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30.5 Days posted:I read Bastion, by Phil Tucker. I liked it quite a bit. Because it's about people who reincarnate when they die so they can keep fighting hell, I thought it was gonna be a time loop (?) type thing, but it's not, that's just part of the setting. I found this novel to be one of the hardest hate read grinds that I’ve ever finished. I thought the main character was genuinely unpleasant to read the inner thoughts of, and the (ending spoilers) final double level up weak and unearned. His constant whining about how the world was against him and the unnecessary endangerment of his allies to strengthen himself made me want to reach into the page and slap him.
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Apr 8, 2022 20:48
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Dr Subterfuge posted:18 is the hedonistic party floor for the rich and connected. It's unclear what role if any tourists have on floor 15, but that should be the only other one in that range that might have external people. 10 is such a common place for people to bow out that the people who take the deal are called "tenners," though the vast majority of crawlers are dead before that floor. "A lot" of crawls end on floor 9, the first floor that's possible, and it normally seems to have an absolutely abysmal survival rate even if it doesn't lead to an "extinction." My prediction is that Carl will clear 12 or 13, and then the remaining floors will be a relatively-unguarded one-book murder-romp through the tourists. I'm reading DoB right now, this is also a solid series that I'd like to see continue. I'm not sure what I'm gonna read between finishing it and waiting for the next Cradle book. It is funny how the first chapter from another character's perspective makes a point to say "I'm not a wordsmith like the other guy" and from then on the prose is indistinguishable from the previous chapter.
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Apr 8, 2022 21:02
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Captain Monkey posted:spoilers WOAH WOAH HEY WOAH PerniciousKnid posted:My prediction is that Carl will clear 12 or 13, and then the remaining floors will be a relatively-unguarded one-book murder-romp through the tourists. There's been some amount of foreshadowing that poo poo is gonna get weird after 12/13, both in that there's an open question about whether borant, corner-cutters that they are, have planned for anyone to get that far, and in that there's an open question in what the AI, glitchy gently caress that it is, is going to be like by the time they get down there.
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Apr 8, 2022 22:46
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30.5 Days posted:WOAH WOAH HEY WOAH I really like the AI.
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Apr 8, 2022 23:01
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30.5 Days posted:WOAH WOAH HEY WOAH Sorry edited.
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Apr 9, 2022 06:51
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30.5 Days posted:WOAH WOAH HEY WOAH Also if I recall all of the veterans Carl has talked to have been really "I can't tell you why, but don't take any deal they offer you unless you absolutely have to" implying there's something odd going on and they're blocked from talking about it in a way that's clearly foreshadowing.
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Apr 9, 2022 16:31
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Silynt posted:I found this novel to be one of the hardest hate read grinds that I’ve ever finished. I thought the main character was genuinely unpleasant to read the inner thoughts of, and the (ending spoilers) final double level up weak and unearned. His constant whining about how the world was against him and the unnecessary endangerment of his allies to strengthen himself made me want to reach into the page and slap him. Haven't read this series, but I picked up Death March by Tucker. He had a kickstarter for it back in the day https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/682901669/death-march-book-1-in-a-litrpg-trilogy which was quite successful. For a LitRPG, Death March read way too slowly for me. And it bothered me that every time the MC was in a bind, he lucked out of everything as opposed to using his wits. In my head, by the book's end, the MC had earned the nickname 'the Witless Hero'.
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Apr 12, 2022 23:16
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Bremen posted:Also if I recall all of the veterans Carl has talked to have been really "I can't tell you why, but don't take any deal they offer you unless you absolutely have to" implying there's something odd going on and they're blocked from talking about it in a way that's clearly foreshadowing. I believe it’s taking a deal on floor ten as they repurpose you as an NPC like that dude from book two exploded the floor and was clearly traumatised and not right from what he’s gone through. The goal for most crawlers is to get to floors 11/12 and get as good a deal as possible so they can be a manager or a guide with their own free will and mentality who will eventually get their freedom rather than some random NPC that’s recycled.
