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amazing, thank you all. i'm about 10% into The Daily Grind and loving it!
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Jan 27, 2024 01:00
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THIS_IS_FINE posted:I also just finished and enjoyed it although I felt it kind of lost steam at the end. I really liked Corpies which was the interlude book between Year 3 and 4 and would have liked to see more in the actual hero working world. Still a good series though and will probably look into some of his other series. I had similar feelings about Super Powereds. It ended and I was like "that's it? We don't get to see them be actual heroes?" I get that wasn't the focus but I would like a sequel or something.
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Jan 27, 2024 04:07
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I love fun garbage like everybody else, and love finding well-reviewed and/or well-known books on KU, but has anybody else come across genuinely great completely unknown novels while wandering through KU crap? I’m still haunted by Chasing The Dream by Barcus killed and it has zero press.
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Feb 5, 2024 06:56
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Happiness Commando posted:The Daily Grind has two books on KU and then a gazillion more on royal road. It's kind of a grind, honestly, but slice of life anarchist utopia building through isekai dungeon exploration pushes a lot of the right buttons for me. really enjoying this, I'm onto book two of the audiobooks. did not expect the showdown with Frank. poo poo rules.
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Feb 5, 2024 15:49
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Looks like the Cradle animation kickstarter is around $75k short of the $1 million it needs by Friday, so let your friends know if they'd be interested in supporting it.AARD VARKMAN posted:Finished Super Powereds finally. Damned long and yet I didn't really get bored. It's nice to read a huge KU thing that's completely finished too Yeah I really enjoyed it. There are definitely some parts that I thought dragged a bit and were unnecessary (a lot of the stuff with Angela) but it was a really engaging story with a well-developed world. Edit: well, it just got funded! Can't wait to see how it turns out. mastajake fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Feb 6, 2024 |
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Feb 6, 2024 17:37
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Sounds like Will is gonna write another Cradle book too, although it likely won't be #13 as such.
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Feb 8, 2024 18:33
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The Ninth Layer posted:Sounds like Will is gonna write another Cradle book too, although it likely won't be #13 as such. It just needs to be a book about (series ending spoilers) Akura Fury traveling around the universe kicking the poo poo out of Fiends and other cosmic threats while having the time of his life.
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Feb 8, 2024 21:14
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Fury + random defeated bros road trip across the stars punching fiends could be good
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Feb 8, 2024 21:33
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The Ninth Layer posted:Sounds like Will is gonna write another Cradle book too, although it likely won't be #13 as such. He said on a stream it might be a novella instead of just being a short story collection.
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Feb 9, 2024 05:24
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Happiness Commando posted:The Daily Grind has two books on KU and then a gazillion more on royal road. It's kind of a grind, honestly, but slice of life anarchist utopia building through isekai dungeon exploration pushes a lot of the right buttons for me. Gotta say, I think this is up with Dungeon Crawler Carl in best in class LitRPG stuff. Amazing concept, very empathetic characters, and brings an optimistic energy that is really welcome. Highly recommend, going to be hard to top as my favorite series of 24'. Haystack posted:I enjoyed reading Rogue Ascension recently. Just an unabashed power fantasy litRPG, which mostly stands out because the author is clearly a black Floridan nerd and is having fun writing an overpowered alter ego. Onto this, which is a hilarious change up from Daily Grind. Stupid sexy sirens.
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Feb 21, 2024 20:47
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Taking book recommendations for any books that actually follows through with one of the things DCC excels at which is the whole "Hrmm maybe we should murder the system/the people who invented the system".
