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I'm trying to find a book I read a couple years ago to see if it got a sequel.

In the book a human regresses back in time before the ship he is on is destroyed. Humans are kept in habitats by giant aliens and some of them are used to fight other giant alien's pets. I vaguely remember there being "Strains" of humans or something to that effect.
As far as the number of humans I do not remember there being more than a couple hundred across a couple of habitats. All of the habitats are on a single ship. The fights are very much regulated within the ship with the alien "owners" betting on their own fighter. The number of giants I do not remember exactly and I am not sure the book gave a number. The aliens that attacked the ship seemed to be of the same race if I remember right.
He is trying to prevent the destruction of the ship while preventing other problems from occurring. Part of the solution to preventing issues is to learn to communicate with the giant alien that owns his habitat. He fights in the arena several times as well.
The book ends after some fight with other aliens attacking his owner's ship.

Any clue what this is?

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  • Hi, welcome to SF&F. How many humans are there? Are they all from the same ship? Are they kept together? Do they have to fight one another? How many giants are there? Any distinctive alien races that they fight?
    – DavidW
    Commented Nov 10, 2023 at 3:07
  • Just to be clear, the "ship" is a waterborne ship, not an airship or a spaceship, right?
    – user14111
    Commented Jun 2 at 1:00

1 Answer 1

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System Overclocked by Randi Darren

Front cover of System Overclocked

Wrench is a Fixer.

Someone born to maintain, fix, and correct any and every issue that could go wrong in the Habitat that he lives in. To make sure he and his fellow humans can remain on display and entertain their owners as any good human pet would.

Or at least that’s what he was born to be.

He’d taken a different route in his life and had joined a resistance faction to help free Humanity. To gain their freedom and become more than just pets to an alien race.

Now at the end of that life, and realizing what a waste all his effort had been, Wrench is going to find himself given a chance to go back to his youth and relive his life.

Though with two caveats.

He’s going to be granted a super-power.

A super power where he has the ability to alter anything and everything in regards to his own body.

From forcing his body to heal faster, to speeding up his perception of time so that everything runs in slow-motion.

That power came with a price tag, of course.

It came at the low cost of a favor in the distant future from the man who’d be giving him his do-over.

Accepting the deal, since being alive is far more beneficial to being dead, Wrench is thrown back into the past.

To live his life all over again.

Live it in whatever way he sees fit, whether it be rejoining the resistance, living as a Fixer and taking a leadership role, or just finding a wife and having kids.

Or utilizing his newfound super-power that lets him alter anything and everything about his own body’s systems to become something completely different.

Regardless of whatever choice he makes though, he’s got a lot of things to fix.

Good thing he’s well suited to fixing problems.

After all, most issues only needed a great deal of violence to be solved. Wrench has lots of that in his tool-box to go around.

The reviews mention that he has been rewound in time, that the aliens are giant compared to humans, and that they have bred various lines of humans.

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    It would be helpful to explain why you think this is the correct answer, with supporting documentation, such as quotes from the book. Commented Jun 1 at 14:21

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