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Apr 14, 2022 17:11
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 Saw this in the Cradle discord, hadn't noticed before that it mentions there are (maybe) other Monarchs that we haven't seen yet.
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Apr 15, 2022 09:02
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Cicero posted:
Subject 1 would be Monarch tier, wouldn't they?
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Apr 15, 2022 15:12
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Honestly, it's not that surprising if there are Monarchs even more antisocial than Northstrider. There's nothing about being one that actually requires you to be a public figure if you don't want to be, provided you can convince the other Monarchs to leave you alone and stop inviting you to their parties.
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Apr 15, 2022 15:21
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Darth Walrus posted:Honestly, it's not that surprising if there are Monarchs even more antisocial than Northstrider. There's nothing about being one that actually requires you to be a public figure if you don't want to be, provided you can convince the other Monarchs to leave you alone and stop inviting you to their parties.
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Apr 15, 2022 15:41
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Mage Errant 6 (Tongue Eater) is out now.
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Apr 25, 2022 09:04
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Cicero posted:Mage Errant 6 (Tongue Eater) is out now. Just finished reading this and...I'm confused, more than anything. This was not the book that the Siege of Skyhold set me up to anticipate. Hugh and friends spend the entire book doing One Great Spell to gain insane levels of new powers then traveling through labyrinths and wandering through other worlds while training new powers with no real conflicts or character arcs. A lot of the grief and emotions they should be working through from the previous book are both simultaneously addressed yet not really addressed. At least, a lot of the addressing happens in dialogue. Alustin spends the entire book doing espionage and spreading propaganda. There are quite a few action sequences but I honestly struggled to feel invested in them, because at no point did I feel like there was any real threat or stakes. It felt like reading through a lot of world building notes about various cultures and magic systems. They're all pretty interesting ideas but...I struggled to care about any of it. What I wanted to read about was Hugh and friends facing their mentor and I did not get that because they are woefully underpowered compared to Alustin so this book read like filler to me, to allow them time to gather enough power so that they could reasonably go toe to toe against Alustin without it being ridiculous. Will Wight copped a lot of flack for the time skip at the beginning of Uncrowned but it was narratively the right decision to make. We'll only be able to make a fair assessment when Mage Errant 7 comes out, but as of right now, Tongue Eater did not work for me. I think I'd've been happier if this was perhaps a chapter or two long, the way some of the time skips were handled in Uncrowned and Bloodline.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:26
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I agree on your points, Leng. It feels like a filler book, I kept checking the page count wondering how they're gonna fit the final showdown in and they just... don't. it just ends abruptly halfway though the story. for a book named after the tongue eater not a lot happens with it other then detached build up segments. The whole stuff with The Last Echo feels a lot like Bierce noticing he ran out of ~*Mysteries*~ to foreshadow between the tongue eater and the census being explained.
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Apr 29, 2022 12:36
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Mage Errant 6: Definitely felt incomplete to me. At the very least whatever Kanderon is doing should have resolved instead of cutting off right before the thing happened. Honestly I was kind of hoping that something interesting was going to happen with the Index. I won't be sad if sphynx mom can come back and be happy with Hugh though. The kids' journey felt too easy and I don't think the emotional payoffs were enough to support it, not without some sort of confrontation or conflict to draw out the themes better. (I did like the letter, though). Alustin's slow corruption at the hands of the Tongue Eater was probably my favorite part of it. It feels like an appropriate consequence of his betrayal. The kids lack a cohesive analogue for their own feelings about the betrayal. The new Warlock bond is probably the closest but it never really gets tested.
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Apr 29, 2022 16:57
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My books don’t have any mages in them, errant or otherwise, but they are on KU! I posted my low-key, sci-fi, mystery book here before. And now the sequel is up The Nocturnum Files Both books are on KU, and the first book is free until May 6th. Give them a shot if you dare read something that’s completely goon-produced (my writing group + cover designer are all SA members too)
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May 2, 2022 13:33
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You had me at free!
