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jwang posted:For Shun, it was the end of everything he knew. For Kumoko, it was merely a Tuesday. Maybe it's because I haven't read enough of these kinds of stories, but I kind of like Shun. He doesn't have the distinctive voice Kumoko does, but at the same time, he interacts with the people and world around him, instead of just killing and running away like she does. (Note: I've only read up until where the Blastron translation ends).
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Oct 6, 2016 19:36
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Krunge posted:It's interesting, but after the first 4 chapters, it's behind a paywall. That's pretty much the worst thing ever. The translation isn't even that good. I can't tell if these are actual Korean webnovels described in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way or just a humorous urban legend. The subsequent post noting that "Not all of the forbidden texts are actually in the download links. Some of them are either very hard to get, or was lost in the stream of time..." suggests it's the latter for at least some of them. In particular, "People couldn't understand it that well because of the language from the early 90's, and marked it as a forbidden text," sounds like a pure joke, but maybe it's only partly a joke because Korean slang in the 90s was weird or something?
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Oct 19, 2016 02:40
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BlitzBlast posted:Sevens, because why not. I read the first few chapters of Sevens a while back, and I must say that while I like the interactions between the family heads, the gender politics (particularly regarding Celes, Agrissa, and the main character's "right" to be the next family head) seem...uncomfortable. It's the sort of thing where the author could be going somewhere interesting with it, or it could just be unthinking sexism, or maybe something in between. Not necessarily going to pick it up again soon in any case (I have a lot of other things I'd like to read and limited time), but where do those aspects of the story go?
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Nov 13, 2016 09:00
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BlitzBlast posted:It's just generic patrilineal rule like you'd expect from a quasi-medieval era. Sevens in general really likes the idea of girls being way scarier than guys, so I wouldn't call it sexist, but as I've said many times before Sevens is not something you should look to as being particularly innovative. Fair point about why we should care about him. I'm more bothered by the way one of the past family heads talked about charismatic female "monsters" like Celes and Agrissa, but of course he doesn't have an objective viewpoint. Mostly I'm wondering to what extent his attitude ends up being portrayed as correct.
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Nov 13, 2016 21:33
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Silynt posted:I was randomly searching around on Amazon looking for a new fantasy novel to read when I stumbled across Unsouled and Soulsmith, the first 2 novels in a new open-ended fantasy series called Cradle by a guy named Will Wight. They are essentially western-interpreted versions of a fairly standard cultivation based xianxia setting. While the world and some of the plot beats (especially in Book 1) are distinctly xianxia inspired, they are also novels instead of web-novels and are written with a different story structure than your standard xianxia. I enjoyed them immensely, and definitely think they're worth the $2.99 they cost. I just bought it (despite never having read a xianxia before, unless you count the first volume of Terror Infinity), and it seems interesting so far.
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Dec 19, 2016 05:39
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Silver2195 posted:I just bought it (despite never having read a xianxia before, unless you count the first volume of Terror Infinity), and it seems interesting so far. Now 22% of the way through the first book. Not sure what's up with the names in this world; the mix of Chinese names (mostly family names) and generic 2-syllable fantasy names (mostly given names) is an odd combination. The line about Lindon's badge having the "old" character for nothingness or whatever makes me think that the Chinese names are from an archaic language and the fantasy names are from a language that developed from it or displaced it more recently. Lindon is a lot less of an outcast than the term Unsouled implies. Not that he doesn't still have a fairly rotten deal in many ways (his parents don't care much about him, he's subject to arbitrary rules that seem intended to keep him from ever accomplishing anything, and Teris feels entitled to bully him), but there's more nuance to, say, the First Elder's interactions with him than I'd expect from the antagonistic authority figure in a story like this. It's an interesting approach. Kelsa is cool. I like the line about how Lindon might resent her for having everything he doesn't if only she wasn't so fair. She doesn't coddle him, but she's helped him out a lot...which is only fair, since he's helped her out a lot, between the spirit fruit and giving her the basic idea for a fairly overpowered technique. Elder Whisper claims there's still room for a lot of progression beyond Gold (and as a kitsune with only five tails, he should know), but what are the levels beyond Gold even called? Platinum-Diamond-Pearl? Or do they switch to descriptive names? Or do they not even really have names for the stages beyond Gold? Part of me is disappointed we got the oops-I-cheated-you-win-so-don't-hit-me ploy instead of a straight up fight between Lindon and Eri, but I can understand why the author didn't want the protagonist beating up a little girl, lol. Edit: Turns out the Empty Palm is pretty much useless for Kelsa, and perhaps for Lindon too in the long run. I guess it makes sense; as Jaran points out, if it were really as overpowered as it seemed, everyone would use it. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 20, 2016 |
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Dec 20, 2016 04:45
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45% through Unsouled. I love how completely absurd Li Markuth is. Killing a hyped character like the Wei Patriarch is expected to establish a villain like that, but no-selling the main character's one-in-a-million-chance plan and then killing the main character demonstrates power surpassing narrative conventions. Suriel is obviously going to resurrect Lindon in about five seconds, but still. Edit: Based on his jewelry, I guessed that the beyond-Gold stage Markuth had reached was called Diamond, but he's being referred to as a Gold from Suriel's point of view, so I guess either he was lying or the levels beyond Gold don't really have names. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Dec 21, 2016 |
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Dec 21, 2016 05:23
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Finished Unsouled. Suriel explaining how crazy the powerlevels get was cool. Lindon got a little too lucky in some of his fights towards the end. (Whitehall even calls him out on his reflexes being better than they should be.) Other than that, the ending was good.
