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Ahhhh okay. I know what Cradle is and I've read the first two books and enjoyed 'em. I planned to finish it when it's done, so soon!
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Nov 2, 2021 21:13
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Well, I'm done with it. And I'm pretty happy? Very happy? Not sure I liked it as much as Wintersteel but it was up there. Very slow start, the, uh, might as well call it a prologue, lasts for literally a third of the book. But the back half just keeps ramping up. About as good a marriage of Cradle's mortal and cosmic threads as could have been asked for, frankly. The reveal of Eithan's identity at the end, I'm not sure I ever guessed at that before, but I find myself utterly unsurprised. Is it possible to be unsurprised by a thought you have never thought before? I suppose it must be. I'm... not so hot on the action. The further up the power scale we get, the more ridiculous these fights get, and not in a strictly positive way. The Abidan's war in heaven was getting a little too abstract war of concepts for me. Or maybe I didn't like it so much because it was very Avengers-hey-here's-all-these-cool-guys-and-here's-all-their-signature-superpowers, like an action figure commercial. Either-or. Lindon actually reaching Archlord here took me off guard- he now has no room to grow at all for the rest of the series. I guess he might stick around in Cradle as a Monarch long enough to force the rest to ascend (however they're going to make that work), but that's got to be the climax of book 12, right? But the scene itself was perfect. Maybe the best character-growth-as-level-up moment in the entire series? The "We will not stop" line landed at the top of a page for me, which made it hit that little bit harder. I didn't, like, tear up, but there was some frission there. Wight maybe needs to work on injecting some tension into this whole trial situation with Eithan. Three of the Seven are clearly friendly or sympathetic to him- after losing half the universe on his account, no less- and the whole thing with the scythe being a replica seems like a very obvious out. I do not believe even for a second that there's any threat to him whatsoever. Malice being firmly in the villain role now seems trickier. This book just reinforces how much of a gap there is between Monarchs and those below them, even Sages and Heralds, so it's hard to know what Lindon and co could possibly do to fight her if she becomes actively hostile. Jai Long got a lot of time in the book but I feel like it didn't quite reach a conclusion? He breaks through to Underlord, sneaks out of camp half baked, finds the others... and is never mentioned again? Did he fix his face or is he over it, is he going to shack up with Kelsa or... what? Any resolution to any of that? Did I miss something? Ziel feels less like an awkward late addition now... but he still feels like a side character that's being given top billing for no adequately explored reason. I don't know if this is a me problem or a Wight problem but I felt the same about Mercy. Yerin, Eithan, Orthos, all felt like fully-formed additions right out of the gate, but it felt like Mercy just got thrown into the story and it took multiple books to flesh her out.
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Nov 2, 2021 21:25
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Is this the final book in the series or will there be more?
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Nov 2, 2021 21:26
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A while back, Will said twelve books to cap off the series. Not that it'll end the entire storyline, since the whole Abidan/Vroshir/Ozriel plot will be nowhere close to done when they ascend.
