This is a fun alternate world based novel where one man gets superhero powers... but what will he do in order to get back home to Earth.

Planet Hero: Civilian is not your normal fantasy book. It's a gameLit novel, which is kind of like reading a role-playing game. The style definitely took a few pages to get used to, but all-in-all it was pretty interesting. Davis Malory is going about his normal life on Earth when suddenly he encounters an evil doppelgänger version of himself and gets pulled through a portal into Planet Hero. Once there, he has a hard time convincing them that he is not a villain, then has to get used to this alternate reality that is so different from his own. It's a reality where he gets his own superpowers and really gets to test how far he would go to be a hero.

All-in-all I liked this novel. A lot of the game elements were pretty interesting, although the long "leveling up" period in the middle did get a bit tedious. It could have just been a montage, in my opinion. It was still a fun read and I want to read more stories set in this world.

I liked this story, but it is a very Bro Book. The main characters and men, the baddie is a woman. While it is an enjoyable read with some complexity that mirror Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as a female reader it wasn't truly my cup of tea. It doesn't represent enough diversity and feels flat.

This was a fun audiobook to listen to. Filled with action and adventure and cheesy one-liners, we warp into another dimension where nanos power you up so you can survive, and maybe even be a hero. Our Davis Malory, an MD by Earth trade, is suddenly learning to survive and perhaps be on his way to hero-dom himself, if he can survive the training and the baddies that await. Highly recommended for readers of all ages.

It was fun. Not riveting, but a fun, light read. I enjoyed how Davis got sucked into this Hero Planet where a lot of the rules seem silly. He has to adapt and his mentors are not making it easy on him. The element I liked most about this book is that he looks exactly like a supervillain (the one responsible for landing his butt on this crazy planet). So he has to prove he’s not that bad guy & earn some trust.

The story is more serious than humorous. There’s a little humor here and there but the plot takes itself seriously. Sometimes this dulled the story. These were usually scenes having to do with learning powers or leveling up. I know this is a litRPG story but having detailed stats read to you is a bit tedious at the best of times.

The story does pick up after Davis gets a few levels under his belt. Action! Kapow! Plenty of fight scenes ensue. Davis has got a little bit of an edge because he’s a medical doctor on Earth. Science is his sidekick. On Planet Hero, there really isn’t any science knowledge. So Davis has his work cut out for him for future books – study those nanobots!

There were very few ladies in this story. In fact, with 1 exception, this plot would not be affected if you left out the ladies. So that was disappointing for a modern litRPG.

Overall, this is a plot-driven story. None of the characters have real depth. Davis has a little but we rarely get any insight into his emotions or deeper thoughts. I think this added to the story feeling a little flat. 3/5 stars.

The Narration: Jeffrey Kafer is one of my favorite narrators and that’s why I requested a review copy of this book. As usual, he gave an excellent performance. I just love his evil supervillain voices. All of his characters have unique voices and the few ladies in this story sounded feminine. There were no tech issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley. My opinions are 100% my own.

A superhero book mixed with all the stat boosting effects of a video game culminated in this wonderful book!

My video game heart was bursting with joy pretty much my whole way through this book. With each Milestone (Level up) Davis got I couldn't help but put a smile on my face. I'm gonna be honest here and say that I didn't expect much from this book. I thought the title was bad, and I know you aren't supposed to do this, but I judged it by it's cover as well. But here I am, happy to report that if you like super heroes, video games, or just a really damn good time then this book is one you should check out!

This book had so much video game love in it. There's a stat page, a heads up display (HUD), stat bonuses, level grinding, unique abilities and more. One thing M. A. Carlson did impeccably well was fitting these things into his world, and not just fitting them in but having them make sense. There is nuances and complications to the world and...magic system?...but it was all easily digestible and written in a way that was easy to pick up and understand. Even the level grinding, which when you are playing games is....a chore usually, he turned it into a great spot to explore the world and the characters and explain things all in a fun way while destroying monsters and collecting nanos.

The characters are all fun and unique and have good personalities. I enjoyed that the world was different, but also not to different. There is new flora and fauna but we are still on Earth *clears throat* Planet Hero, I mean. But something called the Advent changed everything, which gives us this similar, but different world. I like that Carlson does refer to comics and video games in this book. He compares things like super hero talk and stat points to them and it would feel...silly, I guess, if he didn't.

I really appreciated the story the whole way through. He had me from the beginning, right to the end. The book's not that long though, which isn't a bad thing. It doesn't have a chance to overstay it's welcome. To often now I feel like books get overly long and it just becomes long winded and try hard at some point. Not this one. We get to the point and move to the next objective. Not everything needs to be 600+ pages.

