I am the God of Technology
I decided to read to read a short novel as I often do between two long stories. And as I finished reading the very good “Humanity’s Greatest Mecha Warrior System”, I settled for this short tale also in the Sci-Fi genre. Sadly, it seems that I recently have no luck with short novels, as “I am the God of Technology” appeared to have an alright rating at first but in fact quickly became a drag, until it devolved in disgust.
Dante is a okay overall protagonist, more an anti-hero, self-centered pretty much except when his family or love interest are involved. Not a complete sociopath, but definitely not a good person. His paramour Beatrice is a fine character with a detailed background, also more on the anti-hero side of the morality compass, but still right (she is in fact better written than the MC). Alas, beside them, the family and a couple other characters, the rest of the cast is quite bareboned.
The setting and the story are low points of the tale. The protagonist has the power to switch between universes, first his seemingly native contemporary Earth universe and the space-opera Eternal Universe, then a number of quantum computer created universes with various elements of fantasy (western and eastern), science, post-apocalyptic or even anime, each with its own power system. Since all of these elements are introduced in a relatively short time, I felt like there was overwhelming arrival of new elements, but no real development in depth, just the parts that allow the MC to power level by taking advantage of the interaction between his universe-hoping power and the various systems of the worlds he visits. Beside the romance with Beatrice, the story is pretty much just that when I finished.
The writing is another bad spot of the novel. First, Kotaro overuses breaking of the fourth wall in a not very subtle way, either directly or with references to other media franchises, so much that I felt I had in front of me a story that could not stand on its own. Next, not only there are a number of typos, misspelling and grammar errors, but the style itself can be qualified as raw, dry and stuffed. The author doesn’t try to ease the reading, especially when he gives huge list of items, powers or others things that make the novel appears less a sci-fi tale and more a technical manual or a catalogue. I had to force myself in a number of chapter and it is one of those lists, one full of plagiarised materials that made me drop.
Because yes, I dropped this novel, a rare thing, but between the unrefined style, the overabundance of references, the lack of depth of the various universes and the just okay protagonist, I already had a hard time carrying on with my reading, but the plain plagiarism, even before the mid-point of the book was the last straw for me. My final verdict is a 3 out of 10. Now, I’m moving to a fantasy story, which I hope will show it is worth its high ratings.
