/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

[Anonymous No.20376142]

Back To Yharnam Edition

Previous Thread:>>20371865

>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs)
https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ/folder/guIyhAzS

>Archive
>>>>>>>>/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg

>Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg

>A link to the ultimate colossal science fiction and fantasy collection torrent
>>>/t/1023504

>Discord
Never going to be created.

[Anonymous No.20376165]

Anasûrimbor Kellhus.

[Anonymous No.20376169]

>>20376117
I can read many, many japanese fantasy novels without ever needing to imagine a male's perspiration, do you know why? Because I read a fantasy novel to encounter new things, new possibilities, new ideals and indulgences, to enjoy the infinite pleasures that exceed the possibilities of the material. Infinite, that's the number of things that I would rather read about than a man's sweaty body, and yet curiously a western fantasy author instead takes upon himself to make it one of the very first things the reader should read about instead. The sad thing is I'm not even surprised, it's the stereotype that I've held being proven right the moment I give it a chance to show otherwise.

[Anonymous No.20376178]

>>20376169
Generally speaking, I've found that western fantasy isn't very fantastical.

[Anonymous No.20376179]

>>20376169
Take your meds, Moogy.

[Anonymous No.20376184]

>>20376142
Recommend an easy reading SF book please, written before 1990 preferably. As I said in the last thread, I got corona and it affects concentration a lot

[Anonymous No.20376196]

>>20376184
Rendezvous with Rama.

[Anonymous No.20376203]

>>20376184
The Stars My Destination is a great read even if it's a bit of a dinosaur at this point. Funnily enough, it doesn't even feel that dated, when I first read it I'd assumed it was written in the 80's or 90's.

[Anonymous No.20376209]

>>20376196
Thanks fren, that's basically what I meant although I've read it
>>20376203
one of my favorite books, it must have been a real crazy book at the time

[Anonymous No.20376217]

>>20376209
>I've read it
Did you read 2001 anon?

[Anonymous No.20376235]

>>20376217
ahh yes, I liked it but I couldn't read it without giving HAL that voice, and I haven't even seen the movie.

I think I'll just wait a few days until my brain isn't all inflamed and fucked up. Don't go not giving a fuck about rona like I did because little things like this aren't talked about much but they're annoying

[Anonymous No.20376301]

>>20376184
Not science fiction, but have you tried the works of R Scott Bakker?

[Anonymous No.20376302]

Oh man and I thought the banners on xianxia sites were trashy.

[Anonymous No.20376305]

God I fucking hate litrpg garbage.

[Anonymous No.20376327]

>>20376301
thanks, I'll look into him. He looks very intelligent

[Anonymous No.20376342]

>>20376302
>Oh man and I thought the banners on xianxia sites were trashy.
It's an user AD, of course they will take the big money for some random trying to shill their story. Nothing wrong with that.

[Anonymous No.20376369]

Question to those here who usually consoom audio books on their phones. How do you actually do it? What app do you use? Can the app work by just loading files you put on your phone or do all apps only grant you access to their own libraries of books?

I've decided to reconcile my desire to reread some books with my yuge reading list by just listening to the books I want to reread in audio book form since I walk around a lot. But obviously I don't want to pay any money and just want to download audio books from the internet and I can't very well use the phone's inbuilt media app or my podcast app to play 30 hour long files and expect them to save my spot in thebook.

[Anonymous No.20376394]

>>20376184
Ender's Game. I don't consider it a very difficult read but it still has some depth to it by tackling certain moral questions. Holds up well too despite being close to 40 years old by now, with the notable exception of how it treats the internet.

[Anonymous No.20376401]

>>20376369
Just open mp3 file in any audio player and listen to it

[Anonymous No.20376435]

>>20376142
>Yharnam
What are some good video game lore PDFs? I have read The Paleblood Hunt and The Drowned Tome (Salt and Sanctuary) but that is all I know of. I am still working my way through Grim Dawn's fanmade in-game note compilation PDF which has exquisite writing and people who have never played the game could even read this to get a full 'story', an anthology if anything.

[Anonymous No.20376439]

>>20376401
But if it's a 30 hour long book, what am I supposed to do? Just write down the timestamp and navigate to it? My phone at least doesn't remember the exact time I shut something off when I use the media player. My podcast app does but I haven't tested it with files longer than 2-3 hours.

[Anonymous No.20376467]

I just spent 4 hours reading Jade City instead of working on two finals projects due today that I haven't started. 4 hours I'll never get back

[Anonymous No.20376468]

>>20376435
>What are some good video game lore PDFs? I have read The Paleblood Hunt and The Drowned Tome (Salt and Sanctuary) but that is all I know of. I am still working my way through Grim Dawn's fanmade in-game note compilation PDF which has exquisite writing and people who have never played the game could even read this to get a full 'story', an anthology if anything.

I am not sure, but I've seen some video on youtube mentioning Homeworld video game series having some serious lore, outside of the game.

Okay, I checked and these manuals seem to have some PDFs on history and lore, I assume other games in the series also have something similar:
https://www.moddb.com/games/homeworld/downloads/homeworld-manual

[Anonymous No.20376480]

>>20376467
Just remember that every possible use of your time is a waste regardless as we're all going to be dead in the end anyway.

[Anonymous No.20376496]

>>20376480
That's why I subscribe to nihilistic hedonism

[Anonymous No.20376516]

>>20376480
this but unironically
>>20376467
just plagiarize that shit, that's how everyone gets by in college

[Anonymous No.20376528]

>>20376394
Not to get too /pol/ but I don’t actually know if he got the internet wrong. Make Demosthenes Q and Locke a TikToker and makes sense.

When I was a kid I also thought his Second Warsaw Pact shit was stupid, but hey maybe with more time.

[Anonymous No.20376530]

I will now read your book.

[Anonymous No.20376563]

>>20376528
>Make Demosthenes Q
Well shit, if you put it like that, maybe Card wasn't too much off the mark after all. Whoever would've thought that 4chan's very own containment board would be the place where Demosthenes can go hogwild to influence the political body?

[Anonymous No.20376625]

>>20376169
You sound insufferable.

[Anonymous No.20376628]

>>20376169
>Reads one line from a novel
>Spends an hour flipping out about a minor detail on 4chan instead of reading further

[Anonymous No.20376647]

>>20376635
I feel like that hatred is pretty genuinely present throughout all of book one. The problem is it doesn't mean much because Kaladin lacks the agency to not be a good person to lighteyes until the end, where he obviously does because Dalinar is a good enough person for him to go "fuck it we're helping". I don't think his prejudice is meant to be as much his flaw as his own self-doubt and depression, anyway. He befriends two halves of a war, and then has a fucking breakdown when they start killing each other because of course they do, and he never thinks about picking a side or doing anything because of his own self-doubt. Kaladin's main flaw is that he is very often pushed into inaction due to his own mentality, when he SHOULD be being a proper hero.
It's not greatly handled because Sanderson seems to retread the same character arc every book with him but that's still the thing. He's a fundamentally good person who wants to help people but the results of his former attempts to help paralyse him into inaction most of the time.

[Anonymous No.20376686]

Yeah

[Anonymous No.20376709]

>>20376369
I use an app called Audio Anchor and just pirate from Audiobook Bay or download from YouTube. This is what it looks like:

[Anonymous No.20376719]

>>20376184
Starship Troopers. Just forget about the film.

[Anonymous No.20376727]

>>20376686
No one cares, go be triggered on reddit.

[Anonymous No.20376735]

>>20376709
Ey, this looks perfect. Thanks anon

[Anonymous No.20376759]

>>20376686
Oh nice, you found or took a pic of what I copypasted a while ago. How industrious you are.

[Anonymous No.20376794]

>>20376686
Jesus. I am beginning to think Sanderson only fakes being a Mormon. Remind me not to ever read his books.

[Anonymous No.20376833]

>>20376530
I wanna lick her feet while she reads me her books.

[Anonymous No.20376837]

>>20376686
>>20376727
Very cringe

[Anonymous No.20376842]

Will I be able to follow Gormenghast if I listen to an audiobook? I've heard it's hard to get into, on par with BotNS.

[Anonymous No.20376864]

>>20376735
You're welcome. Happy "reading"!

[Anonymous No.20376892]

God I fucking love litrpg garbage.

[Anonymous No.20376924]

>>20376709
>tarnsman of gor
based

[Anonymous No.20376952]

>>20376142
As someone who has never read worm, i think it has the most uninpsired setting imaginable. Not even because its capeshit. Its like wildbow got all his capeshit inspiration from ben 10 or something.

[Anonymous No.20376979]

>>20376952
How would you know without reading it?
I haven't read it either but the setting also doesn't seem very appealing to me, not that i know much about it.

[Anonymous No.20376986]

>>20376979
Osmosis. The places i hang around online tend to attract fans of "rational" fiction, and worm gets included under that umbrella.

[Anonymous No.20377051]

>>20376952
As someone who has read Worm can you give some examples? I'm not really sure what you mean.

[Anonymous No.20377077]

>>20376986
Rational fiction is a meme and Worm is better than the cultural osmosis implies.

[Anonymous No.20377104]

when does TWI get better?

[Anonymous No.20377111]

What the hell is "rational fiction"?

[Anonymous No.20377129]

>>20376178
>>20376169
I completely agree. 90% of fantasy writers seem to want to waste my time with mundane shit. If I wanted that I would- and do- read history, which is usually much better written with better plotlines.

[Anonymous No.20377135]

>>20377104
>when does TWI get better?
It's always good, but it gets even better with every volume, especially is volumes 4/5. It's just a bit clunky in the early volumes, as the author hadn't figured it exactly as they wanted back then.

[Anonymous No.20377136]

>>20377111
Stories derived from the idea of viewing the world 'rationally', so things happen because of other things, choices are logical, etc. Came about because of a fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is... Harry Potter if Harry was a rationalist. It's weird. Rational fiction has a bit of an elitism thing going on.

[Anonymous No.20377141]

>>20377135
How many volumes are going to be rewritten?

[Anonymous No.20377143]

>>20377136
Yudkowsky is a hack and his fanfiction is trash.

[Anonymous No.20377146]

>>20376686
I'm glad that I was filtered by chapter 1 of The Way of Kings.

[Anonymous No.20377152]

>>20377143
I've never read it. I get the idea behind it, but it leads to people who get really annoyed when characters don't behave 100% logically all the time and it's boring when characters do. Irrational behaviour makes for more interesting stories.

[Anonymous No.20377163]

>>20377136
>Stories derived from the idea of viewing the world 'rationally', so things happen because of other things, choices are logical, etc.
That sounds awfully broad, what's the implication meant to be here? Regular genre fiction doesn't view the world ratioally? Things don't happen because of other things, nobody makes logical choices? Is ASOIAF "rational fiction" because half the cast consists of cynical schemers who methodically try to manipulate their surroundings? Or does it disqualify because the other half of the cast does stupid shit guided by emotions sometimes?

[Anonymous No.20377168]

>>20377163
As I understand it, it's basically fiction that holds up to close logic-based scrutiny, and intelligent characters make logical choices based on available information and infer things properly. That fanfic's author derides Holmes for not being rational because often Holmes just seems to magically know what's right, instead of working it out properly.

[Anonymous No.20377195]

Is The Library at Mount Char actually worth reading? I've seen it praised, but it was published in 2015.

[Anonymous No.20377208]

>>20377141
>How many volumes are going to be rewritten?
Supposedly only the first, and rewritten meaning bringing the writing to the level it is now. It won't be a hard rewrite, I don't think so. And the timetable for that might have changed, as Pirateaba intends to begin writing Volume 9 starting with June, so it might be done in the background or simply somewhere along the road. I wouldn't stick closely to any date.

[Anonymous No.20377212]

>>20377168
>That fanfic's author derides Holmes for not being rational
Not to say that Holmes is the pinnacle of detective fiction, but that guy sounds like a fart huffing faggot who would, say, also deride medieval art because they hadn't perfectly figured out perspective yet.

[Anonymous No.20377216]

>>20377168
Sounds kind of autistic. Reminds me of when nerds claim it's a plothole or bad writing for a character to not robotically behave in a way that optimally benefits their self interest or established character goals at all times.

[Anonymous No.20377231]

>>20377168
Sounds like fiction tailor made for the reddit atheism crowd. Worm isn't really anything like that, it's just a depressed Canadian boomer's take on the superhero genre.

[Anonymous No.20377232]

>>20377216
It sort of is that. Rational characters are allowed to fail (often they're expected to), but typically it's because they were hit by something they didn't know. The HP fic is basically Harry trying to work out how to properly use magic within a rationalist framework, and it's an interesting idea, but it just means there's even less charm to the story. Also the author has coined a bunch of terms and ideas and it all is incredibly pretentious (he splits intelligent characters up into three 'levels' of intelligence, has weird-ass "look how smart I am" moments during the writing, it's very full of itself). Rational fiction has a tendency (not always) to lose sight of telling an interesting story in favour of characters exploiting in-world mechanics of some magic or whatnot.