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Nov 2, 2021 21:31
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I think it did a lot of good things, though I am a bit worried about the final books. I appreciated how much light the Eithan=Ozriel revelation cast on his previous actions and explained a lot about some of his more sociopathic tendencies. Similarly, I liked the clear dichotomy between present Eithan and past Ozriel and how much he was desperately trying to change (and notably failing by his inability to manifest a non-destruction Icon during the fight with Shen). Yerin didn't get enough to do and Ziel has always felt really superfluous. Mercy feels like she went through what should have been book 2 of a trilogy centered around her largely off-screen and even her advancement stuff got massively overshadowed by Lindon having a much better scene. Ultimately it seems to be setting up the endgame of Lindon+team getting the monarchs to gently caress off out of Cradle permanently and ascending themselves which can be fun, though I'm glad its mostly ending before we get into any of the cosmic stuff with the main cast. Really just want to see Northstrider and Malice taken down a few pegs at this point. I also feel, for as much time as the early part of the book spent on being a slow prologue, we really didn't get to see as much of Lindon's family or the rest of the Sacred Valley as I would have liked. Lindon's dad still managing to be like the number 2 or 3 rear end in a top hat in the entire story was something I kind of wanted addressed further? Especially since you have what feels like a mostly vestigal plotline with Kelsa, Jai Long and Jai Chen which uh confirms Kelsa wants to gently caress Jai Long and roughly nothing else
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Nov 2, 2021 21:48
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Zore posted:Yerin didn't get enough to do and Ziel has always felt really superfluous. Mercy feels like she went through what should have been book 2 of a trilogy centered around her largely off-screen and even her advancement stuff got massively overshadowed by Lindon having a much better scene. Yeah, this is true. I don't know if I want to say the book should have been longer, because at 460ish pages it's already the... third? Second? Longest book in the series... but it definitely could have found enough material to fill a good hundred or two more. A Mercy thread, more time on the Jai Long/Kelsa thread... (really felt a Kelsa POV could have given that one more dimensions). As it is, I'm not sure where room could have been found for them. The Eithan/Ozriel backstory scenes feel essential. The Suriel/Abidan war scenes maybe a little less so, but I think that amounts to maybe three Suriel POVs total? So it's Lindon's dungeoneering time that's most cuttable, and, to be fair, a lot of those scenes could have easily been Mercy or Yerin POVs instead. But I think you'd still need more pages to really make good on a Mercy thread. On Wei Shi Dad, I think we're supposed to infer that he got over himself after he gets eyes? At least a little?
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Nov 2, 2021 22:26
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1. Lindon said that he would not reveal the big secret without permission, which has to be about the most obvious loophole in book history. Permission from who, though? Not clear who counts. Lindon now has two friends who are Judges, maybe they'd count? 2. The big secret makes the possible future where he's fighting Northstrider make a lot more sense. 3. Lindon dragging the monarchs with him when he ascends fixes the problem only temporarily, right? New monarchs can still emerge. The most obvious solution I suppose would be a new type of pact: if anyone ascends to monarch and doesn't immediately leave, the rest of the heralds and sages gang up on them. 4. Does the Eight Man Empire count or not? edit: It's also interesting how the nature of monarchs means that it's basically guaranteed that you end up with the selfish sacred artists running the world, because all the decent ones will choose to ascend, rather than strengthen the dreadgods. It's essentially an explanation for why Xianxialand is full of assholes, beyond just general greed for power. And I suppose you could also argue that it's a kind of prisoner's dilemma situation. Cicero fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 00:20
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:
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Nov 3, 2021 06:41
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Cicero posted:3. Lindon dragging the monarchs with him when he ascends fixes the problem only temporarily, right? New monarchs can still emerge. The most obvious solution I suppose would be a new type of pact: if anyone ascends to monarch and doesn't immediately leave, the rest of the heralds and sages gang up on them. I assume he would have to also dismantle the labyrinth and/or its boundary formation. By default the world pushes out monarchs on its own: if you stick around, the world becomes corrupted and falls apart, making it so that even you cannot survive or function. The dread gods have sidestepped that function, so the system would have to be destroyed & then the monarchs removed. Hypothetically they would be forced to remove themselves if you could manage to dismantle it with them present, it just doesn't seem like that's possible since their presence strengthens the dread gods. Both the surprises were really good to me. It was really cool how we knew that ozriel was in possession of the pieces of the origin cloak for several books now but then this one goes HEY OZRIEL IS IN POSSESSION OF THE PIECES OF THE ORIGIN CLOAK and it's like oh gently caress it's eithan oh dang cool. The dread god thing was a real serious surprise and very cool. I liked the whole thing. Surprisingly I thought the first third was pretty good and hte middle third was where things kinda lagged. I liked both ragu shen fights, and I liked the part of the fathom fight where the lady folded up the other lady like origami, I really like it when abidan/vroshir have Real Weird Powers and not jsut like a big gun or regular madra or something.
