The Broken Cage

Godclads, Book 1

By: OstensibleMammal

Narrated by: Christian J. Gilliland

Avo was born to destroy New Vultun. In a twist of fate, he'll become its only hope for salvation.

The gods were the enemy. The slaver. The chains.

With dreams of paradise, humanity slaughtered them and stole their powers, opening the path to become more—to ascend.

Instead, they nearly destroyed the world.

Vast hive cities serve as the final bastions against the crumbling of reality. New Vultun is the greatest of them all, and within its borders, ascenders wage war to determine the laws of existence itself.

The world descends ever deeper into ruination.

Avo was born a weapon, a slave to his instincts and his masters. He and his brothers were made to burn New Vultun to ashes. Everything changes when Avo gains immortality and becomes heir to an impossible legacy.

He must ascend the megacity of New Vultun.

He must challenge the very tyrants that usurped the gods.

He must finally free the world from chains.

©2024 OstensibleMammal (P)2024 Podium Audio

Kindly old man voices man-eating monster, it's perfect.

Christian brings his A-game in this one, and boy does Godclads deserve it. Far and away one of the most creative, unique, and well written takes on both cyberpunk and the litRPG genre. A story about addiction, nature vs nurture, and overcoming oneself to become the best version of us we can be. It is also about a man-made living weapon that gets orgasmic pleasure from human suffering. A lot of philosophy and funny dialogue interspersed with intense, graphic violence involving a lot of torture and cannibalism. The setting of the story is such a brutal place, however, that the two hardly clash at all. New Vultun feels like a real place with real history, and in all reality could be called a character in its own right.
The epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter do a lot to fill out the world building and give context to things the readers wouldn't be able to learn without the usual info dump. A lot of the times, the quotes are either very revealing about the culture or history of the world or give insight into the mindset of a New Vultunite, other times they're just plain funny.
Only a few minor complaints about the voice actor mispronouncing things weirdly at times. Usually it's a one off thing, but sometimes it's not. It's also a little jarring to hear the Sang talk as Christian goes with the Japanese-y route of Rs becoming Ls, which doesn't really make in universe sense because everyone has been living in the same city speaking the same language for nearly a thousand years.
10/10 listen, I recommend reading the rest online. even if you choose not to, it may be helpful to check out the index chapter of Godclads terminology (there's a lot of cyber-wizard-priest/street trash babble)

To observe a monster

I adore books where the main characters aren’t human, be they monsters or animals, and Evo is a wonderful example of how you write a monster following the morales of another and trying not to fall to his base urges.

A diamond among lesser gems

This book was a random gamble a gamble very well rewarded. I anticipate the rest of this series.

Great book in here, needs a bunch cut

There is a great book in here: interesting main character, cool magic systems a couple hooks on future progress. Its hidden under repetitive descriptions, a few padded out scenes and explanations for the magic that happen after it'd be relevant to know. There is a really great book here, I really hope the author gets more editing for the next book or reworks this one because this one really has potential. If you're willing to look past the flaws this book is still very good, but it really could be great.

A true anti-hero!!!

Some books have misunderstood MC who's really a good guy, but he uses a taboo form of magic or something. This book took it a step further and manages to believably introduce a set of circumstances where an honest to goodness creature of pure evil is actively fighting against his nature to be a functional person.
The magic, and genetic mods and all of that stuff is good ...but it is the world-building great, and the actual character development ...and by that I don't mean stat progression and levels, I mean the self-actualization of the MC as a non-murderous functional person ...is amazing. Some moments are incredibly insightful, n other moments r impossibly hilarious.

There's no way to really understand until u read it for urself, but some of the stuff in this book is just "different"
Refreshingly novel take on the genre ...kudos to the author for being uniquely creative. I have to wonder tho ...what kind of mind can come up with stuff like this ...cuz it's not normal ...it's amazing, but it's waaaaaaaaaaaaay out there man.

Highly recommend, worth the credit ...u shud do urself a favor n check this one out!!!

interesting and horrifying world

it's a very entertaining and interesting world that would be utterly horrifying to live in. doesn't stop the appeal of being a god clad too. Avo is also a very good MC, trying to balance his nature with his ethics. looking forward to seeing where the series goes.

Good.

It’s great it just needs to go into detail more about how things work. Like ghost or how the world came to be. It does but it doesn’t

A pleasantly gruesome surprise

I was a bit nervous picking this series, it came on a random recommendation and I had heard nothing else about it. The world creation is very unique from a lot of other books I’ve read/listened to and the plot and scenes are more intricate than I expected. This was the first book in a while that had me reaching for a dictionary to chase a few terms down only to find that the writer uses them well within the structure of his story. Well done! Definitely a series I will continue to follow.

Words

So much exposition and a bit of torture. Struggled at times with this book due to rambling details. That said, I did enjoy it for the most part.

A truly unique setting

Lot's of books promise a unique world and mostly end up as generic with one or two twist. I can guarantee you will have never read anything with a setting like Godclads. However, a unique idea alone doesn't carry an entire novel. Godclads also delivers here, with great characters, prose, and world building (often times confus