Audiobook Review – BuyMort: Smart Shopper (Shopocalypse Saga, Book 2) by Damien Hansen, Jospeh Phelps, Narrated by Wayne Mitchell (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Humor
Length: 13 hours and 17 minutes
Publisher:‎ Podium Audio
Release Date: July 18, 2023
ASIN: B0C832HZPC
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Shopocalypse Saga
Source: Bought Audiobook from Audible
Rating: 5/5 stars

“After pacifying the old Earth underground military base and defeating the Sleem, Tyson Dawes and Silken Sands are flush with new items and morties. But the Dearth Conglomerate has been circling over them in Arizona, and they want his land.
Which wouldn’t be such a problem if the boss weren’t such an incompetent and spoiled child.

Bad business decisions, cronyistic impulses, and an unrelenting invisible hand continue to hem in Tyson and his Nu-Earth refugees. Allies fall, and life, already cheap, moves to the discount bin as he’s forced to face the bottom line.

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 have heard before. He cares about other humans, even his crappy boss. He doesn’t seek to be the leader—he just naturally is.
It’s him leading the desperate and hopeless against the machine.”

Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Shopocalypse series. I bought this for audiobook from Audible.

Thoughts: I think I enjoyed this book even more than the first book in this series. Each of these books only covers a few days, but a lot happens in that time.

When we start off here Tyson has escaped the Sleem and decided to work with the gobs to create a Sleem farm for profit. He still has to decide what to do with his jerk boss and is learning how to take advantage of BuyMort. As Tyson pulls more people together and tries to create a safe haven, he finds himself taking on more and more leadership.

This is such a darkly funny read, but it has a lot of heart as well. I love how hard Tyson works to try and keep everyone safe and how he is trying to make things better. We have a number of new characters join the story and I particularly enjoyed the gnolls. It is fun to watch Tyson try to make friends with everyone (well not everyone, but a lot of people) and to see how he gets them to start working together. I also love the addition of the dark elves and Beholder to all of this mayhem.

This is action packed and fast paced; there is a lot of character growth. We learn more and more about the BuyMort system and how to navigate it. We also continue to get hints at a rebellion brewing. This volume had less drug use, as Tyson realizes that he has better things to do with his time and needs a clear head. It has more star suit. It also had less objectification of women, although Tyson is still obsessed with Mohls (sp?) the snake priestess. All in all, I thought this was better than the first book, and I really loved it.

This is gory and violent, and fairly offensive at times, but it is also hilarious and heartfelt.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narration is really well done. This is super fun to listen to, so if you enjoy audiobooks, I would recommend listening to this one.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I loved this and am eager to continue the series. This is action packed with an intriguing world and characters. I love the little mysteries that hint at something bigger happening in the background, and I love watching Tyson pull people together and take on more responsibility as he tries to build something amazing out of this apocalypse. I would recommend to fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. This has a similar feel and, while not being quite as spectacular as DCC, is still very entertaining.