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Nov 3, 2021 07:13
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Sad to learn that patents exist in the abidan though, very upsetting.
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Nov 3, 2021 07:18
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30.5 Days posted:
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Nov 3, 2021 07:25
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Cicero posted:Is it actually true that the old 'system' of waves of hunger madra appearing when monarchs stayed on the planet would get monarchs to leave, though? Maybe I have to go back and reread, but it sounded like it was just something people accepted on some level, until they made the labyrinth to gather/contain the hunger madra. They made it sound like eventually all the regular aura would just be hunger aura if you didn't leave.
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Nov 3, 2021 07:31
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It's me, I'm the guy excited for character development in a progression fantasy. One of the things I loved about the *Lord arc was how Will handled the revelations, both from a narrative design perspective and in the fiction. Narratively, it was nice to see personal growth literally required for advancement; within the fiction he did a fantastic job of coming up with revelations that were meaningful, blindingly obvious, and still the kind of personal insight that someone would genuinely find difficult to accept about themself. So I'm pumped to see Lindon dealing with the questions brought up in Reaper. If Monarchs are responsible for hunger madra, and Lindon has brought hunger madra into his body, how is he different from them? Can he really bring several new Monarchs into the world, knowing it will make the dreadgods stronger? Oh, and his friend is so hilariously OP that all of their life and death struggles were basically little kids' games to him. Does it cheapen Lindon's accomplishments? Was he genuinely ever in danger with Eithan around? How does he reconcile his friend with the cold rear end in a top hat from the memory tablets? It'll be neat to see Lindon wrestle with these questions, and since becoming a Herald requires integrating your Remnant and that seems to involve some element of making peace and fully accepting yourself, he may literally be wrestling with himself. 
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Nov 3, 2021 19:02
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I've been looking for some trashy progression story goodness now that I'm in a Cradle mood, but was looking for something with a bit of a twist. I saw The Sun's Blood and The Shadow Sect, both of which got good reviews and seemed interesting. Anyone read or heard anything about them?
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Nov 5, 2021 14:10
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The shadow sect starts out generic, has an entertaining middle road-trip bit, then gets boring again. Cultivation in medieval Europe basically, but the setting isn’t enough to make it really interesting. Otoh it’s fairly inoffensive so if you’re just looking for something to make the time go past, there are worse books out there.
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Nov 5, 2021 18:31
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Cradle 10 Reaper spoilersXand_Man posted:
Oh, I think us readers can know Lindon was in danger; Eithan let Tiberious die as well as potentially most of the family before he came to the Blackflame empire, and I think he was willing to let Lindon die if he failed. Eithan was trying to both reforge himself as a creator rather than a destroyer by ascending with a different alias and icon as well as building up a new team outside Abidan control. If he dropped his shield to get his full powers, he would have completely failed in all his goals as he would have to leave immediately, and it's also quite likely because of the pact that Eithan couldn't directly meddle in Cradle affairs anyway after getting his full powers back. However, the characters would have *no* idea about all this and probably just think Eithan was just toying with everyone and let friends, family, and sect die. It might be real hard for Lindon to come to terms that Eithan could have single handily taken out the dreadgods and solved the monarch problem himself if he wanted.
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Nov 5, 2021 20:24
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Xand_Man posted:Oh, and his friend is so hilariously OP that all of their life and death struggles were basically little kids' games to him. Does it cheapen Lindon's accomplishments? Was he genuinely ever in danger with Eithan around? How does he reconcile his friend with the cold rear end in a top hat from the memory tablets?
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Nov 5, 2021 20:52
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Cicero posted:My understanding is that as soon as Eithan releases his restrictions and becomes Ozriel again, he's now subject to the Eldari Pact, which means he can't just randomly interfere whenever he wants to save people. He's able to fight the Mad King because the Mad King himself is an intrusion from an ascended being, but he can't interject himself into 'normal' iteration/world things. Yeah even if Eithan had the power to save someone as Ozriel it seems like the Eldari Pact would have prevented him from doing so unless it was an incursion. The biggest question I have is whether or not he would have broken the marble if someone on Cradle was about to kill him.