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Dec 22, 2016 08:28
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Arkeus posted:Finished Unsouled too, but I don't remember Suriel explaining that? I meant stuff like that Eight Man Empire woman reaching Gold at age 6, and now being at a level where 1000 ordinary Golds couldn't scratch her armor. She doesn't go into specific details. Speaking of power levels, the beginning of Soulsmith explains something that confused me about Li Markuth. He claims that the term Gold is inadequate to describe how far he's advanced, but he's referred to as a Gold from Suriel's perspective. The Lowgold/Highgold/Truegold distinction explains it; Markuth means he's beyond Lowgold. I kind of agree about Kelsa. I hope she survived the Heaven's Glory attack on the Wei clan. Suriel's Presence described the event as "destruction of the Wei clan," but we know that Elder Whisper, at least, survived. It would be cruel if Kelsa is dead, since she's probably the main person Lindon is getting stronger in order to try to save in the first place. It's not like anyone else in Sacred Valley was particularly nice to him, aside from Elder Whisper (who only met him once), the random merchant he tricked into getting him past the staircase, and Elder Anses (who ended up pointing Heaven's Glory at the Wei clan).
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Dec 25, 2016 03:37
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Desuwa posted:I think Markuth is a more than a few steps beyond gold at all. He was beyond Cradle's power scale and Cradle is shown to at least contain underlords and, presumably, overlords. He asks if anyone else in the valley is gold ranked and accepts the gold badge only because it's above the rank of everyone else present. I just looked up something on Will Wight's site, and it seems we're both wrong, although only because Suriel essentially lies to the reader twice... http://www.willwight.com/a-blog-of-dubious-intent/deathmatch-part-i-the-death-ing-begins#comments Will Wight posted:the Ninecloud Court princess and Northstrider are a level beyond Li Markuth and the Sword Sage, who are both a level beyond Underlord. So he's actually beyond Gold entirely (despite the narration describing him as a Gold in a Suriel POV section, which I assume was a mistake on Wight's part), but there are other people on Cradle stronger than him (so he hasn't really outgrown it). The Sword Sage being on that level too is surprising, since the Heaven's Glory Elders were able to poison him. I guess either you don't get automatic poison immunity from advancing even that far, or Heaven's Glory can cook up some really special poison. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Dec 25, 2016 |
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Dec 25, 2016 04:42
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I just read Soulsmith, and it actually implicitly explains the Sword Sage being poisoned. You only get poison resistance if you go the route Lindon took when you reach Iron; the Sword Sage chose a different method that was better for a swordsman. Lindon got a lot fewer lucky victories in fights this time; mostly he had to rely on other people to rescue him. He did kill a Highgold as an Iron (3 stages above him, just like when he killed Whitehall), but only because the Kral was distracted by an Underlord (albeit in negotiation rather than a fight) and because Lindon had underwent a much better version of the Sandviper Iron advancement than Kral had. Jai Long has some interesting nuances to his character. I don't really think anything he did was justified, but he at least had understandable reasons for most of it (and Yerin has done some similar things for similar reasons; most random Jai clan members probably don't deserve to die, but most of the Heaven's Glory Irons probably didn't either). It's also interesting that Suriel's Presence said there was a possibility of his sister talking him out of slaughtering the Jai clan. Eithan's statistics on advancement (which, to be fair, are prefaced with "I've heard") seem exaggerated. If you do the multiplication, he's saying only one in 10 billion people who reach Lowgold reach Underlord. Even assuming that basically everyone outside of Sacred Valley reaches Lowgold, and allowing for the increased lifespan that seems to come with reaching Underlord, Cradle would have to be very large or very overpopulated to have much more than a couple Underlords in the world, and we've been told there are "a handful" of them in the Blackflame Empire alone, plus at least 10 people we know of from other parts of Cradle who are almost certainly above Underlord. Though maybe Cradle really is that large, like the settings of Toriko and Tower of God. I'm interested in seeing what path Lindon's training takes from here. The problem with learning Stellar Spear from the Jai Patriarch is that Jai Long is specialized in killing Stellar Spear users. Suriel's Presence mentions the possibility of Lindon developing a counter to Jai Long's spear, which would reduce that problem, but seems to treat it as mutually exclusive to learning Stellar Spear, perhaps because there's only so much Lindon can do in a year. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Dec 27, 2016 01:57
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brainwrinkle posted:I bought the Re:Zero LN from Amazon, but Subaru is too annoying to deal with in text form. I couldn't get more than 20 pages into it. I bought the LN too but haven't read very far into it either, though in my case it's more that I sort of forgot about it. One thing I do like from the LN that didn't really make it into the anime is that Subaru has flashes of self-awareness about his tendency to talk nonsense.