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May 2, 2022 13:56
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PerniciousKnid posted:You had me at free! Probably the best thing about it 
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May 3, 2022 02:25
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Time for some shameless self-promotion, my urban fantasy Unit 13: Only Ghouls and Horses is on KU. https://viewbook.at/OnlyGhoulsAndHorses If you like jokes about office bureaucracy then this book is for you. Also, it has some magic, hunting witches, trying to exorcise ghosts and stuff like that to pad out the jokes about bureaucracy.
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May 3, 2022 11:48
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I'm almost done with Road to Nova Terra, by the guy who wrote Jake's Magical Market. This one is a slightly more straightforward LitRPG, but like his previous book, numbers exist but aren't really a focus. The setting is pretty cool, its post apocalyptic alt history Constantinople. The protagonist is, as in many of these stories, a straight up superhuman. In fact he's actually an AI that was so depressed after the apocalypse war in his own reality, he decided to download himself into his ubermensch android body and scan alternate realities for ones that were like the games he played with his human brother/son/ward back before the apocalypse. Frankly it makes him kind of a boring character, but like the last book, the pacing is kind of a relentless adventure so it doesn't matter too much. It's also definitely on purpose cuz he slowly warms up over the course of the book and gets (a little) less boring. Basically, this is another ~750 page tome of Cool Whip in writing form. I like it quite a bit, and while the main character basically blatantly has cheat powers, I appreciate that it mostly gets used in service of skipping as much of the boring logistics as possible. If you liked Magical Market you oughta give it a shot I think.
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May 8, 2022 14:27
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For others: I tried finding that and it was "Portal to Nova Roma".
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May 10, 2022 12:11
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I posted this link in the main SF and F discussion thread and people said they enjoyed it, gave me some 5 star reviews, and mentioned I should post it here. Currently on free promo for the next 4 days. It's only 17 pages. I'd appreciate feedback or anything. If you just want to read it and not go through Amazon, there's a Google drive link in the main thread, and a link to another story in a similar vein called Liminal Coition that I haven't bothered putting up for sale yet.Jack Martingale posted:As the Gender Wars approach a bloody climax, the battered Brotherhood army spends itself in one final thrust to breach the Matriarchy’s heavily-defended capital city. It is a costly diversion, a desperate gambit to insert an elite team of soldiers behind enemy lines. Their objective: Ball’s Deep, a cryogenic sperm storage facility with enough frozen seed to make heterosexual intercourse unnecessary for the next thousand years. Resistance will be stiff, but Sergeant Milkstone and his Bros have a secret weapon—MTX, a weaponized form of testosterone that can turn anyone into an ultra-masculine super soldier. But when Milkstone develops a battlefield crush on Coach, his hardass superior officer, he begins to question if he wants to live in the world that will be created if the mission succeeds. Grab your piece. Size up. Get ready to ASSAULT ON BALLS DEEP! Assault on Ball's Deep
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May 10, 2022 18:49
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put liminal coition up it's good poo poo
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May 10, 2022 20:49
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Megazver posted:For others: I tried finding that and it was "Portal to Nova Roma". i was kind of drunk sorry. lol
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May 10, 2022 21:20
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90s Cringe Rock posted:put liminal coition up it's good poo poo Thanks, I think I will. Here's a quick cover mock up: Liminal Coition cover Thoughts?
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May 10, 2022 21:45
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BananaNutkins posted:Thanks, I think I will. Here's a quick cover mock up: Liminal Coition, the story, is a work of genius but this cover is not. It will kill any possibility of readers clicking on your book. Quoting excerpts from the self-pub thread OP because this is how important it is if you want people to read your work, which I think is amazing, so I want to make sure you see this: Sundae posted:your cover and blurb. These are what sell your book, not the content inside it. You will never be read by anyone but your grandmother without a good blurb and cover. She's going to tell you it was "a very nice book, dearie" and you won't believe her because she's your grandmother. Avoid this entire shameful mess by crafting a good blurb and designing (or paying for) a good cover. Post your draft blurb and cover in the self-pub thread and ask for crits/suggestions there. The authors in the self-pub thread are very nice people I promise and if you don't have the budget to pay for even a premade cover, there are people there with experience in designing good covers who can point you in the right direction.
