Description

[ Spring WRITATHON 2025 winner ] *Completed

Humanity has colonized stars, discovered alien life and staved off an apocalypse of it’s own creation, heroes and legends rose from that galaxy spanning conflict but now things are stuck in the same old day-in, day-out patterns. When fifteen year old Reginald Reid is given the chance to escape a mundane life spent farming in the hydroponics stacks of his home city to take up soldiering with the Corporate Colonial Infantry, he thought he would get to see the stars, instead he got years of grinding trench warfare. With the dead and broken all around him, he’ll do whatever he must to stand apart for the common soldiers if he ever wants to get off planet in his lifetime— no matter how short it may be.

tMBC is a standalone precursor novel to my other fiction, Birth of an AI. It is also a deeply personal story to me, as I started tooling with this idea back when I was being released from the Canadian Forces. *oh yeah, Samuel Silverman did this artwork-- Never do business with that man, he'll rip you off bigtime.

Community Reviews(1)

ilvaltarRoyal Road

★★★★★ 5.0

For the first time, I'm not using the advanced review because I don't have enough things to say, but because I know that it would be utterly incapable to summarize what I think of this story.
There are patterns to stories on RR, and great stories manage to get roughly 5 stars on everything. But not once, I asked myself what would it mean to get 6 or even 7 stars ? Not once I asked myself this question in the 7 years I've passed on this website. Until now.
It would be a lie to put every parts on the same level, the world building is decent, the language good and the plot serve its purpose.
But hell, the characters really deserve 7 stars. As chapters flies, I read through the main character life while remaining like him somewhat detached, but still observing on me the emotions this story wrecked in me : A weird mix of horror, awe, and curiousness in front of this abnormality of a man that feels so real. Each other character further reenforcing the tale depicted in front of us.
For any reader passing by here, if it is not already obvious, you should try this story. It won't appeal to everyone. But for some people at least, I hope you will feel the same thing.