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Feb 22, 2024 01:33
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Telsa Cola posted:Taking book recommendations for any books that actually follows through with one of the things DCC excels at which is the whole "Hrmm maybe we should murder the system/the people who invented the system". KamikazePotato's Outcast In Another World series is pretty good if you're up for something a little more upbeat and classic-fantasy than DCC, but with the same basic premise of 'the world runs like a game because it's ruled by none-too-competent sadists'. Ravensdagger's Stray Cat Strut is also worth mentioning if you're interested in the opposite, where the game elements were created by a powerful, benevolent alien race who's trying to protect and help humanity after they got caught up in a vast interstellar war, and they incentivise heroic, virtuous behaviour in a way that plays havoc with the awful ultracapitalist cyberpunk dystopia that Earth was when they found it. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 01:40
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Darth Walrus posted:
That's interesting, tower of Somnus has the same premise and I enjoyed it
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Feb 22, 2024 02:06
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Telsa Cola posted:Taking book recommendations for any books that actually follows through with one of the things DCC excels at which is the whole "Hrmm maybe we should murder the system/the people who invented the system". I’ve only read 3 books so no promises on if it really follows all the way through on it (or if the quality drops), but I think BuyMort fits this. Arizona slacker tries to get set up as a warlord and take on multiverse Amazon. There’s a lot of evils of capitalism and gently caress the system. Big content warning on a ton of gore as his main power is an alien tech starfish attached to his chest that expels damaged bits of him and rebuilds him on the fly through a ton of fights.
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Feb 22, 2024 02:27
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Ranger Vick posted:I’ve only read 3 books so no promises on if it really follows all the way through on it (or if the quality drops), but I think BuyMort fits this. Arizona slacker tries to get set up as a warlord and take on multiverse Amazon. There’s a lot of evils of capitalism and gently caress the system. Big content warning on a ton of gore as his main power is an alien tech starfish attached to his chest that expels damaged bits of him and rebuilds him on the fly through a ton of fights. Don't forget the whole weird snake women stuff. I honestly found it too miserable and bailed after book 1.
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Feb 22, 2024 02:46
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30.5 Days posted:That's interesting, tower of Somnus has the same premise and I enjoyed it They're very different stories, for what it's worth. Stray Cat Strut is more a semi-comedic cyberpunk story with the premise of "what if aliens let humans gun down zerg for points to buy supertech equipment."
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Feb 22, 2024 04:04
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Bremen posted:They're very different stories, for what it's worth. Though with a not-insignificant dose of (benign) social engineering built into how you earn points and what you can spend it on.
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Feb 22, 2024 04:15
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Telsa Cola posted:Taking book recommendations for any books that actually follows through with one of the things DCC excels at which is the whole "Hrmm maybe we should murder the system/the people who invented the system". Slumrat Rising is basically “C-Spam” the web serial. The hero is basically currently preparing to try to kill the God of Capitalism.
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Feb 22, 2024 05:02
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in terms of more thoughtful examinations of a 'System', its societal effects and abuses, and why it exists, I'd put Tao Wong's System Apocalypse series up as a strong contender. The MC does bear a strong grudge against the whole thing from the start. The series is also actually finished instead of a meandering never-ending serial without a plan, so that's a plus.
TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 05:53
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don't most progression / litrpg have "kill the oppressors / owners" as its end goal? Cradle, Unbound, Scholomance, Dungeon Core... the idea is that the protag is (probably going to be) the strongest at the end. seems like stuff like The Daily Grind and Beware of Chicken is novel more because that isn't the end goal
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Feb 22, 2024 06:03
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Thanks for the recommendations everyone, I will give each of those a go, and if folks have any more then let me know. I did enjoy Outcast in another world, particularly because the protag does reach points where he goes "This is absolutely loving stupid and I'm tired of pretending it's not" like with the "dwarven" nuke tokenbrownguy posted:don't most progression / litrpg have "kill the oppressors / owners" as its end goal? Cradle, Unbound, Scholomance, Dungeon Core... the idea is that the protag is (probably going to be) the strongest at the end. I've read an absolute shameful amount of KU stuff and while there is a very common trend of "This system sucks absolute dogshit and billions of people are going to die, I have to get stronger to survive/help those I am close to/maybe change things" very few demonstrate actual progress/work towards dismantling the key architects or parts of the system. It's a lot of "and then I defeated this sect, who were dicks and opressive." Or a lot of "Now I am the strongest so no one can opress me or mine" which imo is significantly different then "The system is fundementally opressive and genocidal and must be either completely redone or destroyed, so im going to go do that" In my experience DCC was fairly unique in that Carl actually takes steps and makes progress on killing the opressors, or at least presenting it in a way that makes it seem significant. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 06:15