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Nov 5, 2021 21:52
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Reaper stuffDr Subterfuge posted:Yeah even if Eithan had the power to save someone as Ozriel it seems like the Eldari Pact would have prevented him from doing so unless it was an incursion. The biggest question I have is whether or not he would have broken the marble if someone on Cradle was about to kill him. I don't think he'd have let himself die, since that would also have spoiled his plans. But I'm also not sure anything could have killed him, because while his full power was locked away he still had the basic toughness of however his body was reforged through his various ascensions. I think Lindon understands the pact issues from Suriel and so will know and understand that Eithan couldn't just use his real powers to solve all their problems. I agree with most of the comments above, I enjoyed the book and especially the Lindon and Eithan stuff, but various other parts didn't really go anywhere or happened mostly offscreen. I could have happily lost most of the non-Ozriel Aibidan stuff, most of the Jai Long stuff, and some of the Labyrinth stuff (and/or just make the book longer) to hear a bit more about Yerin, Mercy, Ziel, how Lindon's family are coming to accept the reality of progression and how powerful Lindon is, some loving comeuppance/repentance from Lindon's mega-rear end in a top hat dad. There's a lot to cover in the final 2 books and that's before Lindon finds some way to kick out the Monarchs. I was surprised Dross wasn't fixed, but I'm glad some hope was offered at the end. I was a bit confused by why the Dreadgods got a powerup near the end - Was it simply because Subject 1 died and so his power was shared between them, or did Shen do something with the binding to empower them? It seems like the former should be the case, but it didn't happen until Shen was outside and showing off the binding.
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Nov 7, 2021 18:26
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I assume that the solution to the Monarch problem is for Monarch-or-greater rule from offworld (administered and supervised by the Abidan) to become the norm. Monarchs and superior sacred artists are necessary to keep nations on Cradle stable, prosperous, and secure against any random rear end in a top hat ascending to Sage, Herald, or Monarch themselves and going through them like a wrecking ball, but you can't have them on-planet 24/7 or you start getting dreadbeasts. Having, say, the Akura or Ninecloud ruling family run their empire from a nearby Abidan space station, manage recruitment and ascension for Abidan personnel, and come down like the wrath of God on anyone dumb enough to be an unregistered Monarch on Cradle seems like it would be a perfectly viable system. Remote working is your friend!
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Nov 7, 2021 18:36
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Darkrenown posted:Reaper stuff My takeaway was that the suppression field was a result of the concentration of hunger aura/madra and Reigan Shen either destroyed the formation or reversed it and now hunger aura is flowing all over cradle so the dreadgods are basically at full power without having to eat.
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Nov 7, 2021 18:38
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Yeah, I guess it could be that too. I'd have liked it to be a little clearer.
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Nov 7, 2021 20:20
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Wight often likes to explains things that happen in later books, like explaining how Mercy was an Overlord in Bloodline by having her admit in Reaper that she actually wasn't an Overlord yet. Could be doing the same thing here, he'll explain it once the main cast encounters them again.
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Nov 7, 2021 20:26
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Basically, this whole Dreadgod situation feels like a failure at the Abidan level - the nature of sacred artist advancement means that asking any domestic power to deal with hunger madra buildup without offworld support is a particularly cruel exercise in futility. Like, suppose that you decide to protect your citizens from marauding Monarchs by using a specialist team of Sages and Heralds. Congrats, you've made yourself another Eight-Man Empire, and the dreadbeasts will thank you for it. Suppose you go full anprim and reject nation-building as a failed concept. Congrats, the Monarch next door will happily trample all over you and hoover up any of your neighbours who don't want to end up as some psychopath's Soulsmithing ingredients. I'm pretty sure that the endgame for Eithan/Ozriel's Reapers won't be killing/exiling Cradle's existing Monarchs (even if they may end up having to do that to a lot of them). It'll be convincing the Seven to stop being absentee landlords and fix their tenants' leaky roof.