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Feb 17, 2017 04:27
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Ytlaya posted:It was interesting when they mentioned how Katia, despite having the mind of his/her previous male self, no longer feels attraction to women due to having a female body. She also claims she would rather die than marry a man, though. So I guess she's asexual now?
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Mar 21, 2017 03:42
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Namtab posted:Vol 1: Chapter 1-1. I actually like the generic bored office worker introduced there. The attempts to give him individualized characterization later in Volume 1 are pretty bad.
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Apr 14, 2017 02:37
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Largepotato posted:What? There's a reason someone bought darkgray that avatar, lol.
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May 4, 2017 21:26
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I've finished the third Cradle book, Blackflame, which has recently come out. It's pretty good. Lindon doesn't kill someone three levels above him at the end of the book this time, although he does destroy the hand of someone two levels above him. Eithan seems to be on the overpowered side, but he does have a weakness (physical attacks). Yerin ruining cool technique names was amusing, and the way she and Lindon beat the Trials was clever while remaining in keeping with her  way of doing things.My biggest complaint was that Jai Long letting Yerin power up seemed out of character; he's always been pragmatic, and his magical oath to Jai Daishou should make him more so. I guess he wanted to gain experience fighting someone who wasn't a Stellar Spear user for once, but that seems like a weak reason. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 01:40 on May 6, 2017 |
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May 6, 2017 01:36
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punk rebel ecks posted:I'm actually writing my own screenplay that is heavily inspired by anime. I don't know if I should post it here or not though. Probably belongs in Creative Convention, not here.
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Jun 25, 2017 00:46
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i don't care if it is the most amazing work of fiction ever created, it is still harry potter fan fiction. "Overpowered protagonist" tag makes this seem rather unappealing.
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Aug 8, 2017 00:33
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Meme Emulator posted:Well hes a D&D wizard so its impossible for him not to be overpowered If he's a level 20 3.5 wizard in a "gritty" fantasy world, sure. But that's hardly the only possible take on the D&D wizard in a non-vancian world premise. Contrast that line about "the untold arcane power of 3rd level spells" in the excerpt from Harry Potter and the Natural 20.
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Aug 8, 2017 23:48
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The fourth Cradle book, Skysworn, just came out. The Jai Long fight was neat; I wasn't expecting Lindon to actually lose, but he did, despite putting up a good fight. It was also nice to see Jai Chen finally being proactive (and in a very Lindon-esque way at that: just stabbing someone way above her (what level is Jai Chen anyway?)).
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Oct 1, 2017 20:07
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Arkeus posted:Well, just finished. "Betrayed" is a strong way of putting it. He mostly deserved it, frankly.
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Oct 3, 2017 15:34
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Arkeus posted:He put his clan in the best way to reap the reward from secret info he got from a Monarch, which he couldn't quite say but could say it was trustworthy. He was betrayed after bringing his clan glory again and again because he has a arrogant attitude and was an 'otusider' from that branch of the clan It's not just his arrogant attitude. His attempts to manipulate Jai Daishou make him partially responsible for the Bleeding Phoenix's attack, he's always forcing other people to risk their lives, and he's always wasting money.
