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LLSix posted:I was annoyed when I discovered the characters never make it back to Earth. The writer dropped the story after "completing" it before getting back to Earth and picked it back up after more than a year with a jarringly different tone. If you go into it knowing the story isn't getting back to Earth, possibly ever, you may enjoy it more. Ah, I read it after the second book had started and kind of assumed eventually getting back was part of the plot, but in the same way eventually beating the dungeon is the goal of Dungeon Crawler Carl but not something I expect to see anytime soon because of how webserials work. I could be wrong but it feels like them going back to Earth would just be such a massive tonal shift from what the story currently is that it would be weird to actually continue after that. Which is disappointing because I think seeing what the characters actually do after returning would be fun, but anyone looking for a webserial that's actually about guiding Earth through a system apocalypse is probably better off with Apocalypse Redux or Interdimensional Garbage Merchant. Bremen fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 04:21
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Megazver posted:what do you think about the fantasy author Robin Hobb Oh, I missed this. I have never heard of her. I just looked her up, is there something I should know about this? Is this a recommendation or a warning?
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Jul 23, 2022 04:27
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Speaking about Dungeon Crawler Carl, I loved the book during the first few floors, and thought it started dragging on the train floor. I flat out dropped it for a few months after that, and then he pulled all his older content off Royal Road. Anyone still keep up with the story? Is it still enjoyable?
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Jul 23, 2022 04:29
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Peachfart posted:Speaking about Dungeon Crawler Carl, I loved the book during the first few floors, and thought it started dragging on the train floor. I flat out dropped it for a few months after that, and then he pulled all his older content off Royal Road. Anyone still keep up with the story? Is it still enjoyable? I haven't read the most recent book yet, but I read up to the book covering the floor after the train floor and enjoyed it. Of course, I enjoyed the one with the train floor too so it may be I just enjoy different stuff than you; I can't say that it really felt like there was much of a tonal shift.
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Jul 23, 2022 04:43
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Peachfart posted:Speaking about Dungeon Crawler Carl, I loved the book during the first few floors, and thought it started dragging on the train floor. I flat out dropped it for a few months after that, and then he pulled all his older content off Royal Road. Anyone still keep up with the story? Is it still enjoyable? One of those series that just keeps getting better somehow - I'd definitely recommend going forward. The train arc felt like it was dragging until all of a sudden it didn't (I know that doesn't make sense but that's the feeling from my memories).
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Jul 23, 2022 05:04
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Peachfart posted:Speaking about Dungeon Crawler Carl, I loved the book during the first few floors, and thought it started dragging on the train floor. I flat out dropped it for a few months after that, and then he pulled all his older content off Royal Road. Anyone still keep up with the story? Is it still enjoyable? I liked it up until the end of the last book which had some absolutely eyerollingly stupid poo poo that really bugged me. Katja has actually been a secret drug addict this whole time and due to being a drug addict out of nowhere completely fumbles something stupidly obvious and will now be forced into a kill or be killed situation with Donut on Floor 9  Its incredibly hamfisted and jarring and goes up against another, better executed, addiction plotline for Carl. Also she's been removed from the main cast again so it lacks the impact I feel like it should have had, especially since Carl and Donut aren't even going to be on the same floor as her in the upcoming book as they managed to sequence break a floor ahead with best-boi goat. Zore fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 05:31
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Peachfart posted:Adding actual content? Okay fine, I guess. I recently read I've been waiting for this to finish but it's great, yeah.
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Jul 23, 2022 06:00
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Peachfart posted:Oh, I missed this. I have never heard of her. I just looked her up, is there something I should know about this? Is this a recommendation or a warning? Hobb has a rep for putting her protagonists through a whole bunch of poo poo. I'm not her biggest fan because her protaganists are often very passive and depressed. Which is a perfectly reasonable response psychologically but can be a drag to read. She does generally wrap things up with a happy ending at least.
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Jul 23, 2022 06:08
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I really enjoyed the first assassins trilogy and thought it ended at a perfectly good place. Then she kept writing, I dont even think I got halfway through the middle book of the second trilogy, it was just utterly aggravating.