[Anonymous No.20377255]

>>20377232
>he splits intelligent characters up into three 'levels' of intelligence
Holy cringe, batman.

[Anonymous No.20377262]

>>20377255
https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing
Yeah, he's... Yeah.
I don't think the idea of rational fiction is inherently bad, it just means your story has a more reasonable framework and doesn't have a lot of "things just happen because" going on, but hyperfixating on it feels like the wrong approach.

[Anonymous No.20377267]

Lately I've realized why adaptations always seem inferior to books, it's not that the novel is superior in quality to whatever film that's adapting it, it's just that when I read something my mind filters out the garbage and pictures it in a very different way, I often notice how when I'm reading something it just seems to improve in my imagination despite it not actually being that good.
but when a film tries to do this it just fails.

[Anonymous No.20377290]

>>20377232
I didn’t finish Methods of Rationality but I still think Voldemort putting a Horcrux on the Voyagee is pretty funny.

[Anonymous No.20377292]

>>20377262
>it just means your story has a more reasonable framework and doesn't have a lot of "things just happen because" going on
Generally speaking most writers try to avoid excessive contrivances when constructing a story, the idea that you need to adopt a purely rationalist empistemology when it comes to the narrative and internal of your world seems... well, narrow minded among other things.

[Anonymous No.20377297]

>>20377267
Adaptations fail because of regression to the mean. Same with sequels.

[Anonymous No.20377303]

>>20377292
Well, the basis of fiction is inherently irrational, so there's always some disbelief. And even then, most rational fiction writers seem to go "Okay fuck rationality let's do something cool" now and then because... Yeah, cool shit is more interesting than the boring rational approach sometimes.

[Anonymous No.20377319]

>>20377195
It isn't for you.

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.20377339]

>>20376142
The Prefect/Aurora Rising, Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #1/Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (2008)

The Prefect, later published as Aurora Rising, is set at the height of the Belle Époque era, the golden age of humanity. In terms of chronology this is the earliest set novel, though not the earliest story. None of the characters are in other books outside this subseries as far as I'm aware, aside from a stray mention in a later book. The setting is the planet Yellowstone, more specifically almost exclusively the Glitter Band, the 10,000 habitats that orbit the planet. In terms of scale, this is easily the least epic of the Revelation Space books. The closest comparison is Chasm City. The three viewpoint characters form a thriller trinity: investigative, survival, and conspiracy. This is also the most straightforward of the series. Everything and everyone is almost exactly what it appears to be. There weren't any plot twists that were significant.

As compared to the other books there's relatively little exploration of science and technology. Most of what there is used to explore the various possible expressions of human societies among the habitats. There's instead far more effort and time spent instead on politics, governance, and ethics. One of the primary worries is voter fraud and election manipulation, which carries severe penalties. There are several other contemporary concerns represented as well, almost all of which relate back to three previously mentioned subjects.

As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy the Revelation Space series because of the issues mentioned in what I've written about the relevant books, all of the above is for the better for me personally. I've mostly read for/with others in this series. Many of those issues weren't present here and when they were, they weren't as severe. Most notably there isn't any statements of off-page condensed action where a lot is skipped, which often irks me. For the majority of the time, the characters act like people, but closer to the end they become plot pawns and some of the conversations become rather unfortunate in how heavily they lean on thriller tropes.

In terms of my personal enjoyment this had the least amount of stuff in the series that bothered me, but also didn't have much that going for it either. There were parts in the other books that I enjoyed much more, but they also had so many more problems. This is now my highest rated book in the series, but that's more an indictment of the other books rather than praise for this one.

Rating: 3.5/5

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.20377345]

>>20377339
Elysium Fire, Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #2/Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (2018)

Ten years later Reynolds wrote a follow-up novel. I have to wonder whether this and the previous novel were more for personal reasons than anything else. In terms of lore it added a new ability which felt out of place, but then I remembered the other nigh-magical stuff there was. A notable location from Chasm City, the book, was included as well. The scope was still entirely within Yellowstone and its orbit.

As with the first book, this was a thriller of mystery, investigation, survival, and conspiracy. The primary themes continued to be about ethics, governance, and politics. Unlike the first though, the point of view here was more diffuse, and followed the action more than the characters. Whichever character was most involved in the relevant action was the point of view, at least that's how it felt to me. The characters and plot were more in line with rest of the series as well, because it seems almost mandatory that at one least character has major memory and/or identity issues. The plot had twists this time, which I didn't care for as part of the narrative, but they were amusing for what I interpreted them as meaning.

I'm glad that I read this now rather when it came out because that allowed for me to appreciate it more. There were events whose seeming real-life counterparts had yet to occur and I didn't know if they were fictitious, a prediction, or based on prior events. Brexit seemed to be especially influential on the narrative. There was also irresponsible extrapolation of exponentials, which if this had been written a couple years later I'd have thought it was about COVID, but instead was probably a critique of sensationalism and catastrophizing. In another bit of prognostication, there was a scene that really seemed like it was about the storming of the US capitol.

Although this resumed a few of the problems that I have with Reynolds and quite possibly was an unnecessary sequel, there wasn't that much I disliked about it, but I also didn't like much about it either. If nothing else, it showed how committed Reynolds has been to his mosaic approach to the series, where he'll write about whatever he wants at whichever point in time he wants to.

Rating: 3/5

[Anonymous No.20377392]

>>20376686
ESL here
I noticed this in another Sanderson book, but what's with using a comma instead of a period during conversations like this?

[Anonymous No.20377401]

Thoughts on Unsong?

[Anonymous No.20377412]

>>20377392
Ordinarily it's done when you want to break up a quotation inbetween complete sentences. Not sure why Sandy is doing it here since some of the statements are complete sentences already.

[Anonymous No.20377420]

Prince of Nothing is nothing but a story about the author's self insert buck breaking fictional characters he wrote to be buck broken.

[Anonymous No.20377422]

>>20377412
That was my first thought but he was doing it through the whole book

[Anonymous No.20377429]

>>20376686
>you are literally courting a man
Holy cringe. How do people read this shit?

[Anonymous No.20377430]

>>20376628
The life and times of an illiterate weeb.

[Anonymous No.20377438]

>>20377412
Are you esl as well? That’s exactly how you do it. At least in America. Maybe it’s different in bongland.

[Anonymous No.20377453]

>>20376184
Stop drinking that shit then and your concentration will improve.

[Anonymous No.20377476]

>>20376184
Ports of Call by Jack Vance. Basically a string of loosely connected short stories about a freighter crew.

[Anonymous No.20377494]

>>20376727
>>20376759
why are you so upset?

[Anonymous No.20377523]

>Conviction, no matter how narcotic its depth, simply did not make true. This was a hard lesson, made all the harder by its astounding conspicuousness. Despite the exhortations of kings and generals, despite the endless lays, belief unto death was cheap. After all, the Fanim threw themselves against the spears of their enemies as readily as the Inrithi. Someone had to be deluded. So what ensured that that someone was someone else? Given the manifest frailty of men, given the long succession of delusions that was their history, what could be more preposterous than claiming oneself the least deluded, let alone privy to the absolute?
Why is Bakker so reddit? This is literally a redditor's response to religion.

[Anonymous No.20377562]

>>20377392
>>20377412
Im not sure what you're referring to. Do you mean the commas ending the quotes? Periods go at the end of the sentence, not in the middle, and quotes are weird. I shall try to explain how I understand it but I am barely literate so please bear with me.

>I love cocks.
That is a sentence.
>Anon said, "I love cocks."
That is also one complete sentence.
>"I love cocks," Anon said.
The period goes at the end.
>"I love cocks." Anon said.
That's two sentences and one is incomplete, so this is not proper.
>"Why do I love cocks so much? I'm not even gay," Anon said.
That's also one sentence.
>"Why do I cocks so much?" Anon said, "I'm not even gay."
Idk about this one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Anonymous No.20377572]

>>20377562
>Periods go at the end of the sentence, not in the middle
ooh okay I get it
Still, that's retarded

[Anonymous No.20377602]

>>20377562
>>20377572
You CAN put a period at the end of a quote if the sentence is compound.
>"I love cocks," anon acknowledged his love of cocks.
>"I love cocks." Anon acknowledged his love of cocks.
Both work, but the tense used is actually different.

[Anonymous No.20377607]

>>20377562

[Anonymous No.20377645]

>>20376169
Either deranged, or fishing for (You)s

[Anonymous No.20377650]

Prefect 3 WHEN
Soulship 5 WHEN

[Anonymous No.20377745]

>>20376369
>>20376709
I use the app "smart audiobook". https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ak.alizandro.smartaudiobookplayer&hl=en_US&gl=US

I don't know about Audio Anchor. It might be good. But I'm *certain* Smart Audiobook is good.
-It reads m4a, which has a bunch of meta data in it. It's a common audiobook format, which your basic music player might not support. You want m4a, because it keeps track of chapters it such all within a single file. Rather than splitting chapters into individual mp3s.
-It keeps track of progress perfectly. Which is to be expected from any audiobook player. Even if you swap books, it will remember your place in the other books.
-It can change speed.
-It has a feature where if your headphones come undone for whatever reason, then it gradually rewinds up to 30 seconds. Because while you're fumbling to get your headphones back on, you might just forget the last thing you heard. Therefore, it plays it back for you. You can adjust how much it rewinds too. Or just turn the feature off, if you don't like it.

-It has a sleep option that pauses the audio after a set time. I have mine set to pause at the end of a chapter. Because sometimes I need a minute or two to mentally digest a chapter once it's done. Immediately jumping into the next one is uncomfortable.
-I see that audio anchor doesn't show covers for each audiobook. Well smart audiobook does. As long as you have an image of the cover in the same folder as the audio, it will show up automatically.
-There aren't any stupid ads like other apps.
-And there are a bunch of other features that I don't even use, but perhaps might be useful to you. Like for some reason you can make a list of characters in the app. I guess that helps keep track of long running plots, so you don't forget Dinkledork from 10 chapters back.

As for getting audiobooks: aduiobookbay is the way to go.

[Anonymous No.20377757]

>>20377572
It makes a lot more sense if you read along with an audio book. The punctuation matches the narrator's cadence.

[Anonymous No.20377760]

>>20377745
Does it have a feature where you can jump backward and forward 10 seconds like youtube?

[Anonymous No.20377775]

>>20377523
Stop larping. There isn't a single religious person on 4chan anymore than on reddit.

[Anonymous No.20377779]

>>20377775
4chan has a ton of Deists

[Anonymous No.20377783]

>>20377760
Yep. In fact, their are two sets of arrow. One set jumps back and forth in small increments. The other set jumps back and forth in large increments. I have the small ones set to 10 seconds, and the large ones set to 1 minute. But you can adjust either to your liking. 15 seconds instead of 10. 2 minutes instead of 1. Etc.

[Anonymous No.20377795]

[Anonymous No.20377798]

>>20376169
nips don't sweat

[Anonymous No.20377812]

>>20377779
Same difference, deism is just atheism for pussies who like the idea of the divine but don't want to change their atheist lifestyle.

[Anonymous No.20377848]

>>20376924
Now I had to prioritize it. I'm on 20% now. I feel like it has some interesting concepts on top of being an isekai for teenagers and plump middle-aged college-educated men.
>>20377745
Audio Anchor has all of that. Cover of the books is shown when playing audio files (if it's included in their metadata), but the covers don't show on the folders which contain the books.

[Anonymous No.20377909]

>>20377848
Ah, cool. I guess Audio Anchor is good too then. But Smart Audiobook does have the thumbnails of covers before you play them. It's not the most important feature, but it's nice.

[Anonymous No.20377915]

>>20377812
No thats "spiritual" people, muh "the universe itself is God xD". Those who believe in a true divine consciousness are very honorable.

[Anonymous No.20377964]

>>20376435
I really enjoyed the Brigador novel if you're into fairly boilerplate military sci-fi

[Anonymous No.20377978]

>>20377523
he's Canadian

[Anonymous No.20377982]

>>20377401
Reddit Player One for observant Jews
I read as far as them getting on the train and then thought "this ain't going anywhere"

[Anonymous No.20378087]

>>20377775
I'm religious :)

[Anonymous No.20378119]

>>20378087
No, you're not.

[Anonymous No.20378147]

>>20378119
How many times do I have to read the Bible before I'm sufficiently religious to your standard? Do I also need to read Origen, and Augustine, and Tertullian, and Eusebius, et al?

[Anonymous No.20378349]

>Looking at online reviews for books
>One book that's decently popular has as its top review (in a sea of four and five star reviews) a one star review
>It runs over two thousand words or so
>Oh wow, this guy is anal, what else has he reviewed
>It's the only review the person has ever done
I see this so often it's weird.

[Anonymous No.20378408]

>>20378147
Not even once.

[Anonymous No.20378409]

>>20378349
Maybe it bothered them so much they felt the need to post that review.

[Anonymous No.20378414]

>>20378349
The top review on Goodreads for Game of Thrones is 1 star. I think it happens because it provides a focal point for minority dissent. Some people probably think it's a highly effective of doing so.