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tokenbrownguy posted:don't most progression / litrpg have "kill the oppressors / owners" as its end goal? Cradle, Unbound, Scholomance, Dungeon Core... the idea is that the protag is (probably going to be) the strongest at the end. I wouldn't really group Scholomance as a progression/litrpg? There's no explicit powering up, El accomplishes her most impressive magical feat in book 1 halfway through and the series is eventually resolved through a bunch of political and social wrangling more than any number go up stuff. its also weird to group Cradle in there because while they break the back of the system on Cradle they still end up subsuming into the greater over structure in the heavens and slot into that after they ascend. It really kind of chickens out on letting them actually combat the fundamentally broken Abidan because it spends so much time on the lower level stuff that you get the pretty limp ending of 'and then they kicked the bad apple out and things are now good in heaven' despite the like trillions of people who were ground up by that system and the fact its clearly going to happen again because they're still entirely dependent on a single dude! Zore fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 06:20
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I think my problem with it is that many, many, many fictions just take the whole "Might makes right" thing as a universal truth, and while I'm not really interested in debating the factual/sociological/whatever truth of that very very few protagonists go "Fix this or I burn everything down because the status quo for the average human/sentient is horrible death or servitude and I rather break a (possible) fundemental aspect of the universe than allow that to happen to billions/trillions other people around the universe." Which is weird to me. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 06:32
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Is Outcast from another world the one by the guy named shirtyloon or something? I can never get deep enough into that one to actually read it before sighing and putting it down, but it's lauded here. Also, I'm trying out Daily Grind and it's nowhere near on the same level as DCC in terms of writing but I'm still enjoying it.
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Feb 22, 2024 17:17
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Shirtaloon writes He Who Fights With Monsters. He also has like the second most popular author Patreon. That one isn't really about changing the system, more of an exploration of how having a lot of power can change a person. The MC can be pretty obnoxious.
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Feb 22, 2024 17:45
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Ah, thanks, I'll have to check out Outcast then. I don't know how Shirtaloon is popular, I can barely get through a couple chapters and I read like 3-4 books a week normally, but to each their own I guess.
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Feb 22, 2024 17:55
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I tried out the first book of System Apocalypse and boy, that's a really painful amount of telling instead of showing, and not even in a stylistically interesting way like Dracula letters.
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Feb 22, 2024 19:40
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This is incredibly cringe, but I am 43 and I don't know anything about any of the KU genres you've been talking about except through 3rd order memes. What are my Lit 101 entry texts to this stuff? This is all impenetrable and I have nerd FOMO.
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Feb 22, 2024 20:13
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The first post is probably due for an update, which I absolutely do not volunteer for, but maybe start there?
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Feb 22, 2024 20:27
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Ok, let me narrow it down. 'Iseka' is 1:1 with portal fantasy, right? Is there any like Terry Brooks' "Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold!"? Something aimed at middle-aged power fantasy might be my in. I did grow up reading Xanth novels, so I am desensitized.
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Feb 22, 2024 20:33
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Marsupial Ape posted:This is incredibly cringe, but I am 43 and I don't know anything about any of the KU genres you've been talking about except through 3rd order memes. What are my Lit 101 entry texts to this stuff? This is all impenetrable and I have nerd FOMO. The Cradle Series, and Dungeon Crawler Carl are good entry points. Cradle is western take on the popular Chinese-originated genre of "cultivation" fantasy. Think Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on anime steroids. People often say they were on the fence until the second book, but I liked it from the get-go. Dungeon Crawler Carl is an unusually good example of the litRPG subgenre, which means that it's got character classes, stat blocks, and other RPG stuff incorporated into it. Fair warning, DCC deliberately goes for the gross out factor. It generally walks the line really well, but the first book is a touch rough.
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Feb 22, 2024 20:35
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Haystack posted:The Cradle Series, and Dungeon Crawler Carl are good entry points. I'd personally recommend Outcast in Another World if DCC's edge is a bit too much for you. It doesn't have quite the same wild creativity, but it's still a fun, robust fantasy adventure. To clarify, DCC is still amongst the best-in-class for the litRPG genre provided you're up for a bit of horror, but it may not be to your personal taste.