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Jul 23, 2022 06:17
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Peachfart posted:Oh, I missed this. I have never heard of her. I just looked her up, is there something I should know about this? Is this a recommendation or a warning? She also writes depressing stuff, but it's a different flavor of depressing than wildbow. I can see the resemblance but it's not a big one. I think they were just curious how far your distaste for feeling hopeless while reading something goes. Unlike Wildbow, I think Hobb does a really fantastic job of making the hopelessness miasma pay off, though like Wildbow it does take an awful lot of pages to get there (not nearly as many, but still) Re: Wildbow in general, I still think Worm is amazing and I think I remember Pact with rose-colored glasses because even though it was exhausting to read I found that world absolutely fascinating and the ending pretty satisfying. But I dropped off Twig I think halfway through and Ward was just not interesting to me in the least. Gave Pale a brief try but the chapters are just so long and the characters don't feel compelling to me. I don't think I'll read another Wildbow serial but I still have a lot of respect for the guy if just for Worm. edit: tithin posted:I really enjoyed the first assassins trilogy and thought it ended at a perfectly good place. The second trilogy is a HUGE drag but it ends well and the Fool trilogy, if you can believe it, is even better than Assassin. I really, really liked the ending to that one. Unfortunately the "Dragon Wilds Chronicles" or whatever she started writing after that got really boring again and I dropped out in the midst of the second book. Oh and she wrote a "Soldier Son" trilogy that I emphatically do NOT recommend. I read it years ago so I only half-remember what happened but I do remember that the ending pissed me off real good. IIRC the trilogy reads a lot like an origin story/prequel and the last book basically ends with the MC going off to do adventures that sound a hell of a lot more intriguing than what he was doing in the actual books, but Hobb was like "nah not gonna write any more of this series, I'm done with this MC" 
Hawkperson fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 06:18
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If you like Robin Hobb, do give her Megan Lindholm work a go. Tends to more feminist and magical realism stuff, plus her early sword & sorcery series.
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Jul 23, 2022 10:28
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A RR story I've been enjoying recently is Modern Patriarch. It starts in the same spot as Beware of Chicken - someone of our world isekai's into a cultivator and realizes "oh hey, their whole society is kinda poo poo". The difference is that this guy ends up in a body of the (now extremely powerful) patriarch of his sect and decides he's going to reform it, and every other sect in the region while he's at it. It updates fairly slowly and I can't guarantee it won't die in a few more chapters, but I enjoyed what I've read of it so far. Hawkperson posted:She also writes depressing stuff, but it's a different flavor of depressing than wildbow. I can see the resemblance but it's not a big one. I think they were just curious how far your distaste for feeling hopeless while reading something goes. Unlike Wildbow, I think Hobb does a really fantastic job of making the hopelessness miasma pay off, though like Wildbow it does take an awful lot of pages to get there (not nearly as many, but still) Yeah, that's more or less it, thanks. Megazver fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 10:42
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I think my favourite Hobb moment when at the end of the Tawny Man trilogy it turns out that the whole thing where Fitz has been going around like a tired old man who's been dragged out of retirement for one last job- despite being in his thirties- is because, in addition to being a depressive idiot prone to catastrophising, he broke his brain with magic at the end of Assassin's Quest? He's been going around with brain damage for the entire trilogy? And the message is like, don't just decide your life is over in your mid twenties. Dipshit. You can just choose to not do that. It's a good bit, I respect the hell out of it. Some stuff I've picked up lately and enjoyed: Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone - Very much a thriller. It is all over significant glances, hidden conspiracies, questions you didn't realise were questions and answers hidden in plain sight. The sort of story that has you wanting to take notes on everything, to help you ferret out its secrets. And it is tight, clean, deeply focused on character and suffused with a sort of comfortable melancholy that I cannot help but find endearing. Honestly, I love it. I could tell you what it's about, I guess, but there's a blurb right there so it feels sort of pointless. Surviving the Succession - Is a political drama set in a semi-historical Chinese imperial court. The story claims to be an isekai and a fantasy story, but this is like, a lie? In everything but the most literal sense? It's like the frame device in The Worm Ouroboros, completely irrelevant to the actual story. You could carve those bits out with a knife and it would be almost seamless. It feels a little like the author is trying to buy permission to write the story they want to write on Royal Road. Well, enough about that. It is pure political drama- mind games, veiled insults, catch-22s, and the very occasional assassination attempt.
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Jul 23, 2022 14:08
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Re: wildbow, I'll maintain that Twig is, at the very least, an above-average web serial. Its overall narrative progression is kind of awkward, similarly to Ward, but that doesn't hurt it as much as it did in Ward because it manages to have individual arcs that work well on their own. It's also extremely depressing, but in a way that feels less..."gratuitous" than in Worm/Ward (cant speak for Pact/Pale since I haven't read them). I also think Twig actually does a better job than most stories of "portraying characters who are very clever/smart."