[Anonymous No.20378428]

>>20378414
It's very annoying when the reason for the one star is for some idiotic reasons or outright spoils the story in the very first sentence because the reviewer thinks he's going on some righteous spiel.
On a Murakami book, the top review is one star because the protagonist raped someone and the reviewer didn't like that. Fucker didn't even warn he was spoiling the story, he just went out and said it.

[Anonymous No.20378452]

I need Goodreads to let me filter reviews by gender.

[Anonymous No.20378479]

An epic tale of medieval horror

[Anonymous No.20378481]

>>20378479
Pozzed beyond belief

[Anonymous No.20378495]

>>20378408
it is exceptionally difficult to unread a book

[Anonymous No.20378515]

Finally read claw of the conciliator and severian is a fag. Stop reading after this for spoilers.!!


Dude rapes jolenta, who his friend Jonas LOVES, basically cheating on dorcas and cucking his friend at the same time + he is basically a coomer that wants to love 6 or so women at the same time and wants to fuck every woman he has seen. Ridiculous. Aside from severian's coomerism, book was good, little revelations are slightly adding up revealing the true nature of the world, like how udines are aliens, that badlanders is an Udine, that jonas was a cyborg and et cetera.

Good book in the end.

[Anonymous No.20378519]

>>20378349
Negative reviews tend to be one-offs because the person was motivated by their great distaste to write it. Rave reviewers tend to be prolific because for them reviewing is as much their hobby as reading.

[Anonymous No.20378557]

>>20378479
The writing is surprisingly good (isn't it translated?). But I stopped giving a fuck about what was happening like 20% of the way in, if that.

[Anonymous No.20378559]

>>20378515
The jolenta rape was a Dying Earth reference.

[Anonymous No.20378624]

Some anon posted a "top grimdark books" Goodreads list in the previous thread, and I read the Broken Empire trilogy which was on top (pic related). It's not the most miserable shit I read, not even close. By the end of book 1 MC realises he was under a spell by a mage that forced him to be evil, so all his rape and murder is now forgiven, and he turns into a good guy who occasionally doesn't care too much about people.

The books feel like a waste of time desu, the prose is bad to middling, I'd rather have those 3 days back. May Allah curse the anon who posted that list to eternal damnation.

[Anonymous No.20378646]

>>20377795
I wonder what the giant mantis monster on the cover was supposed to be in reference to.

[Anonymous No.20378656]

>>20378495
retards can do it all the time but why can't you?

[Anonymous No.20378700]

>"progression fantasy"/litRPG
>there is no gradual progression
>protagonist executes typical web novel mini story arcs and just looks at his updated stat screen once after each development
>progression clearly stagnates/is forgotten during the middle chapters and then suddenly spikes at clearly arbitrary and plot-convenient checkpoints
>items and new/enhanced abilities grant completely intangible incremental bonuses like "heal slightly faster", "take less damage from attacks", "do more damage with attacks" instead of enabling or or motivating unique behaviors and strategy
>world scales at the same time so the effectiveness of any of the progression becomes completely arbitrary based on the encounter, AKA DBZ powerlevels
Are there any that don't do this stupid shit or does the entire genre exist for the sake of copying china's shitty cultivation novel treadmill?

[Anonymous No.20378709]

>>20378646
>I wonder what the giant mantis monster on the cover was supposed to be in reference to.
A Gu worm, me thinks.

>>20378624
For a popular series, I found it strangely dissapointing. People really cannot bear an 'evil' protagonist, he must always be tormented inside or just misguided. The series isn't bad, but it was kinda weird and not as good as it could be, if the author had put some more work into it, the series would be much better.

[Anonymous No.20378715]

>>20378700
>Are there any that don't do this stupid shit or does the entire genre exist for the sake of copying china's shitty cultivation novel treadmill?
One of the reasons The Wandering Inn is a superior LitRPG, it has soft and numberless (aside of levels) system that serves the narration well.

[Anonymous No.20378717]

I’ve never actually read a litrpg book, can somewhat post a short excerpt that includes all the stats and shit?

[Anonymous No.20378732]

Thanks to the Anon who convinced me to read Gideon the Ninth by posting the first line the other day. I absolutely loved it. I even feel like I might reread it one day, so I'm thinking about actually buying a copy.

[Anonymous No.20378770]

>>20378715
My issue isn't the visibility of the system, my issue is the system does nothing and the author's just disingenuously hiding bog standard fantasy writing behind a trendy gimmick. Wandering Inn might not be disingenuous, but if it's still bog standard fantasy writing then I'd still dislike it. Haven't read it though.

[Anonymous No.20378814]

>>20376686
>X said
>Y said
>Z added

[Anonymous No.20378840]

>>20376169
>>20376178
I find western authors tend to add gritty realism to fantasy works to ground them in some semblance of reality. What you may find mundane others see as part of an intricate and necessary step in the storytelling process. Perhaps I need to read more Japanese works, but from what I've read world building and plotline often take centre stage, possessing great merit, but the authenticity of characters less so. Recommend me some works to change my mind?

[Anonymous No.20378841]

[Anonymous No.20378876]

>>20378717
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/24709/defiance-of-the-fall/chapter/359379/chapter-6-born-for-carnage
You can go ahead and skim this for the general concept. Note that I'm not linking this because I think it's particularly good, but the combination of "high fantasy" and "death game" is usually the general idea behind gamification stories as a premise, and it's pretty explicit in this one. The issue is they tend not to actually stay with their own premise and are just going to bait and switch you with drama, or standard story quests, or smut, or action/thriller, other shit like that instead.

[Anonymous No.20378882]

>>20378841
Hopepunk is a gay sub-genre for gays.

[Anonymous No.20378885]

>>20378882
>hopepunk
what the fuck are you talking about

[Anonymous No.20378912]

>>20378885
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopepunk
It's sort of dumb to call it hopepunk. It's just books channeling old Star Trek's idealism, and that really isn't specific enough to be its own subgenre, just like grimdark isn't a subgenre, it's more of a theme.

[Anonymous No.20378924]

>>20378912
thats stupid, everybody knows the opposite of grimdark is noblebright

[Anonymous No.20378949]

>>20378840
Japanese works are going to be bad by western standards, because they're not written according to western standards to begin with. For example, you will find almost no japanese fantasy that takes itself very seriously. There's often a tacit understanding between the author and the reader that you have no interest in the real world to begin with, so it doesn't try to do things that you would interpret as validating to realism, like talking about sweaty man bodies. In fact a lot of the genre can be considered actively anti-realism. Most stories will seek a mixture of novelty and hyper-idealism, infamously there's even a series about the protagonist being reincarnated as a vending machine in a fantasy setting. It started as a web novel and now has a light novel and a manga adaptation, people probably wouldn't be too surprised at this point once it gets an anime. You can't really make any generalizations because of how far authors take their various gimmicks, it's a total mixed bag.

That isn't to say it's very good. To put it a certain way: When I read japanese work I'm disappointed by the lack of quality. When I read western work I'm instead disappointed by the lack of creativity.

[Anonymous No.20378973]

Good morning gentlemen.. and Sanderson fans.

[Anonymous No.20378980]

>>20378973
Good morning bro

[Anonymous No.20378986]

>>20378924
This. Never even heard the term "hopepunk" before. Who came up with this crap and gave it a wikipage when noblebright has been in use for over a decade?

>In 2017 Alexandra Rowland proposed the term
Ah, of course, a stupid slag is responsible, what else

[Anonymous No.20378999]

Just finished The Wheel of Time and loved it. Never realized before how the length of a series could help you get attached to characters, especially if you tend to binge read. I am worried there isn't much out there at the same level of greatness.
Blog over.

[Anonymous No.20379004]

>>20378949
For me its when I read english works I'm dissapointed by the lack of quality and imagination but when I read japanese works I'm dissapointed by the translation.

[Anonymous No.20379005]

>>20378986
I HATE this stupid slag, of course she came up with turdpunk, she is a tumblr bitch, with a shitty following that gobble up her BULLSHIT, of course they do, tumblr kids gobbling up garbage, it happens all the time, I HATE these kids, fuck their turdpunk and fuck turdpunk books, of course people buy this crap, because they are retards that gobble up trash, they will come up with trashpunk next and they will gobble it up, fucking retards and their retardpunk genres, of course they read this trash, what else

[Anonymous No.20379007]

>>20378999
big if true

[Anonymous No.20379013]

>>20378999
I gave up after book 1. Then started over 7 years later and made it through book 3. Is it really worth it to go to the end? I hear there is a big slog in the middle.

[Anonymous No.20379019]

>>20379013
If you didn't like book 1 I'm unsure if it would be worth it. Personally, I found the ending very satisfying. There is a very slow section in the middle and even I had to take a break during it, coming back after a month and having read some more fast-paced things during the break made it bearable.
The thing that I think makes the whole series worth reading is character development, especially Rand's.

[Anonymous No.20379025]

>>20376530
What a demonic looking jew

[Anonymous No.20379026]

>>20378999
Trips of truth.

[Anonymous No.20379030]

>>20376686
I dropped stormlight archive halfway through oathbreaker

[Anonymous No.20379034]

Would just like to say this is one of my least favorite books I've ever finished. I can not understand how its got such high ratings. Maybe I am just a baby that can't deal with unlikable (massive understatement) main characters.

[Anonymous No.20379038]

>>20379025
Imagine her riding your face, now that's demonic.

[Anonymous No.20379042]

>>20378980
Sanderson made me look into Mormonism, and I won't lie, the religion is pretty easygoing. Seems like everyone goes to heaven, even if you're an atheist, it's just that Mormons get to own planets and go to super heaven.

[Anonymous No.20379051]

>>20379019
I liked book 1 more than 2 and 3 which I still liked. Just not sure if I want to go through a 3000 page standstill of the plot. But maybe that's overstated.

[Anonymous No.20379052]

>>20378949
The mentality toward storytelling is completely different in Japan. Western fantasy is about imagining a believable but unusual subjective mortal experience, Japanese fantasy is about straight up playing god and creating a universe that exists for the explicit purpose of your amusement.

[Anonymous No.20379056]

>>20379051
I'd say the real terrible slow down is one the order of 1000 pages (with some decent moments during it). It is a long haul, but frankly, I find there are so few stories that make me care at all so it was worth it for me. Especially since I had the free time and reading speed to get through it.

[Anonymous No.20379074]

>>20379030
The stormlight archives are like taking short 2ish hour action/superhero movies and stretching them out to 4+ hours. Potentially fun and entertaining in short doses but mind numbing in large ones.
But I'm retarded so I'll probably continue reading them.

[Anonymous No.20379137]

>>20376142
Bros why is progression fantasy so shit, the only good novel is maybe Lord of Mysteries and the rest of them are irreconcilable garbage. The genre is so inline with my tastes and all it needs is a good writer to make it shine but there are none, only royalroad garbage. What can a man do when he knows what he needs but cannot find it?

[Anonymous No.20379165]

>>20376142
On one hand, is it more painful to have a fantasy writer with a strong, conservative literary estate where one’s family protects the works from corruption and Hollywood taint, to inevitably be raped in the future when they die off; on the other hand, would it be worse to have one’s own sons ruin the series written with their own shoehorned fanfiction? My question is: is fantasy better off ruined by those close to the writer, or faceless Hollywood producers and drones?

[Anonymous No.20379168]

>>20378876
Fuck it’s worse than I thought, is the character in a video game or are the rpg elements completely part of kayfabe?

[Anonymous No.20379179]

>>20379165
If the fantasy wirter is non-pozzed, then he is supreme, if he is supreme then he will not be tainted no matter how much they pozz him, even if gay sex is involved it is still non-pozzed because the writer is supreme, so he will never be pozzed and he will never be non-supreme.

[Anonymous No.20379184]

>>20379165
The answer is to have the author's close relatives write a story when the author is still alive, and depending on how it goes the author should either give up hope and just give it to Hollywood, or let the relatives have at it.

[Anonymous No.20379185]

>>20379165
I would have one final manuscript to only be released for publishing after my death that would utterly ruin all my previously published works with methodical precision. Any future adaptations of my work would be predicated on publishing the new manuscript and then adapting it before anything else to preemptively poison the well.

[Anonymous No.20379201]

>>20379168
Kayfabe. God's basically fucking with the universe to make everything kill eachother and the video game stuff is one of the core mechanisms.

[Anonymous No.20379202]

>>20379165
The latter. With Hollywood/Netflix/whathaveyou everyone already knows that 99% of the time their adaptations will be horeshit with their latest agenda shoehorned in. Makes it easer to ignore and dismiss than if the estate sets out to do it personally.

[Anonymous No.20379204]

>>20379165
Fantasy better off ruined by so much corruption it becomes uncorrupted, it should be so pozzed it becomes non-pozzed, if this happens, no one can pozz it more because its so pozzed it can't be pozzed more, only then will you achieve maximum non-pozzedness.

