Viceroy's Pride

The story itself is phenomenal with all the intrigue and so on but he says his character is weak willed for character development but it's not really development but a sudden realization him saying he'll change but then a while later it looks like no progress has happened with the military he was almost as passive as ever. He didn't stand up for himself against them or his 'students'

the first seven chapters of this story are no longer so pants on head retarded that they make my brain hurt. unfortunately im not allowed to post my criticisms without spoiler tags so get ready for a  paragraph or two under the spoiler tag

Spoiler: Spoiler

This is a fun lit-rpg where magic and science coexists.  The MC gets magic and a system equivalent and is sent to a magic-based planet to do traditional lit rpg things.  Unfortunately, things don't really seem planned out or logical.  For example, the MC joins a party nervous about adventuring in the silver mines...and then the nervous party voluntarily tackles a nest of giant ants with essentially no plan whatsoever.  He never asked his folks how or when he was going to teleport back home.  He doesn't bring a gun, any technological equipment -- ok, maybe he wants to blend in -- or any food!  He teleports blindly to another planet knowing nothing about it other than that there are humans somewhere on it and he will end up without 50 miles of a teleporation hub...and brings no food!  There is also something a little out of place about the humor.  Since there isn't much, its kinda weird when the eccentric billionaire financing his journey takes him aside and tells him to make sure to get a harem when he goes to fantasy land "for the sake of every red blooded male."

All of this aside, the story is kind of fun, and the MC is likeable enough.  I feel like the author just needs to make a decision and either get more serious about the plot, or add more humor and continue to not worry about things overmuch.  

Just started reading, up to Chapter 4. It's enjoyable, but feels more "young reader" because of the really obvious departures from reality. And I'm not talking 'adding magic'. 
-An alien space ship with a long range scanner doesn't bother to actually scan the planet first, just assumes they are primitives? WTF? You found the planet from light years away, why not sit in orbit and look at it for an hour?
-Lots of talk about the alien military, all of them stupid. Land at a random spot and charge out with primitive weapons. Magic weapons, but still swords and bows. Dumb. 
-The army gets all the alien artifacts.
-The army gets bored with them, researchers move on. Really? Scientists devote decades to studying small discoveries. A rock from the moon is an amazing thing. Yet real aliens, a starship, weaponry....is abandoned pretty quick?
-And then the army just shuts down research and leaves a non-army engineer to sort through it all. 
-Researcher eats some stuff, gains magic. Where did this come from.
-Army sells all the artifacts to a corporation who hires the engineer with magic.

Now, understand I'm reading this after it got re-written to take out stupid stuff :)   

There's a story here, it's free on RR, someone is trying hard, probably their first book. It's still fun to read. I"m not going to tone down my review, so 3 stars for a not bad first attempt at a story. But you do have take into account that this isn't a novel I paid 9.99 for. That would have been a 1 star because of much higher standards

Summary: Enjoyable for most folks, decent first effort,  thanks for writing it, will continue reading.

Chapter 1 had me hooked.  "Earth encounters an interstellar empire of magic-wielding elves" seems like an excellent premise for an engaging space opera fantasy.

Sadly, this was not that book.

I noped the fuck out of the story at Chapter 4.  The combination of a weak-willed MC with too many severe-SOD-requiring plot elements killed my interest.

The author had some interesting ideas, but he really needed to pare them down a bit.  (MC does something stupid and gets alien magic, sure.  MC gets injected with experimental nanobots, okay.  MC works for a shadowy figure who's a video game obsessed who <hand wave> somehow created a MMO-like System in real life, why not?  Just... maybe not all at once.)

So, while this book generally is good, it has a character which is not really understandable, as well as the assumption that the government or army, do not have lawyers. The characters seem to be very two dimensional, which some small outliers. One is a mobber, which our hero follows, but while this is understandable, everyone in an official capacity is stupid, regardless of if they are human or alien. The story has much potential, and one thing that is very good is the grammar. I generally only see a few mistakes, if any at all, which is great. The basic underlying story is also good, but it devolves right now, mostly because of the 2-D characters and the dynamics between them. Certain things are ignored, and we do not see why.

