SPSFC 3 Review - Intialize by Samuel Fleming

INITIALIZE: A SCIFI PROGRESSION FANTASY SERIES by Samuel Fleming is a LitRPG novel about a young man named Emmett. Emmett studies under a former superhero named Doctor Venture (no, not Rusty) and his daughter Clara. After an accident severely injures him, his mad scientist boss rebuilds him and tells him that he can be a Level 1 superhero now. Howeer, the thing about his modifcations are that he can get stronger (unlike the vast majority of them).

I have to admit that I was initially somewhat skeptical because I've had some bad experience with LitRPG as a genre. For every Dungeon Crawler Carl, there is a bunch of barely pasted together double-spaced work that seems devoid of character development or emotional weight. Virtually every genre has to deal with the majority being terribke but my bias remained. Thankfully, this is definitely one of the better examples of the genre.

Emmett is a likable enough protagonist if a bit on the vanilla side. He's a young student without much in the way of a love life and working his internship in hopes of getting closer to the superheroes he idolizes without ever realizing his boss is one of them. It's a fairly standard coming of age drama and Emmett has a lot of shonen anime protagonist running through his veins.

Doctor Venture is a reluctant teacher as well as something happened to him that destroyed his career in superherodom while also leaving him embittered against the entire system. This isn't one of those books where the superheroes are all evil, though. I feel that level of nuance helps matters. This is a very four color world and the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn. It's just that the good guys are also very flawed and more Marvel than DC.

Emmett isn't the only protagonist in the story, though, and we get a few more interesting characters like his roommate Lock, who is a part-time supervillain, as well as Truck-Kun who is just plain weird but an entertaining diversion. I was most interested in learning more about Clara and Athena, both women having their own stories that Emmett is only vaguely able to suss out in his desire to become part of the big leagues. As the "Mod" superhero, he can eventually go from being a Class-1 hero to a Class-5 but he's got a long way to go.

Overall, I really enjoyed Initialize. Emmett isn't a particularly deep character or flawed one but sometimes you don't need that. He's likable and believable with a desire to do good as well as a superhero fanboy. There's also enough mysteries to keep readers captivated and enough clues to make you feel you're not being deliberately left in the dark.

I give it a 4.5/5 and put it through to the next round of SPSFC3.