[Anonymous No.20379219]

>>20379204
For example, Bakker's work is uncorruptable, they can't make it corrupted because he did it himself (a supreme power move) and now they can't adapt it without it being so based it becomes non-corrupt.

[Anonymous No.20379225]

>>20377104
It doesn't. Its cuteness is strongest at the start and then maintains a potato chip level C quality throughout. You don't love it, but you may as well consume another one. Some of it gets really awful like with the Kindly Grandfather of Destruction arc but mostly it's the same thing only moreso.

[Anonymous No.20379248]

>>20379225
I thought it gets better with time, like any other artist, gets better the more he makes art.

[Anonymous No.20379256]

>>20379248
>like any other artist, gets better the more he makes art.
Plenty of artists start weak, hit their stride and then fade. The is the most common type of creator arc I would say.

[Anonymous No.20379261]

>>20379256
If anything, I would say Aba's emotional manipulation becomes less intuitive and more mechanical as we go on, making it less effective. Maybe this is what you call skill.

[Anonymous No.20379263]

>>20379256
Baudelaire was the opposite at the start: start well, get drunk and fuck up every relationship, then fade into nothingness, then be embraced and "found" once more.

[Anonymous No.20379264]

>>20379263
Rimbaud* Sorry, I just woke up and can't think straight

[Anonymous No.20379318]

What is a good noblebright (or hopepunk if you want to call it that) novel?
I read Becky Chambers's novels and it just felt like okay Star Trek.

[Anonymous No.20379340]

>>20379318
Noblebright and hopepunk are bollocks, that's just the default. Most fantasy adventures are optimistic in outlook and work towards happy ends.

[Anonymous No.20379353]

>>20379137
make it yourself

[Anonymous No.20379397]

>>20379340
like? such as? for example? clear definition of?

[Anonymous No.20379426]

Cuckpunk genre when?

[Anonymous No.20379429]

>>20379426
my diary desu

[Anonymous No.20379459]

>>20379426
When Bakker starts writing sci-fi

[Anonymous No.20379522]

>visit /progfant
>it's another cradle thread
>it's another rec thread with the same recs and the obligatory ironic cradle rec
>it's the same onslaught of downdoots any time any body speaks ill of cradle
yawn

[Anonymous No.20379690]

>>20379522
So it's exactly the same as here, but with different series?

[Anonymous No.20379693]

Can anyone recommend me any competently written fantasy? I've found myself struggling to tolerate more mainstream stuff in the field post-Bakker.

[Anonymous No.20379700]

>>20379690
Yes.

[Anonymous No.20379848]

>>20379690
no there's the guy reviewing all the webnovels and the other guy that has reviewed like every single fantasy novel that has ever existed.

[Anonymous No.20379878]

>>20378559
Same with real life rape

[Anonymous No.20379882]

>>20379693
Try The Children of Hurin

[Anonymous No.20379969]

How many battles, raids or skirmishes between Rohan and Isengard are there in the Lord of the Rings?

[Anonymous No.20380040]

>>20379848
That's just silly. I don't only do fantasy and I've done at most a single icecube of the popular fantasy iceberg, let alone of the fantasy glacier.

[Anonymous No.20380062]

>>20379693
This, my life has been divided in two, pre-Bakker and post-Bakker.

[Anonymous No.20380078]

>>20379878
Fair bit in this.

[Anonymous No.20380085]

>That was extremely bad news as the whole cave was still covered in the black flames, and they were quickly consuming him whole. If he didn’t kill the Herald he would likely perish before getting out of there. Anger and desperation filled Zac’s mind as he maniacally tried to increase the reach of the blade.

>“REACH!” he roared as the edge was moving horizontally in the imp’s direction.

>Suddenly, the blade detached from his axe, and continued outward like a wave. It moved as fast as his swing did, and soon reached the back of the fleeing Herald. It proceeded and penetrated the imp without any resistance from the magic robe, Splitting its torso and wings in two.
Hello asspull

[Anonymous No.20380093]

>>20379693
I'm gonna give this a re-read after I gave my old copy to a friend and bought a nice old paperback. I recommend it to you if you haven't read it. It's probably one of the most well-written texts within "genre fiction" (whatever that may be) for me. It almost has poetic qualities aligned with Symbolism and Surrealism in my opinion, without losing verisimilitude and vivid, lifelike imagery.

[Anonymous No.20380120]

>>20380093
You should either read the 'Pagan' edit of Broken Sword if you've already read the 'Christian' edit or vice versa.

[Anonymous No.20380124]

>>20380120
What's the most supreme edit?

[Anonymous No.20380128]

>>20380120
Didn't Moorcock say the edit after the first edition was shit? I don't know if he's right, just what I remembered.

[Anonymous No.20380139]

>>20380128
Who cares what that faggot hippie has to say about anything.

[Anonymous No.20380141]

>>20380139
He will never be supreme.

[Anonymous No.20380145]

>>20380124
https://www.blackgate.com/broken-in-two-poul-andersons-two-versions-of-the-broken-sword/

[Anonymous No.20380149]

probably gonna use this as a cover because lol, lmao, funky font

[Anonymous No.20380153]

>protagonist risks his life in the first 10 chapters
>protagonist has a pure physical skillset
>protagonist doesn't plan synergies or contemplate meta-scaling
>protagonist has a party
>protagonist builds a town
>protagonist learns a secondary non-combat profession
>protagonist has a love interest
>protagonist devotes a non-trivial amount of effort to helping a stranger out of the goodness of his heart
>protagonist is trying to stop an evil force/save the world/save his kingdom

[Anonymous No.20380157]

>>20380153
define chapter length in wordcount

[Anonymous No.20380162]

>>20380120
I read the original 1954 version from the Gollancz/Orion reprint. Now I have that old paperback which is the 1971 revision. Thanks for letting me know they're significantly different, I'll definitely dive in and try to see what subtle differences are also highlighted here:
>>20380145

[Anonymous No.20380177]

>>20380157
Webnovel chapters in this case so ~2000. Honestly an early near death experience can be fine, the true bullshit is when it happens more than once. A character should never get more than a single extra life, but writers are addicted to plot armor and don't know the difference between danger and risk.

[Anonymous No.20380178]

>>20380153
>protagonist is a woman who rules supreme over men

[Anonymous No.20380184]

>>20378515
The closest thing to "love" Severian feels is towards Valeria, the lady he meets in the beginning. Unfortunately for him, she cucks him with a military commander and becomes his grandmother.

>>20379426
Maybe you'll enjoy this one. It's about the protagonist cucking and getting cucked in unbelievable ways.

[Anonymous No.20380217]

>>20380177
Eh... Guess that puts mine at... 3/9, arguably 4/9 because she actively opposes the "Divine Emperor" and his occupying forces, but it's for a petty personal grudge over getting robbed by ex-military bandits.

[Anonymous No.20380238]

>>20380178
This is only acceptable if she's a powerful sorceress or really sexy.

[Anonymous No.20380246]

>>20380238
does "built like a brick shithouse muscle mommy" count?

[Anonymous No.20380255]

I want to lick Esmenet's butt!

[Anonymous No.20380256]

>>20380246
Only if there's a drawing included of her nude with thicc milkers.

[Anonymous No.20380257]

>>20380255
do you have any idea where that's been?

[Anonymous No.20380262]

>>20380256
see>>20380149
also picrel

[Anonymous No.20380263]

>>20380257
Esmenet is a classy whore. No anal unless your name is Acha or Kellhus

[Anonymous No.20380313]

Anyone read this?

It looks great but it's recommended by Bill Gates which is a real turn off

[Anonymous No.20380325]

>>20380313
Anything recommended by a grand groomer of the globohomo order should probably be avoided.

[Anonymous No.20380327]

How does dungeon core address the dichotomy between passively waiting for people to come in and die of their own volition, and sending forces out into the world thus becoming a empire builder rather than a dungeon?

[Anonymous No.20380329]

>>20380313
Every book written that seems interesting to you has been read and enjoyed by someone you wouldnt like, so just avoid reading all together

[Anonymous No.20380353]

Fa/tg/uy here. Is posting a self-published scifi novel here frowned upon? Should I take that to /wg/ instead?

[Anonymous No.20380360]

Jesus fucking christ I don't care about the stores of Castle Black, I don't give a fuck about the specific spices they contain either
The fact that George thought it was a good idea to waste two pages on shows he's totally delusional
Why the fuck can't his editors clamp down on him anymore?

[Anonymous No.20380362]

>>20380329
It's different to an endorsement by a fucking megalomaniac. It might make me non-racist or something

[Anonymous No.20380363]

>>20380353
Do you have an epub or something?

I'll def read it if it's free, I don't care how fat you are

[Anonymous No.20380365]

>>20380353
post it bitch

[Anonymous No.20380368]

>>20380329
Wrong. I wouldn't dislike anyone that's read and liked 4chan homebrews.

[Anonymous No.20380371]

>>20380360
I would read anything he writes, as long as he actually puts it out.

[Anonymous No.20380372]

>>20380371
Based NPC.

[Anonymous No.20380374]

>>20380363
I do have a free PDF version I don't mind handing out. I'd post an outright link but don't want to get dinged by Amazon and their exclusivity clause. There a good email or something I can send it to? It's about 2mb.

[Anonymous No.20380398]

>>20380374
[e-mail]

[Anonymous No.20380433]

>>20380398
Sent. I don't usually lurk here, so the best way to give feedback is via the same email I used.
>>20380365
The Amazon link I presume? Or would you want the PDF version too?

[Anonymous No.20380436]

>>20380433
back cover looks great

[Anonymous No.20380438]

>>20380313
It's okay. The change in writing style was very interesting.

[Anonymous No.20380447]

>>20379693
thune's vision
the eye of sounnu

[Anonymous No.20380448]

>>20380433
yeah just link or the story name or whatev

[Anonymous No.20380454]

>>20379693
Goodking's Sword of Truth series is pretty good

[Anonymous No.20380457]

>>20380436
Thanks!
>>20380448
I realize now that I could kill two birds with one image if I actually post the cover. To be fair, it is 4am and I'm fighting insomnia.

[Anonymous No.20380458]

>>20380257
> to temper your steel in the fire fanned by the oldfather himself

[Anonymous No.20380462]

[Anonymous No.20380467]

Fuck bros I love Stannis too much
I really fucking hope Stannis wins a victory, a defeat against the bastard would be too much for me to bear

[Anonymous No.20380469]

>>20380462
That's cool to see, thanks anon! Even if it's shit do let me know what you think via the email at the front.

[Anonymous No.20380474]

>>20380457
looks cool, i bought

[Anonymous No.20380481]

>>20380462
>female protagonist

[Anonymous No.20380498]

>>20380469
will do
>>20380481
might be a tranny, I haven't got far enough in yet, but she doesn't want to be raped so I guess it's a woman

[Anonymous No.20380531]

D&D is the worst inspiration for a story ever. D&D is not designed for complexity and interesting world interactions, it's designed for boomers with low game competence to play house with eachother. They once made a D&D where tactics and strategy mattered, called 4th edition, and normalfags hated it so it got replaced with the most casualized tabletop game ever made.

[Anonymous No.20380537]

>>20380531
most every instance of fiction inspired by DnD I've come aross pulled from 3.5e or even ADnD

[Anonymous No.20380580]

>>20380537
Which are predominantly designed as roleplay platforms, albeit with high munchkin potential. 4e is the closest D&D came to being a wargame.

[Anonymous No.20380615]

>>20380580
...Which makes 4e the worst to pull from for a FUCKING NOVEL
Unless you legitimately think the authors of LitRPG works actually play their own fakey-fake systems
You don't actually think that, right anon? You know it's literally just an elaborate form of power levels, right anon?

[Anonymous No.20380622]

>>20380531
>>20380537
I think the worst thing about people who lean too heavily on DnD for inspiration is that they fundamentally fail to grasp certain realities about why DnD is the way it is, and as a result completely miss the point. The most common example of this is the obsession with rules and systems. DnD used a lot of rules and systems because that was the only way to translate concepts into an enjoyable game experience that was broadly consistent. The rules and systems were not the goal, they were simply a necessary evil to express concepts that could not be easily quantified without them in the context of a game. But a book is not limited in the same way.
But then you have autists who play Pathfinder and other similarly autistic DnD variants, and they don't care about the concepts or the story itself that the rules were trying to convey, rather to them the rules and systems are themselves a goal, and you end up with pages of exposition going over their retarded generic magic system that nobody except them gives a shit about.

[Anonymous No.20380632]

>>20380622
Yes, these mechanics are pointless abstraction for its own sake. It's same disease as "magic systems", which are a clear flag that the author (or his intended audience, if you are being cynical) has failed to understand the fundamental nature of a narrative.

[Anonymous No.20380646]

>>20380632
magic systems themselves aren't bad, plenty of good fantasy stories had clear magic systems, it's hack authors wanking over them and overbuilding them to procrastinate actually writing a narrative

[Anonymous No.20380687]

Just burned myself with a piece of firewood lads. Fantasy for this feel?

