In a world sold to the highest bidder, can Tyson save humanity from the insatiable greed of the universe?
When humanity finally fell, it wasn’t to war or disease—it was to shopping. BuyMort, the newest and last store to set up shop on Earth. The end of the world as everyone knew it.
Welcome to the Shopocalypse, the everything-must-go never again sales event that just lost us our world.
But not everything is lost. Meet Tyson, a no-cares slacker with a traumatic past, two wrinkled bucks in his wallet and a crap job caretaking a crap campground in the desert sands of Arizona. He had a deal with the world. He didn’t change it, and it didn’t change him. Seemed simple enough.
His world lost, monsters running rampant, and people dying everywhere he looks, it’s time to rise up from his dark past and become something he was never capable of being. It is time for him to be a hero. It is time for him to become the Windowpuncher!
59900 morties, 4.7 stars
BuyMort - GrandOpening
This story features an amalgamation of Amazon, Walmart, every service fee, sales algorithm, membership perk, advertising jingo, Microsoft mascot, and insane discount that you have ever experienced in your life, coupled with the madness of the multiverse, a dash of invisible hand monopolism, feudalism, straight-up cronyism and LOTS of profanity.
This MC is unlike others you may have read before. He starts as a Slacker, Pacifist, Human Pinata type who reluctantly is drawn into saving the people around him and fighting against the machine. There is fantasy violence, base-building, tons of market loot, monsters, a dungeon, affiliate and credit levels, and progression. It is single POV and has no harem elements.
As of writing this review, I’ve read the first published book.
This story was one recommended to me on Reddit when I last asked for recs. The system, named BuyMort, is effectively Super Magic Capitalism, and yes, that means it is horrifying. I think the system itself—or moreso the potential is has—is one of the strengths of the book. Trying to figure out what resources can be sold, or made, to turn a profit, frantically competing against the entire planet, because if you don’t have the morties, you don’t gots no power.
The system is purchasing style is vagely reminscient of Stray Cat Strut, but things are sold for Morties, as opposed to gaining credits by killing things. That said, if you kill someone, you get their stuff, which you can sell. Even better, sell their body to remove evidence of a crime? Made a mess and splattered their brains on the walls? Sell the brains! Everything is an opportunity for profit!
I assume this is delved more deeply in the next books, because the first one only follows the first few frantic days. Tyson is our protagonist, and his only real friend is Phyllis, the cantakerous, drug-loving, old lady that soon becomes a mech-warrior powerhouse. Tyson’s only other friend—and potential romantic interest—is a very busty snake lady that’s come to his tiny corner of the world to spread the joys of BuyMort. Kudos to the author for picking something new, I guess. Catgirls are so 2020, snakegirls are where it’s at.
The other character of some importance, I guess, is Tyson’s boss. Mr Sada. Honestllllyyy I think the interactions between the Tyson and Sada are probably why I’m not super keen to continue the story. Sada is an asshole, a petty, shitty boss that makes life difficult, willfully endangers people, and is a certified moron. I was waiting for his arrogant attitude to come back to bite him, for Tyson to take the opportunity to get out from under his thumb, maybe throw him into a slime pit, shoot him a bit, shoot him into a slime pit, etc. Instead Tyson… doesn’t. He takes the abuse, works harder to account for Sada’s stupidity. Tyson’s doing pretty much doing all the work in the campground, organising everything, keeping people safe, and Sada ends up holed up in his home. Well, at this point Tyson gets the ability to become an affiliate with BuyMort, and he does so with Mr Sada, because technically Mr Sada is his boss. Come on Tyson, I thought, the gun is literally on your shoulder. It’s loaded. Let’s do this!
Instead, Tyson negotiates a cut-throat deal with Mr Sada for profits. 90% to 10%.
90% to Mr Sada, that is.
Sure, it’s meant to swap when Sada leaves, but at this point Tyson knows that Sada’s plan isn’t going to work and also promises to help Mr Sada find a new spaceship to leave the planet on. Like… how is this going to happen?
I know, I know, this has to change in future books, and if someone could please spoiler me as to when it happens I’ll try to jump back in. But let’s be real, a lot of us read LitRPG titles because we want to escape for a bit into an imaginary world where somehow hard work gives rewards, and fantastical rewards at that. I cannot get my escapsim rush by reading about a system apocalpyse where the MC, admittedly not a clever guy, decides to just keep the status quo of enriching others with his hard work. Tyson has his damn trailer sold from underneath him, and Sada then steals his car (where he was living) and rents it out to somene else. ARGH. Why are you working for this asshole?!
Am I being harsh here? Did I just stop too early?
Tyson does have some interesting plans, and the base building part is just taking off. I did enjoy reading those sections, though again Tyson is not a smart MC and I am forever scratching my head over why he won’t utilise the system properly to help supercharge his plans. Like, if you were going to, say, sell ladybeetles, would you not spend some morties on guides to ladybettle farming, or the plants they like, or fertiliser for those plants, or see what tools created in the whole universe might help you out?
I do love my cunning, explotive MCs, though, and Tyson is more a laid-back, don’t-want-to-think-about-it style character. It’s why he’s living in a campground, after all.
Anyway, I suppose I’m not gelling right now, and this is less a review and a request for feedback and the direction the series takes as it continues so I know if I should read more, or pause here and dig into The Wandering Inn.
