rule with supernatural powers and an iron fist, a group of corporations know as the oligarchy who rose up to crush the aristocracy in a civil war to protect their bottom lines, and the feds who rose from the ashes of the old house of parliament under the aristocracy to "win" the civil war and place themselves as the new ruling faction over the galaxy. Come our main character who starts out as junk a wreck scrapper with her parents who eventually comes to find she may be far more important to the galaxy than she ever thought, or wanted. I'll say little more to avoid spoilers, but just an absolute pleasure to go through this story so far.
Grammer: Little to say here, excellent usage of words to convey peoples characters and ubringing, and very few grammatical or typographical errors.
Characters: Here is a place that just shines in this story. I've come to care about so many characters in this story all of whom have their flaws and their virtues. one minute i'm mad at a charcter for doing something incredibly foolish, and the next i'm cheering them along. i came for the story, but i've stayed for the characters.
Beedeeboy9Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This authors other bodies of work are amazing, and this book is no different. It is very interesting, with a unique and captivating world. The world building is great, and the characters are intriguing. I really look forward to where this book is going. I would definitely recommend giving this book a read.
ScotusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Good stuff. I've always thought the giant-robot genre deserved some better writing.
This is it. I care about these characters even before they climb into their giant robots.
Josh seems to have extra chapters on his Patreon page. That's where I started reading this.
He has another novel (much longer) also up on Royal Road. I am devoting most of my reading time into that one, which is the only reason I haven't read more of this one.
Sneaky CuttlefishRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I don’t usually read space opera, but I gave this a try because I was so impressed with the writing and world building in another of the author’s stories. I was not disappointed! It hooked me so thoroughly I binged the entire archive in one day. The writing and world building are just as fantastic as I expected.
SpojazRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The Mechaneer has interesting characters with complex motivations, who showcase who they are through evocative battle mecha fighting scenes. The action is interspersed with tense political intrigue and solid worldbuilding further informs the stakes. At least so far, the story has been paced rather well, keeping me interested, even when chapters are of inconsistent length. Good stuff, well worth the read.
David Niemitz (M0rph3u5)Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I've been hoping to find a good mecha story on RR for quite a while, and so far this more than qualifies. We have compelling characters suddenly caught up in the machinations of noble houses, corporate oligarchs, and what seems like a less than kind government, all in the aftermath of a war that has shaped our characters' backstories. We've got cool mechs, psychic powers, and even something of a burgeoning bad-idea romance!
The only thing I would have liked more of would be to spend a bit more time on Chloe and Rudy. There's a missed opportunity to see a bit more of that relationship unfold as they're forced to spend what, like a month together living in the same place? I would have enjoyed that being developed a bit more.
That said, I'm following and binging what's up through to the end. Keep up the good work!
NightbulbRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Superbly well written... but I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to keep reading it. I'm not digging how it treats it's female characters so far. I'll come back to edit this it my position changes, but...
Grammer: No issues.
Style: Captivating.
Story: A promising start, but it's not going where I expected it to. Because...
Character: The supposed protagonist, Chloe, the girl with the powers I was excited to see her grow into, is just getting yanked around. She's got agency and depth and whatever, but the plot isn't giving her the room to explore it or grow.
Rudy isn't very likable for someone who isn't into dudes enough to see him through Chloe's red-tinted lenses, being self-centered even in his altruism. Chloe has obvious potential to be the story's hero, but is getting treated like Rudy's arm candy or secret weapon instead of being her own secret weapon.
Chloe's dad is getting to play war veteran, while Chloe's mom- despite being an angry and competent major character with her own POV chapters- is being narritively yanked around and sidelined by her "oppressed minority" background. Like Chloe, she's so far ended up offering little but overwhelmed and distant commentary to the situations her husband is taking the lead on. The story even went out of its way to emphasize how clueless she is about the plot-central sporting event compared to Chloe's dad, as he chats with their captor about the nuances of a match in front of her, and he shushes her attempts to ask questions the captor won't answer. It was like Cole felt the need to include a scene about how woman don't get football or baseball, but used mech battles as a substitute. The whole scene is insulting to the intelligence she'd been stated to have, and I can't see a narritive point to the prior disinterest she and Chloe apparently had in the sport.
It's just a really concerning array of narritive patterns so far. It's very possible that this is a deliberate set-up for Chloe to turn things around later, and grow int
LadVladRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I think I've read enough to make a judgement call on this. Categorically not for me. It may be for you though, its not lacking in reedeming features.
Boring Protagonist. Chloe has the personality of a side character, that is to say she doesn't have much personality, I cannot envision this person as a character, but merely an author's puppet that does and feels what it needs to advance the plot, sadly that thing is usually being a whiny helpless little thing to feed into the teenage angst shoujo romance melodrama trope going on. She is a plot device. She is also a McGuffin, shes supposed to be able to shatter planets, but she doesnt, because McGuffins arent supposed to be used, they are meant to be existential threats.
The politics are very interesting actually, but its hard to care when I do not care for the protagonist.
Rudy, the love interest, is actually a very good character, and actually has a personality. Shocker, but maybe not so, I wasnt kidding when I said this reads like a shoujo manga, male protags there need to be interesting and devilish, and the female protagonists need to be blank slates.
I will also let you in on an observation, men do not understand women, women do not understand men, terrible things generally happen when one gender tries to write a protagonist of another gender.
I realize my review is alot harsher than the star rating I am giving it, but credit where its due, the politics in this series so far have had me at the edge of my seat.
Might continue reading just out of curiosity. I do not know when Chloe will finally do something genuinely useful but its not 67, hasnt even climbed into a mech yet.
Aman1234aceRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
I believe that there should be main characters with diverse personalities and complex identities, I think a protagonist who is bad in conflict and out of their depth in the plot because of their upbringing is a unique choice that can add nuance. I object strongly to the depiction of the female leads in this story. Chloe has exactly no characterization or agency beyond a damsel in distress which does not make for interesting reading. The way her and her mother are characterized flies directly in the face of their backstory and social upbringing. The men in this story are callous and domineering attractive to the Chloe and Ellie purely by virtue of being men. Plot holes are contrived solely to justify their most sexist behaviors. You cannot honestly tell me that an individual treated as property before gaining freedom would be so easily willing to get oppressed. It's a damn shame too. The themes and setting were deeply interesting, it was a unique and very gundam like dynamic. But it can't excuse the glaring plot issues. Chloe is a mech pilot who works on her own mecha but in the presence of Rudy, she loses all competence. Rudy regularly verbally harasses and insults her intelligence to her face, but this is somehow absolved by him thinking she's capable and competent but never acting accordingly. I had been looking for a decent mecha story with a FMC and I want to give this one the benefit of the doubt but I would need some serious proof that the plot is capable of letting Chloe and Ellie act without a man manipulating them or overrulling them.