[Anonymous No.20380697]

So is most epic fantasy within, say, the last 30 years predominately atheist in outlook? I'm thinking of people like Bakker and GRRM, but there should be a lot of other examples. I find some of it a bit dry because there seems to be a cynicism about dynastic history and religion being used to control narratives, which seems like a shallow reading of the function of religion within history.

[Anonymous No.20380704]

>>20380697
Mostly yes. If you want a series that handles religion in a positive manner I'd point you towards the Chalion series by Bujold.

[Anonymous No.20380712]

>>20380687
Flowers for Algernon

[Anonymous No.20380713]

>>20380687
something with dragons

[Anonymous No.20380734]

Didn't George say that he liked reading history books but that he was only interested in reading pop history books?
Not sure if I'm misremembering it wrong

[Anonymous No.20380742]

Also which medieval period would you say the Lord of the Rings is inspired by?
I always saw it as being early medieval but apparently some see it as being more like late medieval?

[Anonymous No.20380752]

>>20380742
The mythopoetic parts always seemed middle ages or late middle ages, particularly seeing as many of the names and types of races, characters, and gods, also seem to appear in the Prose Edda (13th century work).

[Anonymous No.20380757]

>>20380687
There's a webnovel I've been enjoying lately, it's called scorched, it's on RR, it's got plenty issues - It's an isekai LitRPG with MC obsessed with climate change, with a stick up his ass about sexual relationships on top of it, but for all that it's surprisingly good and actually enjoyable fantasy so far if you can either enjoy or overlook those parts because it actually makes use of them. LitRPG elements are part and parcel of religious, cultural, martial and political set up of the world. His attitude on sex is used to compare and contrast with attitude locals do, which in turn highlights cultural differences between two different polities which MC is involved with as they relfect the environment those polities are based in.

Pretty sure climate thing is just author's self insert and I don't have any idea what purpose it serves, but outside of that it manages to be a good story despite all that, which is surprising.

[Anonymous No.20380769]

>>20380757
>it's a webnovel
Stopped reading there.

[Anonymous No.20380782]

Erikson is far superior to Bakker.

[Anonymous No.20380784]

>>20380769
I find that most fantasy outside webnovels falls roughly into 2 categories, garbage and classics, and I know of no reliable way to sort trough garbage to find classics other than word of mouth and various recommendation charts, meanwhile with web novels you can more easily find something that reflects your tastes and quickly check if it's for you by reading a chapter or two, call me millennial if you must, but for all it's problems I like the format.

Besides, it's literally a story about a guy scorched by fire that starts with him on a pilgrimage to beg divine to intercede and help him deal with his condition, so it was very much appropriate given the post I was responding to.

[Anonymous No.20380793]

I'm not reading your stupid web-book, shill.

[Anonymous No.20380858]

>>20380784
>classics
lmao

[Anonymous No.20380865]

I'm currently reading MoL and I can't help but think it would've been far more fun and interesting had it been through the POV of Zach instead of Zorian

[Anonymous No.20380877]

>>20380784
I'd like to hear a couple of webnovels that you consider fantasy and/or science-fiction """classics"""

[Anonymous No.20380879]

>>20380877
he said outside webnovels

[Anonymous No.20380885]

>>20380879
You're right. My bad.

[Anonymous No.20380890]

>>20380858
Yeah, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration on my part, but it was the first thing that came to mind to describe what I meant.

>>20380865
I think MoL has decent set up but subpar pay off. The problem with your proposition is Zach is kind of stupid, especially for an MC, and the author wanted a mystery novel, so it wouldn't really work with Zach as the lead. Honestly if it was more traditional it might have been a better work overall but it wouldn't stand out as it does now,

>>20380877
Yeah, as the other anon said I was referring to things that aren't web novels with that line. I like webnovels these days precisely because there's more of a gradient of quality, I find, or at least it's easier to sort trough them.

If you just want a couple good fantasy WNs - Eighth Warden and Wander west in Shadow is some of the most straight up good novels I can think of. There are many novels I enjoy that come with caveats but those two are simply good for what they are.

[Anonymous No.20380986]

Why do people say Severian is a douchebag/sexist? Sure he's unreliable according to Wolfe but Wolfe thinks everyone is basically an unreliable narrator at heart. That's a point that I feel most people just gloss over in favor of their own hypothesis about Severian and his character. My favorite part is where he explains to Dorcas the value and necessity of torturing and executing criminals in the commonwealth in a very rational and lucid way that you rarely ever see, listing all the counter arguments that you'd expect to hear even today.

[Anonymous No.20380995]

How about some spoiler tags you fucking spastic?

[Anonymous No.20381010]

>>20380890
zach is not a sperg though

[Anonymous No.20381015]

>3 day ban because I mentioned progfant
Useless mods hard at work again.

[Anonymous No.20381017]

What is progfant

[Anonymous No.20381026]

>>20378876
This whole thing confuses me. I was under the impression that litrpg was like one of those fighting fantasy game book things? I just don't understand what is worth reading about this? Writing is terrible - just the main character has stats and abilities like a tabletop or computer role-playing game?

[Anonymous No.20381030]

>>20380995
>>20381017
Learn to reply, newfag

[Anonymous No.20381035]

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIYGFSONKbk
What's good mil scifi about lesbian soldiers killing white men?

[Anonymous No.20381036]

>>20380986
You're retarded. He's not sexist, he's completely out of touch with the realities of the Commonwealth and of society in general and he disbands the Guild as soon as he becomes Autarch,

[Anonymous No.20381043]

Why does the janny keep deleting the non-woke posts in this general? Do we actually have a jannytranny regular here with an agenda?

[Anonymous No.20381118]

>>20381043
Are you new here? Janny is pozzed and a tranny.

[Anonymous No.20381125]

>>20381118
No, I've come and gone for 3 years. This faggot has allowed Bakkerposting and weebnovel cancer, but shitting on pozzed trash and female writers pumping it out is where IT (ma'am) draws the line.

[Anonymous No.20381135]

>>20381125
Janny deletes bakkerposting when it gets out of hand. As far as I'm concered that makes them based. This general is actually usable for the first time in years thanks to them.

[Anonymous No.20381137]

>>20381125
and that's a good thing, you're not welcome here.

[Anonymous No.20381151]

>>20381135
It is part of 4chan culture to discriminate pozzed and trannys and call them out but janny actively deletes such posts. It is clear janny is pozzed and a tranny

[Anonymous No.20381171]

>>20381151
>part of 4chan culture
if you're an election tourist perhaps, the rest of us are only here to discuss books we enjoyed, whether a tranny wrote it or not is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.20381176]

>>20380890
This honestly seems to be a trend, having a character who, in another genre, would be the protagonist. Instead you've got this asshole.

[Anonymous No.20381212]

>>20381171
It is relevant. Trannys and pozzed have always been hated and ridiculed on 4chan. We don't want them or their books here.

[Anonymous No.20381221]

>>20381176
Ntayrt but I think Zorian is alright, he's certainly a bit of a sperglord but that's directly addressed in the story multiple times and he becomes less of a surly asshole with time and new experiences, he grows up a bit.

[Anonymous No.20381225]

Webnovel where Gibbons isekais into Foundation.

[Anonymous No.20381226]

>>20381212
Thank you for proving you came here post moot. Please adopt a tripcode so I can filter your posts.

[Anonymous No.20381236]

>>20381221
I more meant it in a lighthearted way. Like "If this were a standard X story, this'd be your protagonist, instead it's a variant so we have this fucker".

[Anonymous No.20381239]

>>20381226
Block any and all posts that do not have tranny, soi, pozzed, coomer, women or liberal in name field.

[Anonymous No.20381264]

>>20381236
Yeah, I think Zach's entire character is sort of a lighthearted jab at traditional progression fantasy where his only plan to solve things is to raise his powerlevel enough to beat up all his problems and that clearly doesn't work.

[Anonymous No.20381269]

>>20381264
Was 'traditional progression fantasy' even much of a thing at the time? MoL is pretty old by webnovel standards.

[Anonymous No.20381273]

>>20378999
After 20 books you could get attached to a lump of petrified poop if it was a main character

[Anonymous No.20381274]

>>20381239
>you dissaprove of me shitting my pants in this public forum, you must be a tranny or woman
Cope

[Anonymous No.20381290]

>>20381269
Honestly I'm not sure. What would be the first prog fantasy story? Aside from like, shonen anime fanfic or whatever.

[Anonymous No.20381329]

>>20381290
You'll have go really far back. Journey to the West already parodied the power progression faggotry.

[Anonymous No.20381330]

>>20381290
Well, there's for a long time been stories based on getting better at magic or whatever, but the idea of making it a specific 'thing' is much more recent and hard to pin down.

[Anonymous No.20381339]

>>20381290
Scientology.

[Anonymous No.20381343]

>>20381329
Should I read Journey to the West? I've been thinking about it, but I don't know if a gwailo who doesn't really know anything about the Eastern storytelling tradition will get anything out of it.

[Anonymous No.20381347]

>>20381343
It's basically just an episodic story about three idiots, a slightly less idiot and a horse.

[Anonymous No.20381352]

>>20381347
Sounds comfy, I guess I'll give it a try.

[Anonymous No.20381374]

>>20376686
There he is, the champion of reddit and /sffg/, Lord Sandersoi himself.

[Anonymous No.20381380]

>>20381339
>Scientology
Bit of a rant but how the fuck did L Ron Hubbard ever become a successful writer? Everything I've read from him is what I imagine normies who hate scifi think the entire genre is. Incomprehensible jargon filled nonsense without any kind of human center or soul at all. Science fiction written by someone who knows nothing about science or fiction.

[Anonymous No.20381382]

Is it possible to get something about fae that isn't urban fantasy garbage. garbage? Fuck, the entire topic is cursed to be YA nonsense written by women. I actively regret getting interested in Ancient Magus' Bride and then going on to The Tain and Mabinogion.

[Anonymous No.20381384]

jolenta booba swaying on the boat, nipples getting hard from the cool breeze

[Anonymous No.20381422]

>>20381382
Tad Williams usually includes faeries in the books he writes. Shadowmarch is epic fantasy where humans and faeries are at war, and probably the most faerie-intensive of his books besides War of the Flowers, which is more of an urban fantasy flavor that you're trying to avoid (though Tad Williams is pretty far from YA romance).

There's also the very unusual one-off novel by Raymond E Feist called Faerie Tale, which is technically urban fantasy, but it is definitely not YA. Uses a lot of Irish mythology and is fairly dark. If you're not willing to give it a try, I'd still recommend Shadowmarch, though it is 4 fairly long books while Feist's Faerie Tale and Williams' War of the Flowers are both stand alone novels.

[Anonymous No.20381429]

>>20381382
The Wandering Inn. Fae have prominent role thorough the entire story.

[Anonymous No.20381437]

>>20381382
The anti-prog fantasy, Fate Grand Order.

[Anonymous No.20381459]

That neopets Dark Faerie, whew
>sweatingman.jpg

[Anonymous No.20381463]

>>20381290
It's sci fi, but the Lensman series reads a lot like progression fantasy IIRC. There is a breeding program in the background, but its fruits must upgrade themselves to second and third stage lensmen, enhancing themselves and their gear to achieve their goal. I might revisit it with this in mind.

[Anonymous No.20381578]

I just finished all the black company company books
I enjoyed them all
the murgen seige pov book felt a bit short and I get why it was needed but was a bit underwhelming

I got a big question tho
sometime during the spying on longshadow, he offhandly mentions that the thing that was buried under old father tree in the plains of fear got loose and was headed south after changing shapes

What are they talking about there? Did that ever come to pass? That wasn't Lisa was it, cos she was already south with shifter

The last book was honestly my favorite as croakers pov was the most enjoyable for me

[Anonymous No.20381596]

I picked up the wheel of time.

How did this garbage become so famous? It's cringe inducing half of the time, and bland garbage the other half. Not to mention the way every little thing is re-exposed every tome, because god forbid the retards who pick up a serie in the middle aren't brought up to speed.

I'm on book 5, please help me stop

[Anonymous No.20381615]

>>20381596
I liked it, drop if your not enjoying it but a lot of good payoff later

[Anonymous No.20381659]

I'm really enjoying this book, good old viking style fantasy. No to lighthearted and not edgy gridmark, a nice balance between.

The world building is really good, revealing more detail as the story goes on.

Character building is also good, there are 4 different main characters from different backgrounds and story.

[Anonymous No.20381698]

>>20381596
I never heard of Wheel of Time until normies on fox sports radio were talking about how it was possibly going to be adapted and it's basically game of thrones back in the mid 2010s. Red flag for me right off the bat. I later would learn that Sanderson considers him an inspiration and finished the series. This is a massive red flag. Then I watched the Amazon show and that sealed the deal for red flags. I will never touch it.

[Anonymous No.20381708]

>>20381698
not to defend the books at all, but the only similarities the show has to the series are character names and the cock tower

[Anonymous No.20381716]

>>20381698
>Then I watched the Amazon show and that sealed the deal for red flags
The show is pretty shit and not a good representation of the books to be fair. People are just being over dramatic tbqh, the books are fine. Nothing special, but they aren't bad.