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Jul 23, 2022 19:31
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normally I just ignore the lovely politics inherent in basically all litrpg but twice now I've had otherwise-decent stories hosed up by sucking off the Marines (metaphorically) well okay that's giving Monroe a lot of credit, I assumed it was intentional that the main character was a chud in addition to his autism and the first few chapters' descriptions of things were implicitly stating his perspective (upon reading further, that may not have been the case, or else the author decided to stay away from that live wire after feedback possibly?) what is it with the goddamn Marines
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Jul 23, 2022 21:07
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I'm a big fan of Ar'Kendrythist kind of avoiding the topic of earth politics for a long time until like 3000 pages in he just straight up says 'nearly everyone on earth is what you would consider a slave'
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Jul 23, 2022 21:09
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:
Whoa, hang on. I strongly recommend Kirin's Bone to everyone, but the blurb SUCKS. It's a terrible blurb, it turns people off the story, and while technically true... it's TECHNICALLY true. At one point for fun, I tried to write the most misleading BTDEM blurb that was still technically true. In the wake of poisoning her childhood friend to death and encouraged by her murderous aunt, Elaine flees her loving parents before joining with the roaming enforcers of a slaving and genocidal empire. Trained to be a merciless killer and child soldier she participates in crushing revolts against the corrupt senate before exterminating an entire intelligent species. Venturing across the battlefield to seek new lands, she plucks feathers from a dying angel left trampled by legion's victory before she heralds destruction to a second civilization, declares war on a third, and personally slaughters tens of thousands of civilians in cold blood. She procures a baby from a loving mother, and when raising the baby proves difficult, she throws her into a fire. She returns home to spread further chaos. Kirin's bone is similar where the author's book writing skills are A+, and his blurb-writing skills are a D. Give it a shot, try reading it blind without looking at the blurb, and you'll enjoy it quite a bit more. I know I did!
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Jul 23, 2022 21:58
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Selkie Myth posted:Whoa, hang on. I strongly recommend Kirin's Bone to everyone, but the blurb SUCKS. It's a terrible blurb, it turns people off the story, and while technically true... it's TECHNICALLY true. Yeah, yeah, you're not wrong there. I mean, that's the other reason I forbore from giving a synopsis: I think any recounting of the raw details of the plot would give a misleading impression of what the experience of reading it is like. It's about, what, a post-apocalyptic fairytale kingdom locked in a forever war with shape-stealing dragons? And a conspiracy of grim reapers trying to manipulate fate? Well, no, it's about a guy feeling emotions largely in spite of himself. Oh, I think MuffinLance is a she/her.
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Jul 23, 2022 23:26
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DACK FAYDEN posted:normally I just ignore the lovely politics inherent in basically all litrpg but twice now I've had otherwise-decent stories hosed up by sucking off the Marines (metaphorically) If you are looking for the ultimate 'interesting story destroyed by weird and lovely politics', that would have to be First Contact. It is a cool story at the very beginning but quickly gets weird. I eventually dug into it and apparently this story was originally posted to r/hfy, which is Humanity gently caress Yeah. It quickly obsesses with all things military and the bad guys are bad because they believe resources can have scarcity. Humanity massacred an alien race and put bombs in them to prevent them from being dangerous, but the aliens are happy about this and love the humans that can do no wrong. It is weird as heck.
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Jul 24, 2022 01:08
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the bad guys are bad because they believe that the universe is scarce enough that they need to exterminate everyone else, or dominate them in some form and hoard it all. the absolutely massive volume of space in those books is like not even ten percent of the milky way, so the Confederacy seems to be right that it's not worth worrying about. although the Precursor races don't have nanoforges, which can make literally anything as long as it has mass and coolant, even strange matter, it just takes longer. and later on, The Detainee reveals that mat-trans violates the laws of thermodynamics and can literally add mass and energy to the local universe
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Jul 24, 2022 01:12
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It's an absolutely insane story, though. Humanity has this weird hodge podge culture that's half made up and half intentionally ritualistic and religious, because they kept getting invaded by alternate universe or past/future versions of themselves. And also they keep getting genocided by other aliens, so what's left is incredibly laissez-faire but also insanely militaristic victory-by-any-means type of poo poo. That said, the book really doesn't bother to express any real political stance beyond 'just leave people alone', which makes sense in a setting where literally anyone can gently caress off to an uninhabited planet and terraform their own perfect planet if they think they can do better.
