A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol. 1: A Sci-Fi Light Novel

A Most Unlikely Hero, Book 1

By: Brandon Varnell

Narrated by: Amber Lee Connors

Being a hero isn't a walk on Mars!

Alexander S. Ryker dreams of becoming a hero, but dreams are hard to achieve when you’ve caused several million credits worth of property damage. Being expelled from the Mars Police Academy isn’t helping his case. Crushed, Alex encounters a girl named Gabrielle Angelise in a meeting that will change his life forever. Gabrielle is an alien! She’s also on the run. Alex wonders if this is the chance that he’s been waiting for, the chance to finally become a hero. Opportunities like this don’t come often, or ever, and so Alex steps up to protect Gabrielle and make his dream a reality. He will become a hero—if the strain from living with an alien bombshell doesn’t kill him first!

Fans of To LOVE-Ru who wanted a better protagonist will enjoy this series.

©2017 Bandon Varnell (P)2024 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

To Love Ru on Mars

If you're interested in a respin of To Love Ru and don't mind a story that is so obviously fan fiction, go for it.

Good story overall

The plot did not drag, but was somewhat predictable. Normally, this would make me lose interest. In this case, it did not. I believe it was because the author was able to develop the characters and gave them life beyond what you would expect to see in overused tropes. Good and enjoyable story overall.

A very fun Audiobook

This was a very enjoyable audiobook, found my self laughing and really enjoying it. Was hoping to fine the 2nd one as a audiobook but ended up buying the kindle version. I hope the second and all the other will make it to audiobook format soon. Thank you for a fun time

Great start for a series

The first audiobook from a great lightnovel author.
Starts great. The protagonist isnt a whimp afraid of getting his hands dirty.
The Amber Lee Connors blows my mind,Also known as shudo ranmaru she does the Voices for android 18 and other famous characters

A great adventure! Boy rescues girl, his father was a hero!

A former cadet at the academy, rescues a young girl his age. He then decided to protect her from her attempted kidnappers. Till he finds out something, that is hard to believe. (The former cadet is also an inventor of tools that don’t always work right, you will laugh your head off.) please check this audiobook out!

Silly But Fun

This isn't hard reading material by any means, and it's just a step above smut fiction, but Amber Lee Connors raises it up into something that feels like it's more than it is, and adds so much with her voices. The story is a lot of fun with her narrating.

Not a MOIST unlikely hero

Amber Lee Connors does the voice work of this light novel in a straightforward manner that doesn't offer a whole lot of range but is still pleasant to listen to and handles the subject matter well. At just under 6 hours, there's a lot to listen to here, but the story itself meanders a lot and is a bit problematic. It advertises itself as a harem, but by the end of it the main character only has one fiance. It's also "anime as all get out" which will make or break one's desire to purchase this depending on their tastes. This shouldn't be of much surprise considering the type of stories Brandon Varnell is best known for. Overall, a solid listen if you like this type of anime-inspired story, but problematic in how certain things are characterized if you don't.

A Hard review to wirte

As I put in the title this is a bit of a hard review for me to write. I first came across this book a year back on Kindle Unlimited and couldn't bring myself to finish it mostly because, as a fan of manga and light novels, the glaring similarity between this and a manga series called To Love Ru was just too much and it made me want to go read the other series instead of finish. Yes there are many similarities, which the author thankfully acknowledges in the description of this book which kills the "is this plagiarism?" bell sounding in my head.

With that said I picked it up and decided to give it a listen since I had a credit free and I'm 4/5 glad I did. However since this is a hard enough review to write I'm going to ashew my typical pro/con style and shoot from the hip. First, if you like anime style stories this is a good book, if you like something lighthearted and fun, this is a good book. I want to stress this, the is a good book, just not a great book and honestly this is the problem.

So what is my problem with the book? Well you see, the flaws in the book, are ones that To Love Ru, and Japanese books in general don't have; IE the feel of social slant or it could just be my "SJW run for the hills sense" is binging because the tropes have been taken straight from Japan. This could just be me, but there were a few times with Karin, especially, that I felt there was too much raw raw go girl, women are perfect. This is fine in a manga or light novel, since I'm well aware its typically played for laughs, with the oh so perfect strict boss lady having a few flaws hidden away; like bemoaning her single life or being a slob or being a little too girly in private, something to balance out the perfect bad ass boss lady image. Maybe there is later in the series, but as is she's just a sadist and rude which, well I don't like those characters, especially if they are not given a reason for why they are that way. Again I'm trying not to judge since I know this trope and this is a first volume to a series. The biggest problem being that the MC comes off as preachy and naivety, especially when he monologues towards the end. Which is okay since he's 16 years old. If this was manga his character arch would be losing that naivety and learning what a hero actually is, you know grow up. However, this is not a manga and thus I can't help but feel uneasy. Add to this there was far to much anti-arranged marriage stuff to the point that I wanted to bang my head against the wall, she ain't a normal girl, its called noblesse oblige, bad things happen to everyone when the rulers forget this. However, again, this is not supposed to be a serious novel, which gives a feeling of whiplash which leave me a little off balance.

In the end, this is a decent novel, if you like manga or something lighthearted, give this a shot. I'll be waiting for the next book, to see how this goes and edit this review after that.

Just as entertaining as To love ru

having seen the anime and noticing some of the similarities in the story, I am hoping that the story does not relate to closely and actually develops further than how that anime progressed.

ALSO, how is this narrator not a voice actor?

Light hearted adventure story

This is one of those light hearted adventure stories where the subject matter is easy going, moves along briskly and is just all around enjoyable for a light listen