[Shiller No.20381721]

>>20381026
>This whole thing confuses me. I was under the impression that litrpg was like one of those fighting fantasy game book things? I just don't understand what is worth reading about this? Writing is terrible - just the main character has stats and abilities like a tabletop or computer role-playing game?
I don't think Defiance of the Fall is a good example of LitRPG. It is a litrpg, quite good even, but it's mainly a popcorn cultivation power progression story, elevated by enjoyable struggle, world-building and the author's attempt to delve deep into Dao, Buddhism and other weird mystical topics. Still, I don't think a person should make opinion on the entire genre just by looking at it. DotF is one of the...brainless stories, I guess? Nothing bad about it, but it doesn't try to be anything serious. Additionally it's a webnovel being updated five times a week, so it has different standards than published books, judging as normal stories is sure to give you horrible results.

In my opinion LitRPG, as a genre, tries to translate to stories the enjoyable experience people have while playing games, especially single-player RPGs. It might sounds weird, but at the end of the day LitRPG is mostly an easthetic, just like steampunk, sci-fi or fantasy. People like the idea of power/magic system/whatever existing in orderly fashion, you don't need to read 'Archmage Matilda was a mighty mage who could level mountains with her spells, and her enemy had similar might,' you instead see 'Archmage Matilda was a mighty mage of level 300 who could levle mountains with her [Spells], and her enemy had similar might at level 270.' It looks weird, even silly, but people like such precise, downright autistic measurments.

Of course, a lot of LitRPG are trashy as fuck and simply slap a litrpg system, whether balanced or reasonbale, onto any other setting. I've noticed that almost every story that attempts to at least EXPLAIN why there's such situation with the world tends to be better than other works. Still, the core of the idea is to read a story where a typical gamer can see gaming mechanics they are familiar with from games. I don't think it's that weird once you think about it, people prefer what they know. Still, it may lead to some great storytelling, like in The Wandering Inn, although it uses a gaming mechanics more similar to TTRPG games such as D&D, rather than video game mechanics.

If I was to go full armchair psychologists on it, I'd say people have a fantasy of using the skills they've acquired through playing video games most of their life, but are driven in depression by an adult world that doesn't care about their gaming skills at all, as they are kind of, well, useless 99% of the time. It's truly diabolical to have hords of young men spend significant parts of their life in enjoyable, hard and rewarding activity, just for that activity to be useless beyond just enjoying it, despite wiring their brains to see it as important and worth-doing.

[Anonymous No.20381740]

>>20381721
I feel like when they're used to examine tropes of RPGs in some ways (not many good examples off the top of my head) or used in some explicitly absurdist way (like Dungeon Crawler Carl) they're at their best. Otherwise they just feel like the elements are tacked on. Admittedly it depends on the implentation of LitRPG, there's basically three ways it's done as I see it:
>Game status stuff is how the protagonist interfaces with an otherwise normal magic system
>Game status stuff IS the protagonist's power system
>Game status stuff is just ubiquitous to the world because it's just like that
Even though the last one can include "suddenly the world is apocalypsed into an RPG system" stories which're quite different from "this fantasy world is just gamelike because it is", they're still broadly in that category. The first two are largely only used for power fantasy stuff, but that's not necessarily bad. The third can lead to some fairly interesting examples.

[Anonymous No.20381770]

>>20381721
>>20381740

LitRPG, when used right, can be used to streamline, codify and display power levels, I think novels that abuse it and have pages upon pages of "blue screens" are shit. I also don't think that a lot of LitRPG use "system" to fit into the genre and make it more appealing to fans, or just frequent readers, of the genre.

This all being said I have seen LitRPG mechanics made a good use of in service to the story. To me most stories have to follow the third outlined option - to be a part of the world - for them to meaningfully contribute to the plot/story/worldbuilding.

The exceptions to that are power fantasies, satire and comedy that uses it as a side hustle. Keyboard Immortal comes to mind, it's pretty much chinese LitRPG Harem cultivation web novel but with a great deal of satire, or one could say deconstruction, to it. It's not that good in and of itself but it does show how LitRPG can be made use of for the story, it also has examples of how it shouldn't be used - plenty deus ex machina, especially in later chaptres.

[Anonymous No.20381812]

Darrow is Katniss for boys.

[Anonymous No.20381823]

>>20381812
Who.

[Anonymous No.20381831]

>>20381823
The MC of Hunger Games 2: Red Rising Bogaloo

[Anonymous No.20381832]

My boys and I want to book club a Chinese cultivation novel. Which one should we do to get the full experience?

[Anonymous No.20381838]

>>20381596
>How did this garbage become so famous?
Jordan was well connected to the publishing business through his wife who was also his editor. Really gives you a leg up if you can just call on Tor's support and marketing with the snap of a finger. Certainly doesn't hurt that Jordan scratched the itch for long winded epic fantasy, but even so it should be noted that WoT never was nearly popular enough to get adapted before GoT blew up and cleared the path for more fantasy shows to be made.

[Anonymous No.20381841]

>>20381832
There's a lot, like a lot a lot. I've heard I Shall Seal The Heavens is pretty well-regarded, but it's an absurdly dense amount.

[Shiller No.20381862]

>>20381832
>My boys and I want to book club a Chinese cultivation novel. Which one should we do to get the full experience?
>>20381841

I Shall Seal the Heavens isn't horrible, but it's still not a good story compared to anything not Chinese. The only chinese story that consistently gets good reviews Is The Lord of Mysteries. Other than that probably Reverend Insanity, even though it's still only decent. So I recommend trying TLoM.

[Anonymous No.20381867]

>>20381862
Fair enough. I suppose you'd probably have better luck finding quality non-Chinese cultivation stories.

[Anonymous No.20381910]

Did anyone here finish Everyone Loves Large Chests
I kinda lost interest after the catgirl arc ended, felt like the author really didn't know where to go from there

[Anonymous No.20381923]

>>20380782
Tolkien is better

[Anonymous No.20381962]

>>20381910
no

[Anonymous No.20381963]

Need militarty scifi recs please. I've read (and liked a lot) the following: Starship Troopers, Forever War, Old Mans War, Enders Game, Red Rising, and Armor.
What are the big ones that I havent read?

[Anonymous No.20381964]

>>20381910
What's that? Some bottom-of-the-barrel webnovel erotica?

[Anonymous No.20381972]

>>20381832
Reverend insanity

[Anonymous No.20381975]

>>20381972
How about something actually good?

[Anonymous No.20381989]

>>20381171
>>20381137
>>20381135

[Anonymous No.20381994]

>>20381975
Everything else is ccp tier and not good.

[Anonymous No.20382000]

>>20381975
Then you’ll want to read The Lord of Mysteries.

[Anonymous No.20382013]

1/2

I've spent the entire weekend reading Life Reset series, six books of VRMMO LitRPG series, I think I have something to say about it, so bear with me. Some years ago, when my passion for reading fiction was at all-time low, by accident I stumbled upon a book that was unlike any other I'd seen. A book where the story takes place in a virtual world, more than that, it's a GAMING world. As an avid gamer, that was incredibly interesting to me. That book was, of course, The Way of the Shaman, a really popular series that got some fame in some circles back then. I read it, really liked it, liked the rest of the series way less. Still, a sudden hunger for game-like stories, that 'LitRPG' genre, was awaken in me. The next series that I tried was Life Reset by Shemer Kuznits. And that blew me away. It wasn't perfect, but it showed that you can do a decent storytelling inside a video-game setting. I liked the first and second books, but the reviews about the third made me drop it, as I didn't want to spoil the memory with a bad book. So, distraught, I delved deeper into the internet, getting into webnovels, trashy litrpgs, stuff like that. Now, years later, as a veteran reader of the genre I've returned, to read the entire series. And boy, I don't think I've made a bad choice.

With experience comes understanding, so the things that previously seemed fresh and amazing to me, were put in perspective. I not longer the series is amazing, even though there's a lot I can respect. I won't review it book by book, just give my general impressions with the series. First off, the world-building is kinda shit. Not only is the real world outside of game barely mentioned, the game world is also barebones. I can't recall a name for the world or continent ever comming up. Nothing is really mentioned, not kingdoms, gods or any lore, made by players or by developers. The author dropped the ball in this department, which is shocking considering the plot of the series. Not to spoil, it tackles the issue of the gaming world being real-like a lot, and yet the author didn't even try to make the game world even appear to be likable or worth spending time in.

The story is mainly a kingdom-building, not my favourite sub-genre, but I can bear it. Most of the time you'll be reading how the protagonist tries to make his Goblin tribe more powerful. I honestly started skimming some of that in the later books, I can bear reading about wood transporting or making new building only so far. It might be just me binging six books in three days, while they were written in the span of 5-6 years.

Okay, to be concise: The author had a solid vision behind the story, admittedly written due to dissapointment with other litrpg stories. I can believe that, considering it reads like the author planned everything out from the start. I'm actually suprised how consistent the story was throughout, especially the ending. I feel satisfied. But there are problems.

[Anonymous No.20382015]

>>20381994
>Reverend insanity
>Good
No thanks, I saw the excerpts and its laughably terrible.
>>20382000
>The Lord of Mysteries.
Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Anonymous No.20382019]

2/2

The entire story reads like a first draft. The author did plan it out, but then he just wrote the story, filling the skeleton of it. I am not sure how he managed to make something that was supposedly put thorugh editors look so under-cooked, but it could really use some fleshing out. Some stuff in the books is simply boring, like the fights. At some point I started skimming the less important ones, and I didn't lose anything. The story canvas has more holes than actual material, the author focused on the protagonist 'explaining' the plot holes with gaming mechanics, but didn't care to do that to the actual plot, i.e. why the best player in the game didn't have enough of influence to kill a low level goblin. All we got are excuses.

Fuck, why am I writing so much. Damn with explanation, I'll just give impressions:
I like the series. It has a lot of dumb shit, the author could do much better job, don't use boomer humor, flesh the characters, make the world actually interesting. Still, the vision behind it, the exploration of the protagonist becoming monstrous due to spending months within the game, the grande finale that tied the plot in amazing way consistent with the story...It's not a bad story. I don't recommend it to anyone not familar with the LitRPG genre, or at least with strong toleration of game mechanics, but it's seriously decent despite all its numerous flaws. It might be some nostalgia due to it being my first good LitRPG years ago, but if someone looks for decent VR MMO LitRPG, then do try Life Reset series. Just skim the boring parts and don't expect too much out of it. Damn, the series deserved better from its author, but it's good for what it is.

Sorry for random two post-long review, but I had to spit it out of my after the three days of reading.

[Anonymous No.20382021]

>>20381964
>bottom-of-the-barrel
Eeh, at times it certainly felt like that, but it had some great moments
>webnovel
Yes
>erotica
I think it had some sex scenes and some general lewd stuff here and there, but it wasn't the main focus by far

It's about a mimic chest in a dungeon leveling up by accident and then gaining consciousness and it trying to get money and power
It was pretty fun but after a bit the author was clearly lost and the story took some weird swings

[Anonymous No.20382027]

>>20381972
>>20381862
>>20381841
I guess to be more specific we want to read something with the retarded power scaling and overpowered MC, the questionable bugman morals and it should be short enough 4 dudes can read it without getting bored and leaving. It doesn't matter if the translation is shitty or if the characters are unrelatable.

[Anonymous No.20382035]

>>20381812
>for boys
Sounds based. Normally nothing is written for boys these days.

[Anonymous No.20382059]

>>20382027
Does it have to be finished, do you intend to finish it, or do you just want a taste?

Do you want popular, well written, dark, comedy, subversion, deconstruction or what? The genre has enough works in it to practically stand apart as it's own thing, and that's just the translated ones - the tip of the iceberg.

if you just want something decent enough than Heavenly Jewel Change comes to mind, it stray away from the whole Dao aspect of cultivation in favour of more prog fantasy but that might be enjoyable for someone coming in.

[Anonymous No.20382078]

>>20382027
>I guess to be more specific we want to read something with the retarded power scaling and overpowered MC,
Not reverend insanity. Cultivation system is well thought out and mc is not overpowered.

>questionable bugman morals
> it should be short enough 4 dudes can read it without getting bored and leaving.
>It doesn't matter if the translation is shitty
reverend insanity (book 1)

[Anonymous No.20382082]

>>20382078
How about something actually good?

[Anonymous No.20382098]

>>20382082
If you want chinese cultivation you can either read RI or countless other webnovels which have zero creativity and stick closely to chinese communist party ideals (or otherwise they will get banned)

[Anonymous No.20382102]

>>20382098
I'll take my chances with countless other chinese web novels

[Anonymous No.20382105]

Heads up for the guy who wants a cultivation story, either start from shit like Coiling Dragon or I Shall Seal the Heavens, and then explore the genre WITHOUT reading Reverend Insanity and The Lord of Mysteries, or read RI and TLOM without reading the other stuff. It's so above the other chinese shit that you will cry to read the other stuff, there are only two good chinese webnovels and reading them will spoil all the rest for you. It's not worth it anyway, but either start from the bad ones or read those two and quit.