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Oct 4, 2017 00:31
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Ytlaya posted:I want to read a WN that is like a male-oriented version of those "reincarnated as the villainess in an otome game" WNs. Like, where someone reincarnates as the rear end in a top hat arranged marriage partner of the harem protagonist's main love interest or something. Maybe villains in male-oriented VNs tend to be a little too unpleasant for that kind of story. It could certainly be done, but the tone would inevitably be darker.
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Oct 24, 2017 02:36
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Ccs posted:Haha the idea of panty shots in written form being a draw for people is hilarious to me. It's not the panty shots, it's the archetypal and infantilized female characters wearing the panties.
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Dec 19, 2017 19:23
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Ccs posted:So is it the similarity to anime plots and tropes that draws readers to these? Cause, no offense, from what I'm reading it can't be the quality of the writing. The amount of repetition in the word-choice, the clunky adverbs cluttering sentences, and the incredibly cliche descriptions for everything make even the worst published fantasy writer seem like Shakespeare. To be fair, some of the bad prose style is an artifact of translation...but a lot of it is indeed just bad.
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Dec 20, 2017 07:50
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sunken fleet posted:Like what the gently caress is a class representative? Why do girls run into boys with bread in their mouths? What's the significance in that? Or you know, a million other common anime tropes that exist for whatever reason? What's with the weird naming conventions and social power structures? Why are teachers so disproportionately feared and respected in Korean stuff? Why is the main character of this Chinese novel clearly and evil piece of poo poo? Why does the very idea of a gun cause this Japanese protagonist to speak in hushed and reverent tones - doesn't he know he can just go buy one at Wal-Mart and blow the fucker with a god damned box knife away?!? There's plenty of better Japanese fiction for figuring out the answers to the first few questions, and someone who doesn't know the answer to that last question would strike me as remarkably ignorant. Although I suppose "Why is the main character of this Chinese novel clearly an evil piece of poo poo?" is sociologically interesting from a certain point of view.
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Dec 20, 2017 20:04
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Konstantin posted:Why are Chinese webnovels almost always set in worlds that run on a system that is basically Social Darwinism? Even in traditional Confucian societies there is a basic obligation for the nobles to take care of the people who are under them, but in these novels everybody shits on people weaker than them without regard to loyalties. Kill someone in your clan who has a lower cultivation level and no powerful backer? They probably deserved it, and you'll get a slap on the wrist at most. The Korean webtoon Tower of God (which I read before knowing anything about xianxia, though I'm way behind on it) has a setting like this too, and at the time I thought it was meant as a sort of commentary on what the author saw as the excessive competitiveness of modern South Korean society. I suppose Chinese xianxia stories are similar, except that the social commentary is unintentional.
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Mar 2, 2018 21:21
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SerSpook posted:agreed I like how the Cradle books avoid this. The enormous continent where most of the story takes places is mostly East Asian culturally, and of course all focused on strength and so forth, but not only do other continents with other cultures and ethnicities exist, the world is part of a multiverse full of other fantasy worlds that are neither xianxia nor medieval-European.
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Mar 23, 2018 22:26
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The Sandman posted:Here, something actually good to read. I haven't fully caught up with this one, but it's alright. It gets a lot more mileage out of the setting than I'd thought possible. Bleach normally isn't really a good setting for quests and campaigns because there isn't much to do in it, especially compared to One Piece, Naruto, and Hunter x Hunter. This is why Bleach anime filler tends to introduce new types of beings out of nowhere and set events in a sort of implicit parallel timeline; otherwise the protagonists would have nothing to do (aside from fighting Hollows much weaker than themselves, training without real gains, filling out paperwork, and getting involved in ultimately insignificant bureaucratic and aristocratic politics) without Aizen setting events in motion. This quest, though, manages to get a reasonably interesting plot out of exploring the conflicts between the Arrancar, plus the various tasks that someone in Hueco Mundo presumably has to do, while mining the eerie atmosphere that the manga and anime evoke occasionally.
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May 16, 2018 05:46
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I'm halfway through Ghostwater. I felt sorry for the gold dragon girl and her attendants. She wasn't actually trying to kill Lindon at first, and the attendants didn't really do anything wrong. And while Lindon was also willing to negotiate initially (Orthos got in the way), he did miss a chance for a non-lethal resolution when he ran inside the second time she confronted him instead of just handing over the Eye of the Deep. Granted, he would probably have been killed by something else shortly thereafter while either wandering around outside in search of the other portal or acting as the dragon girl's lackey (and Orthos would never have accepted the latter option anyway). This seems mostly intentional on Will Wight's part, though. He seems to be aware that other than Akura Mercy and Suriel, the protagonists aren't really all that good, and the dragon girl's death was definitely played for tragedy.
