Gave up here

The technical aspects of the writing are quite good. The premise is goofy, but whatever; every book has some improbability that sets the plot in motion, and this is better than many. The Bern describes enough, but generally avoids being descriptive to the point of dragging the flow of the book. Dialogue could use work. Kind of a lot, really; it's very stilted, and there's a lot of "He avoided the attack by dodging" sort of redundancy. But I just couldn't take any more. The characters are flat, everything just falls into the main character's lap, and the MC is steely and logical in everything except the ever-growing harem (wherein he seems to lose any resemblance to a will). The MC is supposed to be clever, but it's hard to say because it seems no-one else in the world has more than a room-temperature IQ. There's just no real, effective conflict. Maybe that comes later, but I just can't bring myself to slog past this book. I think Bern's got the fundamentals, but a good (and critical) writing workshop would probably help polish his writing.