[Anonymous No.20382108]

>>20382105
>reverend insanity
>good
What?

[Anonymous No.20382134]

>>20382105
Martial world is not bad but unfortunately it also has been strongly influenced by ccp filter, it has some good ideas and world building is excelent but the plot and the mc and side characters and literally copied from ccp 'guide' book on basically what one has to write to have his work allowed to be published in China.

[Anonymous No.20382139]

>that you will cry to read

[Anonymous No.20382151]

>>20382105
How fucking bad is the rest of cultivation that RI mogs it? Jesus christ.

[Anonymous No.20382155]

>>20382151
You’re probably talking to the Reverend Insanity shill

[Anonymous No.20382193]

How does it feel knowing that there will never be another Tolkien? That he was an absurdly improbable freak accident of nature that only comes about once a thousand years (and still almost got himself shot in the most pointless bloodbath in history)? Are you grateful we were allowed to witness Tolkien's work? Or resentful he ripped us from our sweet ignorance to show us how much more fantasy can be?

[Anonymous No.20382201]

>>20382151
RI is like a 5/10 in a field of 3/10s.

[Anonymous No.20382209]

>>20382201
More like 4/10

[Anonymous No.20382210]

>>20382201
you're being generous

[Anonymous No.20382216]

>>20382013
I've yet to read any VRMMO LitRPGs and I think I'm currently vindicated in that decision. I'm sure some are good enough, but I can't even find one that sounds all that appealing. A lot of the disbelief suspension required is a lot tighter in VRMMO stuff because I know how fucking autistic MMO players are, you're NOT gonna convince me that the protagonist is the only one who did this obscure set of tricks to get the super good class or whatever.

[Anonymous No.20382225]

>>20382209
>>20382210
I haven't read TLoM so I dunno where I'd rank THAT, but RI at least feels a LITTLE better than most other samey nonsense. It's still like 70% the same garbage compared to all the other cultivation shit, but there's enough new stuff. Even if the new stuff is shit most of the time.

[Shiller No.20382226]

>>20382151
>How fucking bad is the rest of cultivation that RI mogs it? Jesus christ.
>>20382155
>You’re probably talking to the Reverend Insanity shill
I am the TWI shill. I hate the RI shill. But I read like 500+ chapters of RI and tried multiple other 'good' chinese webnovels, so I know its quality. Ri is bad by our standards, horrible at times even, but it's veery good compared to other chinese stuff. A person that has not experienced the depths of repetetivness, cheap power fantasy and lack of any actual story telling in chinese webnovels cannot imagine how fucking shit they are. Reverend Insanity is truly a colossus of magnificance in comparison.

Don't read chinese webnovels. If you really have to, read Lord of the Mysteries, optionally Reverend Insanity's first act in the protagonist's sect if you want to know what it's about, read the rest if you have a nail stuck in your head.

But for the best results simply ditch that fucking shit and read The Wandering Inn, a story where the author was better than RI's from the start, and improved vastly along the way, honing their skill at story-telling to the point their work is better quality than majority of the stuff you can find at any fantasy bookstore. Don't be stupid, don't read chinese stuff if you don't have to. Life is too short for shit fiction.

[Anonymous No.20382233]

>>20382226
>Life is too short for shit fiction.
Thanks, not going to read The Wandering Inn

[Anonymous No.20382234]

>>20382226
>I am the TWI shill. I hate the RI shill.
pls no hate

[Anonymous No.20382236]

>>20382226
And even if you want to read some cultivation-esque shit, read Cradle instead. It's actually got a plot. And characters.

[Anonymous No.20382238]

>>20382226
Just... Just read western cultivation novels, then. There're a couple good ones and at least like... 2 that do cultivation decently well without just using the generic daoist shit.

[Anonymous No.20382242]

>>20382238
What are those two? And are they good outside of the interesting cultivation, or is that all they have going?

[Anonymous No.20382255]

>>20382242
Read portal wars saga (hidden tower), it is a short read but surprisingly enjoyable. Also reminds me somewhat of eastern fantasy

[Shiller No.20382270]

>>20382242
>What are those two? And are they good outside of the interesting cultivation, or is that all they have going?
He probably means Forge of Destiny, other than that there's Ave Xia Rem Y. If you want a slice of life parody of cultivation, try Beware of Chicken, it's very popular and comfy. Other than that, Speedruning the Multiverse is a new one on RR, it's a bit of an orginal take on cultivation stuff, shamelessly using typical power fantasy stuff, but in a way that you WANT it to be used. THere's also Defiance of the Fall, one of the best progression fantasies and a solid cultivation story, but it's very popcorn and partially LitRPG. It's worth it for the mystical cultication describtions alone, though.

[Anonymous No.20382271]

>>20382226
My theory is that whether you hate or love RI is entirely decided by how much other xiaxia you've read. If you read several other webnovels first, it's the greatest book ever written by man. If you read it first it's awful.
It's got sort of a similar effect to a de/reconstruction, and is kindof is.
It's the distilled essence of the genre, Fang Yuan basically IS cultivation personified in a character, and whether you love him or hate him is determined by how much you love or hate the genre itself.
In other words, if you hate Fang Yuan you hate the entire chinkshit webnovel genre and should definitely avoid it because every other story in there is just a diluted version of RI.

LotM is a little different, maybe you can think of it as a negative image of the genre, or the same thing but from a different angle.
Certainly if you don't like LotM or RI you hate the entire concept of cultivation, but I can see someone liking one and not the other depending on his preference for eastern/western setting and villain/hero protagonist.

[Anonymous No.20382274]

>>20382242
Virtuous Sons by Pineapple Hugs
Sexy Sect Babes by Bluefishcake
Retribution Engine by Akaso

[Anonymous No.20382275]

>>20382255
I briefly confused this for another series with "tower" in it that I dropped just because the ebook's layout was atrocious (massive indentation on every new paragraph for no reason). I think I've only heard of this one. Might give it a shot after my current series (I'm currently reading through This Quest Is Bullshit as a sort of refresher after how heavy Dungeon Crawler Carl got sometimes and I should probably stop binging LitRPGs soon enough).

[Anonymous No.20382278]

>>20382271
>Fang Yuan is cultivation personified
so, a sociopathic bugman with a massive chip on his shoulder?

[Anonymous No.20382280]

>>20382278
An evil sociopathic bugman with a massive chip on his shoulder

[Anonymous No.20382281]

>>20382270
>Defiance of the Fall
I have read that one, and I struggle to consider it cultivation, because even though cultivation is a 'thing', the protagonist doesn't actually do it, at least not as far as the published books are. I enjoyed the Dao shit and the world-building, but the utter lack of characterisation and all-over-the-place plot kept me from enjoying it too much. The rest of your stuff I haven't read but I have had on my list.

[Anonymous No.20382302]

>>20377745
Damn thanks man, this is a mayor improvement from the app I was using before.

[Anonymous No.20382303]

>>20382271
>>20382278
>>20382280
It's funny. People here saying that RI is distillation of cultivation genre. As someone who actually enjoyed a fair number of cultivation novels, the impression of RI MC being an edgelord loner is precisely why I haven't and probably never will bother with RI. Loner MC
that abandons everything and everyone as he moves through the world is one of the least interesting takes on cutlivation and is mostly there in novels i've read as a result of writers not being able to maintain a coherent story line beyond the initial setup/setting/world when they try to spin it into "starry sky" sort of novel to keep chapters rolling.

[Anonymous No.20382314]

>>20382303
Honestly this is half of the reason I enjoyed Ozriel's backstory in Cradle. He WAS that protagonist. He then looked back after getting to the absolute pinnacle and was like "Shit, that SUCKED, I'm so fucking lonely".

[Anonymous No.20382326]

Why can't you chink shit fags make a /chink shit/ general?

[Anonymous No.20382329]

>>20382326
Because we're talking about fantasy in a general that discusses fantasy?

[Anonymous No.20382341]

>>20382326
Unsustainable. Even this general spanning all of fantasy and sci-fi is almost unsustainable because the field doesn't produce new content worth discussing anymore. That's why this general always goes in circles.

[Anonymous No.20382346]

>>20381226
>Please adopt a tripcode so I can filter your posts.
Honestly, it’s just best if you either ignore him or report him.

[Anonymous No.20382349]

>>20382303
>It's funny. People here saying that RI is distillation of cultivation genre. As someone who actually enjoyed a fair number of cultivation novels, the impression of RI MC being an edgelord loner is precisely why I haven't and probably never will bother with RI. Loner MC
>that abandons everything and everyone as he moves through the world is one of the least interesting takes on cutlivation and is mostly there in novels i've read as a result of writers not being able to maintain a coherent story line beyond the initial setup/setting/world when they try to spin it into "starry sky" sort of novel to keep chapters rolling.

Except that Reverend Isanity's psychopatic MC is the story's strongest point. The story itself isn't good,but if RI can be called good, then it's 80% due to the protagonist alone. He is a centuries old Demonic Cultivator who isn't a simple edgy loner, but has entire philosophy of unapologetically using people and hating on society. And oh boy, he hates on society, sects and any sort of community 24/7. This is the reason the story was banned, the author went so far in criticising community, hierarchies, governments and order itself that people were seething and spitting blood for years. For that alone the author is based as fuck, shat on Chinese core ideas of society so hard the communist government itself took him out. I could see the author taking the story in some years, maybe a decade or two when the goverment cools off, and then rewriting it into some solid tight story that can be sold, then it can be something great.

[Anonymous No.20382353]

>>20382349
Okay, I'm thinking based.

[Anonymous No.20382354]

>>20382349
>Except that Reverend Isanity's psychopatic MC is the story's strongest point.
Ash, that's just sad. Not even going to bother reading it now.

[Anonymous No.20382367]

>>20382341
>Unsustainable. Even this general spanning all of fantasy and sci-fi is almost unsustainable because the field doesn't produce new content worth discussing anymore. That's why this general always goes in circles.

Me and some other people try to discuss webnovels old and new, even the cultivation stuff, but some Anons are seething all the time. They cannot bear to hear about a story that's not officialy published, even self-publishing on Amazon is a mark of shame to them. They would strangle anyone who tries something different, then do a circlejerk about how everything's shit these days. Degenerate animals in shape of humans that don't even deserve to see good storytelling, but we are merciful, so we point them towards the light. I personally recommend them The Wandering Inn, comfy fantasy enough to not be intimidating, lite litrpg system that enchances the story instead of stifling it, and last but not least, the great characterization that stories often fail at.

[Anonymous No.20382368]

what the fuck is cultivation literature

[Anonymous No.20382374]

>>20382349
This is supposed to be a _good_ thing? You've only further convinced me that RI is not worth reading and people pushing it are pushing it as a protest against society. Frankly I recommend such people remove themselves from it, there are plenty ways to do it.

Actually celebrating such attitude behaviour is demonstrably worse than any LGBT agenda liberals push these days, at least most of them do it in their ignorance of consequences and logic and focus on an issue that in and of itself minor, this meanwhile is just wrong.

[Anonymous No.20382377]

>>20382367
Shill something else sometimes, at least. It gets stale seeing the same thing pushed time and again.

[Anonymous No.20382389]

migrate
>>20380404
>>20380404
>>20380404
>>20380404
>>20380404

[Anonymous No.20382390]

>>20382271
>It's the distilled essence of the genre, Fang Yuan basically IS cultivation personified in a character, and whether you love him or hate him is determined by how much you love or hate the genre itself.
I disagree. Most if not all cultivation stories are about righteous main character and a story that involves saving people, the country or the world while cultivating and getting stronger. Most stories also have romance in then.
People who do not like RI mainly don't like it because mc is evil and does not allign with moral views.

[Anonymous No.20382395]

>>20382390
>People who do not like RI mainly don't like it because mc is evil and does not allign with moral views.
The MC is laughably evil and hard to take seriously at times, not to mention not even interesting.

[Anonymous No.20382397]

>litrpg
>chinkshit
>webnovels

[Anonymous No.20382399]

>>20382377
>Shill something else sometimes, at least. It gets stale seeing the same thing pushed time and again.

A Journey of Black and Red - An extremely climatic vampire story with a female lead, set in nineteenth century America. The language and writing is historically appropriate, giving the story the classic vampire mood that most vampire stories would bleed themselves dry trying to replicate, still failing in the end. No Litrpg, gamelit or any other common stuff you can find in webnovels, you can dive in at any moment.

Dungeon Crawler Carl - An extremely interesting take on LitRPG, even though it's actually a Sci-Fi story about Earth being destroyed and turned into a reality show for aliens, where surviving humans fight for survival in a giant dungeon to amusement of the galactic audience. Good humor, an interesting story.

Perfect Run - A superhero story in which a person with a power that allows to go back in time to his Savepoint attempts to achieve a Perfect Run, starting over and over to achieve the best possible results, while also trying to find his old love. Funny, witty and enjoyable. Finished.