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Jul 24, 2022 01:16
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basically someone went 'hey could you make a mil sci fi story work if you threw in everything from 40k to the Dinochrome Brigade to so-futuristic-its-magic?' and the answer is yes if you liked that kind of thing to begin with
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Jul 24, 2022 01:20
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Larry Parrish posted:It's an absolutely insane story, though. Humanity has this weird hodge podge culture that's half made up and half intentionally ritualistic and religious, because they kept getting invaded by alternate universe or past/future versions of themselves. like if I kept getting invaded by Goatee Me/Genderswap Me/whatever the fuckin 1970s flavor of the week me is I'd have made up culture too
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Jul 24, 2022 01:33
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DACK FAYDEN posted:well I guess that is a reasonable reaction to this completely insane poo poo yeah the best part is some of those weird made up things like the eternal cybernetic queen of Bongistan (named for Big Bonger, aka Big Ben) and it's fog that nobody living has come back from isn't really something the local humans made up, it's either some horrible scar from one of several genocide wars or one or the said interdimensional invaders that wasn't too much of an rear end in a top hat about it if you like generic mil sci fi you should give this a shot because there's absolutely nothing else like it.
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Jul 24, 2022 01:49
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The other reason I dropped it was long and boring multiple chapters in a row of fighting. So be warned.
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Jul 24, 2022 02:26
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Speaking of thrillers, the first ~80 chapters of Double Blind are fantastic. It's a non-stop rollercoaster ride of entirely reasonable twists that you generally could have seen coming in hindsight but almost never do in the moment. I'm kind of getting to the point where I wish the author would take a break and plot out the next batch of chapters. Their current plotline MC has to pretend to be a villain because ??? feels much more forced, unlike the previous ones. In a completely different genre, I haven't read War Queen since the end of book 1. How's it doing now?
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Jul 24, 2022 04:43
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It's uh, pretty loving bleak. Turns out when you're slave soldiers of space fascists you do some pretty hosed up things to stay in the bosses' good books. On a completely unrelated note, I have recommendations. Riposte is a complete and relatively short story about an orphan girl who gets sucked into the secret underground world of high-stakes magical card games. Unlike a lot of webnovels this is a tight and efficient story that gets to where it wants to go in fairly short order. It's also pretty dang good, and does that thing I like where all the magic explicitly only exists to make manifest moral dilemmas or character themes. Definitely worth checking out. The Last Angel is extremely thinly veiled Halo fanfiction. Long after the [strikethrough]Covenant[/strikethrough] Compact destroyed Earth and almost wiped out humanity a ship of brainwashed human trainees and their alien superiors stumble upon an enormous derelict battleship in a forgotten star system. The good news is that salvaging the wreck will be valuable experience for the trainees and promotion fodder for the bosses. The bad news is that the ship is the last remnant of the human space fleet and the murderous, vengeful AI that still runs it wants them all to die screaming. The last two are quests on Sufficient Velocity. If you're not familiar, quests are like collective choose your own adventure stories, where the thread posters vote of certain decisions. I mostly ignore the votes and just treat them like webnovels where the protagonist occasionally makes baffling choices for no good reason. The Path Unending Is a cultivation story about a young student from a family of magical craftsman's time training at his sect. The main character is an amusingly snobby perfectionist about his work (and crafting in general). This story's got significantly less of the world shattering power fantasies and significantly more detailed examinations of the struggles of turning the bones of the magical spider-wolf-thing and ever freezing ice torn from the grasp of the unquiet dead into a bitching axe so you can pay your buddy back after she backed you up when that honorless dog Jin Yazhu insulted your family and forced you to challenge him. The Dragon's Spite is the adventures of Ferem Odat Rena, a not-at-all evil Dragonblooded sorceress who was unfairly and completely unjustly chased out of her homeland by people who objected to perfectly natural things she was doing. Now she's heading to the South, to rebuild and regain her former power and influence. Did I mention she's not evil? I think this is based off some kind of roleplaying game, but that's not important. What is important is that Rena is a delight to read. Vain, greedy, indolent, utterly devoid of better human qualities, completely incapable of learning from her mistakes, and deeply funny Rena is a near perfect protagonist whether she's robbing ancient graves or scamming the local nobility for everything she can. This one is also very horney, but the hoariness is skippable. Patrick Spens fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Jul 24, 2022 |
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Jul 24, 2022 04:53
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Peachfart posted:The other reason I dropped it was long and boring multiple chapters in a row of fighting. So be warned. Yeah, you have to like mil sci fi for the battles. They're very good battle scenes! But they are long, probably 600+ of 813 chapter are battles, and if that's not what you want out of it you'll be sad. It's kind of like the Last Angel in that way- most of that story is long descriptions of space battles and the logistics to set them up. Larry Parrish fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jul 24, 2022 |
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Jul 24, 2022 06:13
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Yeah Last Angel is real good. Its terribly bleak at times but there is a light or two in the dark. They should probably put out those lights though.