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Nov 7, 2021 21:46
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Darth Walrus posted:Basically, this whole Dreadgod situation feels like a failure at the Abidan level - the nature of sacred artist advancement means that asking any domestic power to deal with hunger madra buildup without offworld support is a particularly cruel exercise in futility. Like, suppose that you decide to protect your citizens from marauding Monarchs by using a specialist team of Sages and Heralds. Congrats, you've made yourself another Eight-Man Empire, and the dreadbeasts will thank you for it. Suppose you go full anprim and reject nation-building as a failed concept. Congrats, the Monarch next door will happily trample all over you and hoover up any of your neighbours who don't want to end up as some psychopath's Soulsmithing ingredients. I think even more than that it will be about changing the fundamental nature of progression. He's been laying the seeds for this everywhere; the Abidan are entirely too centralized to manage even a fraction of their territory if something is even slightly out of place(literally every Suriel POV is about the thousands of cries for help she is forced to tune out to do anything), Eithan/Ozriel's arc is all about how one genius is no substitute for companionship and having others to rely on, Lindon's Archlord revelation is about advancing with others and not by himself. Basically do a massive uplift, democratize power instead of hording it in a small number of people etc. Eithan's plan on a much bigger scale and encompassing all the Judges and not just the Reapers
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Nov 7, 2021 23:42
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Zore posted:I think even more than that it will be about changing the fundamental nature of progression. He's been laying the seeds for this everywhere; the Abidan are entirely too centralized to manage even a fraction of their territory if something is even slightly out of place(literally every Suriel POV is about the thousands of cries for help she is forced to tune out to do anything), Eithan/Ozriel's arc is all about how one genius is no substitute for companionship and having others to rely on, Lindon's Archlord revelation is about advancing with others and not by himself. I do think Wight is going for something like this, but It's not very clear how it would work. The structure of the world guarantees that only the powerful matter as the differential between stages is gigantic. It takes eight sages/heralds to equal a monarch. A two stage gap is almost insurmountable and more than that is. It's not like this just happens at Monarch, if anything the gap between at the Abidan levels may be worse. Democratizing knowledge would help as I think was suppose to be illustrated with Jai Long, but I don't think the issue is helping people advance who are multiple steps below you. No one we've seen so far appears to be able to easily raise someone to their level. Malice heavily implies that raising Fury to Monarch was luck. Eithan, who appears to be the most powerful person in the entire universe, struggled to raise anyone who can ascend though obviously the party will succeed.
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Nov 8, 2021 02:53
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asur posted:
One question I have now: We've heard the Abidan talk about their normally high standards for recruits. But the impression from Cradle's level is that anyone who wants to ascend and is physically capable, can. What happens to those who ascend but don't meet the Abidan bar? I guess if the Abidan is basically a government, there's still a non-government society of ascended people around? Also, lol @ all the places Will was dangling the truth in front of us the whole time: Soulsmith posted:Eithan raised his hands. “Surrendering myself into your custody, good sir.” Cicero fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 03:28
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Cicero posted:Also, lol @ all the places Will was dangling the truth in front of us the whole time: I'll be honest, this was one of the theories that people over on r/Iteration110Cradle had called some time ago (as long as 3 years ago), that I didn't buy personally. It got to the point where it was meme'd a lot. So when I opened Reaper and started reading, with every successive chapter I was like uh oh, I know where this is going. And sure enough, by the time I got to the end I was like, yep, this went where I thought it would, and you know what? I am satisfied with how it went Massive props to Will Wight for pulling this off. Not an easy thing to do, at all. Cicero posted:The more I read, the more I'm convinced that Cradle is a masterpiece of progression fantasy. It's basically on its own tier above the rest. It does so many things well, and has few obvious flaws. Most of the time someone's complaining about some other progression fantasy work, you can use Cradle as an example of how to do it right. It really is. I'm trying to write a progression fantasy of my own and it is really damned hard, even when you have Cradle as a model. To try and actually be that model and establish that precedent? It is really, really damned hard. Wight is a genius author and he doesn't get enough credit for it.