The narration was fantastic! I had never heard of Jeffery Kafer before, but he did a really great job. It wasn't to some of the absolute top tier stuff I've heard, but not once did I fall out of the story because of him. He will be a narrator I keep on eye out for. Would gladly listen to more of his stuff. The audio also had some little dings and dongs spread throughout for the random level up noise...I mean Milestone noise. It fit perfectly with the video game type atmosphere and it wasn't overly done.

Overall this book was great. I've already recommended it to a couple friends and I hope they give it a go. This book isn't perfect, but I feel like it's not gonna be as big or popular as it deserves. It really is so much fun!

Seriously. Give this book a go! Unless you are allergic to fun, then maybe pass.

As Dr Davis Malory is heading home in the early hours of the morning after a long shift at the hospital he is on the verge of being asaulted by a gangster when a flash of green light distracts them and they see a man in a purple spandex suit writhing on the ground. As the gangster flees, Dr Malory tries to help the man, who looks like an older version of himself, but then finds himself sucked ino a portal into another world - one populated by Heroes and Villians.

Planet Hero is a futuristic version of Earth where everyone has been infected by a nano virus which can enhance power, stamina, resilience and any special skills the person may have. The more nanos a person can capture the more they can enhance their abilities and those with special skills can eventually become heroes or villians.

Reading this novel was much like playing a video game where tasks must be performed and things captured to allow the player to enhance his profile and move up levels. Davis is taught by a group of heroes how to capture nanos and kill nano modified beasts to improve his status to a point where he will be strong enough to carry out a special task for them.

Not my usual genre I admit, but listening to this audiobook was so much fun! The heroes and villians speak in the cliches used in comic books and are totally stereotyped. I did find the constant repetition of Davis' status profile with a list of over 20 attributes, even when only one attribute had changed, quite annoying in the audiobook (in the book it would be easier to glance over quickly), particularly in the early chapters where he is working on increasing his levels. This is less of a problem in the second half of the book where Davis gets to use his newfound skills and have his own superhero adventure. I enjoyed Carlson's imagined world of fortress cities, toxic and dangerous animals, heinous villains and courageous heroes and suspect that gamers and those who love marvel type comics would enjoy this.

Planet Hero: Civilian by M. A. Carlson, I enjoyed this book, it felt fresh and fun. A new and interesting concept in what can make a person a hero or a villian.

This audio book is awsome and so hard to press stop wanting to know what happens next. Jeffery Kafer narration was fantastic keeping with the character Dr Davis Malory dry dead pan medical doctor attitude perfectly. He definitely made M.A Carlsons character and world really come alive. This book is highly recommended for fans of Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Ready Player One, dystopian/parallel worlds and any person who ever wished they had superpowers.

A book so similar to a video game that, for a large portion of the story, the main characters grind for experience points in the wild lands. I mean this literally -- they hunt critters, experience points leave the carcasses in the form of nanobots, and then the characters absorb those nanobots. Further, and predictably, getting enough nanos lets a character level up and assign a point to some area of personal development. Multiple times throughout this ~six-hour audio book, the narrator gave a full rundown on the main character's specs. Good times.

The plot revolves around a doctor who comes face to face with a doppelganger from another world: Planet Hero. The two unwittingly switch places, and now a doctor is in this strange world populated by superheroes. His doppelganger, unfortunately, was a supervillain, so the good doctor must first earn the trust of these unfamiliar and tacky-dressing heroes if he has any chance of convincing them to help him power-level in order to infiltrate his doppelganger's secret lair.

There are some cool ideas here, especially the fact that this planet populated by heroes doesn't know what a medical doctor or a computer is, since heroes have healing power or super intelligence. Other than that, this is a lot like watching someone play a first-person shooter on YouTube. The narrator was great, but sounded like Rod Sterling from The Twilight Zone, which made things (perhaps unintentionally) a little funny.

I got this audiobook from the Listen Now category of NetGalley.

I love superhero stuff as well as alt dimensions, but this book... I just couldn’t get into it. I tried. You’d think listening to an audiobook about stuff I like would captivate me, but for the first time I listened to an audiobook but heard nothing in it.

The narrator’s voice is great, but he never changes his pitch or tone to differentiate between the characters. I heard him change his voice once for one character. It was very monotonous. The only time my ears perked up was to hear the stats of the protagonist improving.

I felt like the fish-out-of-water drowned under the chosen one arc. The narrative was so focused on being fast-paced that we never really got a sense of character. No emotion, no depth. There was also too much explanation instead of organic world-building.

This isn’t a bad book, but I think it fell flat.