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Jul 24, 2022 07:48
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Holy poo poo Fox's Tongue is awesome. And yeah, those blurbs are terrible. I don't know how you'd write a better one, though. Because it's one of those stories where you're supposed to piece stuff out yourself, not much is directly explained. I don't think you could say a single thing about Aaron's character or history that comes up in the entire first book that wouldn't end up being a massive spoiler. Hell, even the layout and description of the city is kind of a spoiler, so is saying much of anything about the society everyone lives in.
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Jul 24, 2022 08:49
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As someone who has long been interested in Fox's Tongue but delayed reading it because of the blurb these posts are exactly what I come to the thread for.
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Jul 24, 2022 17:03
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Larry Parrish posted:I'm a big fan of Ar'Kendrythist kind of avoiding the topic of earth politics for a long time until like 3000 pages in he just straight up says 'nearly everyone on earth is what you would consider a slave' hey that's not true!!! early on the author brings up that the daughter wants to become a spook because that's a socially acceptable way to hurt people!
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Jul 24, 2022 17:41
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A big flaming stink posted:hey that's not true!!! early on the author brings up that the daughter wants to become a spook because that's a socially acceptable way to hurt people! Which is why Erick is the protoganist, not Jane.
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Jul 24, 2022 20:54
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Ugh, maybe this belongs in an irrationally irritating thread but I started Fluff and the altered brand names are super annoying. The story is fine so far and a decent time killer but reading they need to "Oogle" something, check "Ikipedia", or eat "Orn Lakes" just takes me right out of the story.
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Jul 24, 2022 23:21
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Peachfart posted:Adding actual content? Okay fine, I guess. I recently read this story is really good and i enjoyed it a lot, thanks for the recommendation!
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Jul 24, 2022 23:35
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Kyoujin posted:Ugh, maybe this belongs in an irrationally irritating thread but I started Fluff and the altered brand names are super annoying. lol. I don't know why people feel compelled to do this. it's kind of amusing when it's an alternate earth and like, the generic cola of choice is some off brand nobody knows, but doing fake brand names that are obviously the real one is fail.
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Jul 25, 2022 03:55
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Yeah, it's fine for a couple references when done well (Federation of Fables was a good choice for League of Legends) but just taking the first letter off every name like "Im Ortons" is painful to read. My thanks to the poster who mentioned Fox Tongue Kirin Bone. I read that a while back but couldn't remember the name to pick it back up.
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Jul 25, 2022 04:08
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https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41330/virtuous-sons-a-greco-roman-xianxia It's exactly what the title says. Anyone familiar with ancient history will enjoy this. It pairs a classic cultivation story (including dubiously moral MC) with riffing on Greek and Roman culture. One of the cultivation stages is "Philosopher" and so several of the "Philosophers" introduced in the story are real historical Greek philosophers. Their depictions lean into the more humorous elements of their personalities and accomplishments in a way that I really enjoyed. There's also lots of in-joke sniping from the Greek and Roman characters at the other's cultures. The cultivation style is more mystical and dramatic than a straightforward accumulation of power (although it is that too, of course).
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Jul 25, 2022 05:10
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LLSix posted:https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41330/virtuous-sons-a-greco-roman-xianxia Should mention that it is on Hiatus.
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Jul 25, 2022 07:12
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Patrick Spens posted:Riposte is a complete and relatively short story about an orphan girl who gets sucked into the secret underground world of high-stakes magical card games. Unlike a lot of webnovels this is a tight and efficient story that gets to where it wants to go in fairly short order. It's also pretty dang good, and does that thing I like where all the magic explicitly only exists to make manifest moral dilemmas or character themes. Definitely worth checking out. Riposte's author, Etzoli, is consistently one of the best authors on RR. Epilogue is the story of what happens when the characters in a Isekai return home. The Last Science is character driven contemporary fantasy. It was put on hiatus at the start of covid, but the first two books are well worth reading. Snipe is a tightly plotted cyberpunk thriller, but it's been moved to KU and Amazon now.
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Jul 25, 2022 15:44
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