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May 10, 2022 23:50
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Seriously, knock off the Man gently caress This House cover with a more appropriate starting photo. Or maybe start with a different view of Groverhaus.
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May 11, 2022 00:17
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Leng posted:Liminal Coition, the story, is a work of genius but this cover is not. It will kill any possibility of readers clicking on your book. drat, I thought THIS was the self-pub thread. Thanks for the cover advice. I'll scroll through and find the self-pub thread, wherever the hell it is.
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May 11, 2022 05:13
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BananaNutkins posted:drat, I thought THIS was the self-pub thread. Thanks for the cover advice. I'll scroll through and find the self-pub thread, wherever the hell it is. It's linked in the name on the quoted post Here
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May 11, 2022 06:08
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Dr Subterfuge posted:It's linked in the name on the quoted post Thanks!
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May 11, 2022 15:06
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Cicero posted:Mage Errant 6 (Tongue Eater) is out now. Just started this series. The writing definitely improves by the end of the third book but I can’t shake the impression that I’m reading about Shinji Ikari, wizard. Draw the loving wards, Hugh.
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Jun 1, 2022 01:41
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Coq au Nandos posted:Just started this series. The writing definitely improves by the end of the third book but I can’t shake the impression that I’m reading about Shinji Ikari, wizard. This is tangental, but one of the things that I like about the series is that Hugh isn't inexplicably thrust into leading his peer group. Sabae has much better social and leadership skills, so she's the leader, simple as that. And everyone respects that and is happy with that. It's great!
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Jun 1, 2022 08:48
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My turn to flog my epic fantasy book, which I've just put on KU: https://amazon.com/dp/B0B2SGJG8H If you like Will Wight and John Bierce, then give this a shot. It's like a more adult version of Mage Errant and closer to Traveler's Gate/Elder Empire than Cradle.  Here's the blurb: quote:In the Dominion of Aleznuaweite, anyone can rise to the greatest heights—if they are willing to pay the price.
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Jun 2, 2022 05:56
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Leng posted:My turn to flog my epic fantasy book, which I've just put on KU: https://amazon.com/dp/B0B2SGJG8H Dunno about the book but that cover slaps!
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Jun 2, 2022 08:53
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Re Petition: just downloaded this and prologue and ch1 are strong; I’m interested enough to read the rest. Which lifts it above 90% of KU fiction. E: enjoying the hunter rehearsing her resumé like a jaded millenial.
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Jun 2, 2022 10:32
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navyjack posted:Dunno about the book but that cover slaps! No lie; when I got it back from the cover designer my jaw dropped open and I sat staring at it for a good ten minutes. I kept thinking that I ought to have some critiques to send back but my brain couldn't come up with any because they'd done an amazing cover Beefeater1980 posted:Re Petition: just downloaded this and prologue and ch1 are strong; I’m interested enough to read the rest. Thanks for giving my book a shot!
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Jun 3, 2022 06:09
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Leng posted:My turn to flog my epic fantasy book, which I've just put on KU: https://amazon.com/dp/B0B2SGJG8H I’m going to give this a shot out of goon solidarity, but in the “read this blurb and tell me when you decide ‘gently caress this book’” game I play with friends, the answer here for me was around sentence four.
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Jun 3, 2022 06:36
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Will's started the traditional Cradle cover countdown on his IG. Should be getting a Dreadgod cover/release date announcement within the next day or two I think.
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Jun 3, 2022 08:21
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ulmont posted:I’m going to give this a shot out of goon solidarity, but in the “read this blurb and tell me when you decide ‘gently caress this book’” game I play with friends, the answer here for me was around sentence four. the very first proper noun in the blurb tells me it's one of those books where im never going to be able to tell them apart if they get close to the same length because I sure as poo poo can't read the actual words
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Jun 3, 2022 09:02
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