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Jun 15, 2018 03:19
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Arkeus posted:I.. am not sure? Dragon girl was specifically following Lindon not only because she thought he knew something, but also because black dragon ingredients are worth money, so she wanted to harvest Orthos. The attendants are basically victims here, but there is no real indication she would not have killed him had she taken the eyes of the deep. Or any indication he could have survived without it even if she didn't (and she wanted Orthos too). She specifically said she would let him live if he handed over the Eye of the Deep (and there's nothing to suggest she was lying, especially since there was nothing really stopping her from killing him first and then taking the Eye).
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Jun 15, 2018 17:17
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Speaking of Kumoko, it’s getting an anime: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-07-06/so-im-a-spider-so-what-anime-adaptation-confirmed-at-anime-expo/.133934
Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jul 6, 2018 |
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Jul 6, 2018 23:28
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:the cheapest voice actor budget ever Eh. It wouldn't be Kumoko without lots of voiceover from the main character; I assume VAs get paid more for big roles like that. Plus they need VAs for the Voice of Heaven, Shun, Katia, etc.
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Jul 7, 2018 00:58
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Patrat posted:Regarding the crazy number crunching on Forge of Destiny and resulting drama, that kind of thing seems to be fairly important to generating interest and an active community on Sufficent Velocity. I write a fairly popular 'quest' there despite my mediocre literary skills and getting people debating over logistics and budgeting or whatever seems to be a noticeable draw. Heh. A lot of people who participate in quests seem to want to be the "good guy" and still be a murderhobo (even in settings that really don't support that sort of behavior - e.g., Worm, where even "villains" generally keep fights non-lethal). I guess it shouldn't be surprising that there are also people who want to be the "good guy" and still be a corrupt politician.
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Oct 1, 2018 00:58
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:on the positive side, the story acknowledges that maybe a fantasy world wouldn't be completely inundated in chinese culture. for starters, there is absolutely no hint of face thus far. i suspect the author has read a lot of english-language novels. Face, or something rather like it, plays a role in essentially all societies. Omitting it from your setting is an odd decision. (I'm being a bit tongue in cheek here, obviously; I think your meaning is that the novel does without the trite speeches about face, and associated cliches such as auction scenes, often found in Chinese WNs.)
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Oct 25, 2018 01:53
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Tunicate posted:Similarly there's an archetypal fantasy cliche of a princess getting kidnapped by a dragon and rescued by a knight, who she marries, which I literally cannot recall ever having been played straight. I was about to say St. George, but did St. George marry the princess?
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Jan 11, 2019 19:37
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Silynt posted:The fact that a group of Jades killed the Sword Sage seems like a big plot hole, since it came from book 1 before the levels beyond Jade were defined and we now know that a Sage is basically a god compared to a Jade. The author swears that it isn’t and that he had a plan from the beginning, but we’ll have to wait and see. IIRC, Will Wight has said that there were specific circumstances involved in the Sword Sage's death that will be revealed in future books. Sacred Valley's "curse" seems like the most likely explanation.
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Feb 18, 2019 22:49
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Ytlaya posted:Do we ever find out what Li Markuth's deal is? I imagine he must be whatever level is necessary to leave Cradle (Archlord?). I think leaving Cradle normally requires you to be at least Herald level. I think Will said at some point in his online Q&A sessions that Li Markuth is an Archlord, but left Cradle by hitching a ride with someone more powerful. This might explain why he seemed to think he wasn't breaking the Abidan's rules by returning. quote:edit: One other question, though don't answer it (outside of spoiler tags anyways) if I'm not supposed to know yet (beginning of book 3) - Am I supposed to think that the Wei clan (and thus Lindon's family) was killed by Heaven's Glory sect? That was sort of hinted at happening at the end of Book 1. That's definitely implied, yes. Although I think it was also implied that Elder Whisper, at least, survived.
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Feb 19, 2019 00:36
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Traveller’s Gate is a distinct step down, I think. Elder Empire is better, but still not as good as Cradle. Traveler's Gate is meh. It's kind of...YAish, and it's a rare case of a fantasy story suffering from lack of exposition. Still better than most of the stuff discussed in this thread, of course.
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Jul 4, 2019 15:42
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IShallRiseAgain posted:The original plan was for Mother of Learning to end at chapter 100, so yes is very close to finishing. Worm is good, though.
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Jul 28, 2019 02:58
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