Warning, the following is a spoiler:

Apparently the author has made substantive edits to the story in response to criticism, which looks to have improved the early story quite a bit. Kicking off, the premise is that elves invade Earth in a bid to use humans as cannon fodder against orcs. Unfortunately, they find themselves initially unprepared to handle modern weapons and their display of dominance collapses before the US military begins research into the magical systems, making no headway as the research team is slowly whittled down to the first and now last member, Daniel Thrush. He, in a demonstration of classic human intuition, decides to eat some of the mana crystals as his final unsupervised experiment and awakens magical affinities within himself.

From there on, the story follows him as he attempts to navigate the decidedly limited options available to the only awakened human on Earth. Several reviews have criticized Dan's progression as being a weak-willed pushover, but all of his choices make sense. He reaches out to the previous project lead, a professor from MIT and she brings him into the private foundation she's been working with since the military trimmed down the project. They set him up with a training regimen, a system (that only has limited sway on the story) and all the information they've managed to collect and translate. After that, they track down an unimportant world to send him to so that he can gain enough mana to return and begin awakening more humans.

Dan does what anyone would do in his situation. Find people that know more than him and try to figure out what to do next. If you meet a friendly ranger on an alien planet, you're going to rely on them to learn more about the world. There's no wish-fulfillment, he doesn't start with incredible powers and push around unjust leaders, he just wants to lay low and develop the potential to eventually match elven spellcasters in a way that humans oppressed under their empire aren't allowed to.

Overall, it makes for an interesting sci-fi/fantasy mashup with a normal every-man catapulted into a fight for freedom that he is ill-prepared for. The world hasn't collapsed into anarchy, the governments and economies are still running, there's just an on-going alien invasion. It's an entertaining read with little in the way of errors to detract from the story.

The main character takes awhile to get going. He seems to be a weak willed wuss in the begining, because he is. It is a part of his story, to see himself as he really is and then try to change...while elves and monsters are trying to kill him. Once  you get to chapter 41 though. The story seems to get more serious. i am very instrested to see just where it will go.

The action ramps us over time, the MC gets stronger, more imprtant things are happening, but nothing overblown so far. No over the top super powers, so always winning or always losing. As of jan 24 he can put up a decent fight but isn't Superman or something else silly like that.

Somewhat realistic actions given magic in the first place, and the political stuff seems to be reasonablt what one might expect from people and govenrments(still disgusting, but what you would expect them to do).

I will be checking up on it daily, and gave it 4.5 stars.

Just caught up as of chapter 60. I'd just like to say, in the last few chapters the characterization has improved alot in my eyes. 

Specifically, I disliked how the characterization seemed to tend towards the mc being a reasonable person, and the antagonists being unreasonable idiots. Anyway, that impression seems to have been aleviated.

(Basis = Read through C55 in one sitting) Can't really add too much to the existing reviews, but at a high level:

Elves are the dominant mages in space and live for millenia. Orcs are the horde they're fighting and losing worlds to. Swords and fantasy fighting alongside guns and apache helicopters, spaceships and different worlds. It's enough of a spin on old tropes to introduce mystery and keep turning pages.

The MC isn't OP and you feel the struggle. I feel like the characters are a bit of a turn off and there's a bit too much mental luggage that gets rehashed, but the story is currently probably in the top 10% of what I see here on RR. I would expect to see this in the top stories for a while. Also, author publishes frequently which is another plus. I'd give this a 4 on amazon, but here on RR it's worth a 5.  

One concern is how the story will progress. The big draw and best parts for me was the MC bumbling around the edges and learning stuff about a whole new world/system. As an example, our MC out of frustration basically said fark it and ate some crystals to see what would happen. I don't see a lot of those moments being possible in future chapters, but who knows what's up the author's sleeve. 

Also, it would have been great if the MC had been able to do more with his background as an Electrical Engineer. I feel like there was a BIG missed opportunity there with runescripting and electrical affinity. He could have applied knowledge of circuitboards, used multiple layers of runes, any such innovation we've had in the past for modern electronic circuits. Instead the only add from earth knowledge as object oriented programming and fuses. The MC being an Elec. Engineer was just a red herring here. He might as well have been a janitor for all the difference it's made in this story.

Great first publish author. Thanks for the chaps so far and good luck.