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Feb 22, 2024 20:46
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One thing to be aware of with Dungeon Crawler Carl series is that while it's really good and I fully recommend it, it's also kind of a deconstruction of the whole litRPG thing. Fights quickly become about whatever wacky but logical game system exploits the characters have come up with lately, the death dungeon they're stuck in is explicitly designed to be impossible to actually win, there's plenty of attention given to how hosed up the whole 'kill living things to gain power' dynamic is, everything takes a visible toll on Carl's sanity, and so on. By comparison, other litRPG works tend to play the whole thing straight, like if Order of the Stick was a novel but trying to be serious adventure instead of funny. Marsupial Ape posted:Ok, let me narrow it down. 'Iseka' is 1:1 with portal fantasy, right? Is there any like Terry Brooks' "Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold!"? Something aimed at middle-aged power fantasy might be my in. I did grow up reading Xanth novels, so I am desensitized. 'Isekai' is portal fantasy, but also other stuff because it accidentally became a super-genre umbrella in anime and light novels that basically covers any kind of 'sudden massive culture/context clash' kind of vibe. That's why you'll sometimes see nonsense like 'native isekai' where it's not even different worlds, just someone in a fantasy world getting pulled from Boring Region A to Exciting Region B. Isekai works often but not always includes whoever's sucked into the nonsense getting some kind of powers. A ton of Japanese works have this be things straight out of the Dragon Quest series (see also lots of repeated 'Hero vs. Demon Lord' plots, same source), which is a main source of the whole litRPG thing in the first place. Roadie fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 20:57
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Telsa Cola posted:I've read an absolute shameful amount of KU stuff and while there is a very common trend of "This system sucks absolute dogshit and billions of people are going to die, I have to get stronger to survive/help those I am close to/maybe change things" very few demonstrate actual progress/work towards dismantling the key architects or parts of the system. It's a lot of "and then I defeated this sect, who were dicks and opressive." Or a lot of "Now I am the strongest so no one can opress me or mine" which imo is significantly different then "The system is fundementally opressive and genocidal and must be either completely redone or destroyed, so im going to go do that" yeah, I mean I get it. its a bit depressing that the end game for much of the media in this genre is "gently caress you got mine" not "and then I saved the world." I think most stuff still kinda falls in "and then I build a fief / gang / kingdom / found family where everyone is prosperous under my iron first, don't think too hard about this" Zore posted:I wouldn't really group Scholomance as a progression/litrpg? There's no explicit powering up, El accomplishes her most impressive magical feat in book 1 halfway through and the series is eventually resolved through a bunch of political and social wrangling more than any number go up stuff. boarding school / high school settings are progression fantasy, ama. and idk, El's big spell to keep Orion around protecting the kids is like the culmination of all her progression, classes, and gathering of friends. shrug. I get that its not a straight isekai, but I think it fits in this conversation. Zore posted:its also weird to group Cradle in there because while they break the back of the system on Cradle they still end up subsuming into the greater over structure in the heavens and slot into that after they ascend. It really kind of chickens out on letting them actually combat the fundamentally broken Abidan because it spends so much time on the lower level stuff that you get the pretty limp ending of 'and then they kicked the bad apple out and things are now good in heaven' despite the like trillions of people who were ground up by that system and the fact its clearly going to happen again because they're still entirely dependent on a single dude! yerp. I think you poll 10 die hard cradle fans nine of them will agree the Abidan stuff sucks poo poo. and thinking about it, you're right. even if Lindon re-ordered the world, its still full of kung-fu bullshit where someone can come along and murder you dead cause they're a 9th rank black belt in the rear end in a top hat cult Marsupial Ape posted:Ok, let me narrow it down. 'Iseka' is 1:1 with portal fantasy, right? Is there any like Terry Brooks' "Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold!"? Something aimed at middle-aged power fantasy might be my in. I did grow up reading Xanth novels, so I am desensitized. The Daily Grind.