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Nov 8, 2021 08:42
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Speaking of progression novels, I just finished the third He Who Fights Monsters and boy howdy was I not a fan of that epilogue. Like how the first two ended, it feels very much like a web serial that has been lopped off a bit after the end of the most recent climax. Only this time while our protagonist is in limbo whole new (boring) elements that at best feel like they belong in the beginning of the next book are shuffled into something that kind of sort of feels like an epilogue (but also sometimes like the beginning of the next book) and then it just trails off. And looking at the blurb for book 4: Is that the Farrah I think it is? The one that we spent a lot of time mourning, jk actually alive due to the act of astral beings for some reason? Is book 4 actually any good?
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Nov 9, 2021 03:41
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When Jason gets to Earth it's actually pretty cool and good for a while, but then it goes back to being more bombastic. I still read the web serial, it's fine, but the writing is too obsessed with constantly jerking Jason off to move from passable to actually good. It's always telling us how the protagonist is cool and unique via extremely on-the-nose peanut gallery dialogue, rather than just showing us how they're cool and unique, like Cradle does. And all the stuff about auras and spirit domains and interdimensional membranes and whatever takes way too long, it's basically the fantasy version of Star Trek technobabble, let alone the absurd number of abilities and effects that are flying around in any group battle. edit: also shut the gently caress up about 80's TV shows, jesus christ Cicero fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Nov 9, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2021 03:47
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I was a Patreon supporter but I had to drop because I couldn’t stand how literally every other chapter involved someone absolutely gargling his balls, just bending over backwards to find some way to compliment him deeply.
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Nov 9, 2021 03:58
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So many good lines in Reaperquote:
edit: also, the conversations between Shen and Lindon that amount to quote:u begone Cicero fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Nov 9, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2021 08:03
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Silynt posted:I was a Patreon supporter but I had to drop because I couldn’t stand how literally every other chapter involved someone absolutely gargling his balls, just bending over backwards to find some way to compliment him deeply. The idea is that the reader's identifying with him, so when he's getting jerked off the reader feels good, but it hasn't worked like that for me in a long while. I really preferred that story when it was the slice-of-life stuff, whether it was at the start of the story or back on Earth. The current arc I've actually given up on, more or less. I might read it in a single go when he wraps it up.
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Nov 9, 2021 11:29
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He starts the story (after the initial escape) as someone who gets up early to befriend and learn the life stories of practically the whole village lol there's no way I can identify with that.
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Nov 9, 2021 11:45
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I didn't say it wasn't an outlandish power fantasy.
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Nov 9, 2021 11:49
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90s Cringe Rock posted:He starts the story as someone who gets up early. . . lol there's no way I can identify with that.
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Nov 9, 2021 18:49
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Reaper spoiler stream by Will from earlier today: https://twitch.tv/videos/1200960169
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Nov 10, 2021 07:07
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Cicero posted:edit: also, the conversations between Shen and Lindon that amount to 
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Nov 11, 2021 02:19
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The latest hotness in the progression fantasy community is Bastion. I'm like a third of the way through it and can confirm that it's good. Feels maybe similar to Iron Prince, but slightly better overall? I like the protagonist. edit: might have to withdraw what I said about the protagonist, what a loving dumbass Cicero fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 03:16
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Cicero posted:The latest hotness in the progression fantasy community is Bastion. I'm like a third of the way through it and can confirm that it's good. Feels maybe similar to Iron Prince, but slightly better overall? I like the protagonist. he sure did grab the idiot ball a couple of times, yup I liked it (more than 'the iron prince'). The introduction was pretty creepy and that hooked me long enough to get through the slower middle section. Yeah, a whole lot better than some of the other crap I've been reading recently, that's for sure. and not a single hint of romance anywhere!
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Nov 17, 2021 07:51
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