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Feb 22, 2024 21:03
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tokenbrownguy posted:don't most progression / litrpg have "kill the oppressors / owners" as its end goal? Cradle, Unbound, Scholomance, Dungeon Core... the idea is that the protag is (probably going to be) the strongest at the end. Cradnle 100% does not fit in that group you're describing Wanting specifically to kill all the oppressors on Cradle ultimately only comes about when he finds out the Monarchs need to die or gently caress off for the dreadgods to stay dead and gone. The series ends with him and his friends joining a grou who are very much seen as oppressors by the people fighting them (though those people also seem to work with fiends and other Fundamentally Bad creatures). I was sad when his new series wasn't a follow up to Cradle's ending (unless it is in the books beyond the first one) but considering the last books of Cradle had a feeling of him just wanting to be done with it I'm not too surprised that it's something new. Yngwie Mangosteen posted:Ah, thanks, I'll have to check out Outcast then. I don't know how Shirtaloon is popular, I can barely get through a couple chapters and I read like 3-4 books a week normally, but to each their own I guess. My biggest shock when trying the series was seeing another person who remembers (for better or worse) that Airwolf was a TV show that existed. Telsa Cola posted:I think my problem with it is that many, many, many fictions just take the whole "Might makes right" thing as a universal truth, and while I'm not really interested in debating the factual/sociological/whatever truth of that very very few protagonists go "Fix this or I burn everything down because the status quo for the average human/sentient is horrible death or servitude and I rather break a (possible) fundemental aspect of the universe than allow that to happen to billions/trillions other people around the universe." Might Makes Right is pretty unavoidable in any sort of setting where personal power can grow massively or without limit though since the masses can't just band together for a better tomorrow when 1 other person might have the power to reduce planets to atomic dust with a thought because a system where you level up is about as pure a setup for it as you can get. Road to Mastery might fit what you're looking for since the books are largely the MC I think the system setup I've preferred so far out of different series has been the one in Primal Hunter because (as far as the setting has shown so far) it largely just exists and governs the ever-growing multiverse that it slowly grows out over time. I'm hoping this doesn't change since "the system/admin is Big Evil" feels done to death and usually done poorly. Maybe Randidly Ghosthound does it well but that series is 2300+ chapters at this point (the KU books cover about 570 of them) and by chapter 1000 on RR the series felt completely aimless and had lots of stuff that I had an extremely hard time caring about so I dropped it after forcing myself to finish the arc I was on just in case it managed to do something to show the series would get more interesting. Seriously, gently caress the internal world/universe thing Randidly has going on. It was neat at first but it just feels tiresome by the time of the Alpha Universe or w/e it's called. Maybe in chapter 50000 when the series ends he'll be making a non-rear end in a top hat system for his personal universe but goddamn the bloat in that series feels so bad.
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Feb 22, 2024 22:17
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I read the first couple books of He Who FIghts With Monsters and I was like "yeah this is ok. not great. I've read worse". But then they 'rank up' and all 20 abilities held by all 6 main cast members get an extra little upgrade, so he has to explain 120 new passive abilities that the cast has and just like, no. You clearly did not think this through.
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Feb 23, 2024 01:38
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Telsa Cola posted:Taking book recommendations for any books that actually follows through with one of the things DCC excels at which is the whole "Hrmm maybe we should murder the system/the people who invented the system". It's not progression fantasy or litrpg, but you may enjoy Babel by R.F. Kuang, if you haven't already read it. (Oh just realized the thread I'm in. I don't think it is KU, sorry, but it is good)
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Feb 23, 2024 02:50
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mastajake posted:It's not progression fantasy or litrpg, but you may enjoy Babel by R.F. Kuang, if you haven't already read it. We don't read good books in this thread!
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Feb 23, 2024 04:15
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30.5 Days posted:We don't read good books in this thread! Cradle is good*! * offer not valid for books published after Wintersteel.
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Feb 23, 2024 04:20
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30.5 Days posted:We don't read good books in this thread! I still do appreciate the suggestions, though.
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Feb 23, 2024 04:20
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