Beware of Chicken - A parody of Xianxia, the protagonist gets beaten in a sect and decides to fitch the cultivation and defying the heavens to become a farmer. Very comfy and slice of life, one of the better webnovels.

Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia - A xianxia story, but in a greek setting. Cultiavators are Philosophers, Young Masters are Young Artisocrats. Aristotle and others are the biggest motherfuckers around. A something of a parody, the protagonists are a Young Aristocrat and an enslaved Roman Soldier.

Erogamer - If you liked Worth the Candle and Methods of Rationality, then you'll likely like this as well, it's even rumoured to be written by Yudkovsky himself. It's an extremely erotic story about a young, unattractive woman who's very into Japanese Erogame games, who suddenly gets a System. The main selling point of the story is rationality and the fact that the protagonist getting a System is treated with the seriousness an event like that deserves. It might be the best written webnovel on the internet, and I say that without a hint of irony. It's really THAT good.

This Used to be About Dungeons - The same author as Worth the Candle, but about a time of dungeon delvers becoming a team. A comfy story about few people becoming a team, rather than an actual delving story, but that's in the title. Similar world-building to Worthe the Candle.

Paranoid Mage - A middle-aged architect and widower suddenly learns he's a mage, and an authoritarian magic government tries to catch him. The man starts learning about his spatial magic while running away, being as paranoid as possible to avoid detection. A recent big success on Royalroad, very popular. I don't think it's amazing, but it's a decent read.

[Anonymous No.20382400]

>>20382368
machine translated virgin nerd wish fulfillment, chinese edition

[Anonymous No.20382401]

>>20382397
What’s the issue? People are discussing stories which is the point of this general.

[Anonymous No.20382402]

>>20382400
So, science fiction and fantasy?

[Anonymous No.20382404]

>>20382389
>migrate
>>>20380404
>>>20380404
>>>20380404
>>>20380404
>>>20380404

The fuck you doing retard, that thread is not a /sffg/ genereal. Wait for a real thread.

[Anonymous No.20382405]

>>20382399
>Methods of Rationality
I recently tried to read that and it's... Like, it's 50/50 on whether or not I enjoy it sometimes. Sometimes Harry is just such an obnoxious dickbag it feels like the author is using him as a mouthpiece, and sometimes it's played entirely for goofs and he gets fucked over for being such a shit.

[Anonymous No.20382408]

>>20382402
most scifi and fantasy isn't soulless and MTL'd

[Anonymous No.20382410]

>>20382404
>Wait for a real thread.
Should be made around page 10, so we still got a few hours here.

[Anonymous No.20382413]

>>20382404
i don´t mean that's the general! just migrate to reply it

[Anonymous No.20382414]

>>20382413
No

[Anonymous No.20382419]

>>20382414
mean

[Anonymous No.20382421]

>>20382397
Honestly, people who dislike that this general is discussing such things should just shill and discuss more traditional published literature. Especially newly published literature.

One of the biggest problems I have with the general is that every time I visit most of the discussion is consumed with seemingly the same discussion about Bakker, BotNS etc. Which is fine and all but it's walking in circles, as the other anon put it.

[Anonymous No.20382423]

>>20382374
Yes. Because mc is not a 13 year edgy loner. He is 600 year old man, his worldview is fully formed and is exposed to the reader gradually, mc is knowledgable and interesting character (even if he is evil).

[Anonymous No.20382433]

>>20382421
Yeah, either discuss other old shit or discuss new shit. We're circling the drain with Gene Wolfe for older stuff because nobody really talks about Tolkien or Le Guin or other older sci-fi/fantasy authors all that much here (I assume it's just the ubiquity of Tolkien and any number of reasons for Le Guin), we only really discuss a few modern ones (GRRM, Sanderson, and then the one Bakker guy, along with the occasional Rothfuss and Abercrombie cameo) and there's also not much discussion of stuff between those gaps, even.

[Anonymous No.20382436]

>>20382421
>Honestly, people who dislike that this general is discussing such things should just shill and discuss more traditional published literature. Especially newly published literature.
Nobody is stopping people from discussing more traditional published literature, in fact, some anons do it, but you have a few shitters who denounce them for it, that they hesitate to post about it.

[Anonymous No.20382445]

>>20382421
>newly published literature.
Hard to discuss that newly published literature when you have a few fags shitting up the thread saying pozzed, supreme, or some other variant Twitter buzzwords

[Anonymous No.20382446]

>>20382423
>Yes. Because mc is not a 13 year edgy loner.
>He is a superpowered 13 year edgy loner
Ah, far better.

[Anonymous No.20382452]

>>20382445
>few
It's one guy who hates discussion so he floods the board anytime people talk about things.

[Anonymous No.20382453]

>>20382303
>Loner MC
>that abandons everything and everyone as he moves through the world
The thing is this doesn't actually happen, several of the characters introduced in each arc stick around all the way to the end doing their own thing. See, while Fang Yuan is cultivating and leaving everyone behind, so is everyone else, and all the major important people are just as fast or faster than him at cultivating. Either that or they've always been at the top and the only thing that changes is the relative power dynamics. The Venerables have been there since before the story begins, caused the entire events of the story to happen, and are constantly involved in every single arc.
One of the neat things about RI is that, even though the world is like 10x the size of Earth, it's actually pretty small and cozy for a xiaxia setting, and multiple locations get mentioned, visited, and revisited several time. And obviously everyone from the last time is still there, unless they got killed or left for some reason.

It's something LotM does as well, and actually better. Because in there even non-cultivator mortals are still sticking around through every arc and still important and relevant because cultivator's relationships and mental states are extremely vital to them and it's actually quite possible to kill or severely injure a cultivator by going after his friends and family.

[Anonymous No.20382455]

>>20382452
Ah, glad someone else notice. I will also point that whenever he gets ban, that shit dies down for 3 days.

[Anonymous No.20382462]

>>20382453
Sounds like LotM takes an almost superhero comics-esque approach where the best way to go after the people who care for others is to go after their most vulnerable loved ones.

[Anonymous No.20382469]

>>20382445
Are we not allowed to use the 'pozzed' word to describe certain works and authors? Is that word now banned? on /lit of all places

[Anonymous No.20382474]

>>20382469
It's being used as a buzzword instead of describing any reasons people actually dislike a thing and they just spam it over and over to flood the board.

[Anonymous No.20382477]

>>20382474
It's him, anon, you need not reply to him.

[Anonymous No.20382483]

>>20382390
Fang Yuan is the personaification of "all that matters is power, with enough power no one can stop you, the fastest way to get power is to harm others, therefore the most powerful are the most monstrous". There can be heroic cultivators, but they have to deal with the fact that if they're too weak they can't save anyone, and they're always weaker than someone with no morals at all.
Most stories get out of this paradigm by having the author gift-drop powerups to the MC, but that just makes it obvious that if he DIDN'T have all these lucky breaks or cheat skills he'd be eaten alive in 5 minutes.
It also makes the idea of all those "righteous" sects that are just thinly veiled punching bags and strawmen for overpowered MCs to shit on for being "evil" much more nuanced. Yes the arrogant young masters are assholes and the sect is exploiting the people, but if they didn't do that they wouldn't be able to gather enough resources to defend themselves from the real monsters out there who instead of exploiting the people would simply slaughter them like animals.
Now it's not good vs evil, it's the farmer vs the wolves. There's benefits and detriments to either life for a sheep, but it's not an easy or clear choice.

[Anonymous No.20382484]

>>20382469
>female author
Reeee pozed
>female characters
Reeee pozed
>black/Asian character
Reeee pozzed
>literally anything that is not straight white male warrior or male lead
Reeee pozed
>anything else that chuds get triggered over
Reeee pozed

[Anonymous No.20382488]

>>20382423
By the sound of it despite having number 600 written to justify his decisions he behaves with wisdom of a 13 year old edgy loner. Having not read it I'm not fit to judge how well the story justifies his character, the problem is regardless of how story does it author decided to construct it in such a way to do it. Which brings us back to the post I'm responding to, according to which this is a good thing. Which it isn't.

Someone writhing degenerate book advocating degenerate shit, while actually doing a good job of it with characters/setting/plot is interesting, but it's hardly something desirable to people who consider behaviour/attitude or even ideology degenerate in the first place. I think this statement is true regardless of what it is that one considers degenerate.

Again, I'm not fit to judge it's quality as a piece of literature or a cultivation story, not having read it. But my initial point is that it is not, in fact, representative of the cultivation genre and is merely one possible take on it.

>>20382445
>>20382436
Eh, haven't seen it but honestly I wouldn't be surprised, this is basket weaving forum after all, so a degree of trolling is to be expected, kind of comes with the territory. I think some degree of vitriol directed at published works and posters talking about them might just be backlash against people bitching about WN/CN/LitRpgs and some of it is just anons being anons. Honestly just deal with it the same way you prefer to deal with any trolls.

[Anonymous No.20382498]

>>20382488
>Eh, haven't seen it but honestly I wouldn't be surprised, this is basket weaving forum after all, so a degree of trolling is to be expected, kind of comes with the territory.
Anon, I've been here since a few months, and if I can say anything, it goes beyond a degree of trolling. It makes the thread, and by extension, the general, unusable.

[Anonymous No.20382506]

>>20382462
Pretty much, even at the top levels an invincible demigod can be killed if you raze his kingdom to the ground and torture his family to death. So it means he has to spend an incredibly amount of his limited time, resources, and effort defending an enormous area instead of just holing up in a cave and meditating for 3000 years.
And while it's POSSIBLE to get away from those weaknesses, most cultivators DON'T WANT TO, because while it'll make you stronger and free up your attention, it'll also remove the emotional ties that keep you grounded in sanity. Anyone who cuts all mortal ties and meditates in a cave for 3000 years will come out of that cave as an inhuman monster only barely recognizable as their previous incarnation.

[Anonymous No.20382510]

>>20382506
'course, then you get villainous protagonists who willingly throw away their humanity, or at least ruthless ones who just want power regardless. Honestly, I wanna see a setting with a protagonist who's "ruthless power-hungry guy who wants to be on top" and the setting is one where power is awarded for virtue and honour.

[Anonymous No.20382526]

>>20382498
Can't rightly speak on it, I'm not a frequent visitor myself, just open it up every now and then sometimes with many months in between. It's sad to hear but unless you want to deal with something like reddit it's price of doing buisness, I suppose. At least I haven't seen much of it last couple threads, maybe I'm just not paying attention, I dunno.

[Anonymous No.20382527]

>>20382526
Bakker-poster was probably banned or got bored, so we've got a couple days of freedom.

[Anonymous No.20382528]

>>20382488
>Honestly just deal with it the same way you prefer to deal with any trolls.
Sadly, the only way we can deal with them is by reporting them, since just ignoring them embolden them to shit up the threads even more.

[Anonymous No.20382539]

>>20382527
Probably ban, jannies are removing his posts whenever he starts spamming.

[Anonymous No.20382544]

>>20382488
No, completely incorrect.

>Someone writhing degenerate book advocating degenerate shit, while actually doing a good job of it with characters/setting/plot is interesting, but it's hardly something desirable to people who consider behaviour/attitude or even ideology degenerate in the first place. I think this statement is true regardless of what it is that one considers degenerate.
Fang Yuan (if disregarding his evil goals) could be considered a model citizen, he is the opposite of what we understand as degenerate today.

[Shiller No.20382552]

I am going to be honest here, I don't give a single shit about Bakker or the Bakker shill. I've been here for over a month and not once was I derailed or frustrated by the Bekker stuff. I didn't read his series, I probably will at some point, no opinion on its quality from me. But holy shit if you fuckers aren't annoying with constant whining about him. If I see a post about a story I don't like or don't want to read I just pass. Ignore it. Don't care, don't engage. Three, six, even ten posts in a row about the same thing is irrelevant in the scope of the entire /sffg/ thread. Why do you keep bringing it up. I would take a Bekker spammer over numerous retards doing dozens of posts with 3-4 words at a time, or retards spamming about 'trannies,' 'pozzed,' or 'female authors.'

You whiners are even worse than the Bekker shill, why the fuck you must keep talking about it? Why do I keep seeing 30 posts about the bekker spammer but one or two actual Bekker stuff posts? Just keep looking at the stuff you want to engage with or talk about, and ignore the stuff you don't. Is it really that hard? Works well for me.

[Anonymous No.20382564]

>>20382552
It's not that he discusses Bakker that's the issue. That's fine. It's that he sees people talking about LITERALLY ANYTHING for more than five posts and has a fucking meltdown where he posts one-man threads talking about Bakker and shitting on whatever the fuck was just discussed.

[Anonymous No.20382567]

>>20382552
>>20382564
Example.

[Anonymous No.20382568]

>>20382483
This is among one of the reasons why I wish to see a "heroic" protagonist who is a buttfuck insane violent monster a-la Raiden from MGR and just coincidetally happens to decide to be a nice guy after the fact

[Anonymous No.20382571]

>>20382552
It is one guy who spams all boards all day long with wojak and other shit

>>>/v/599294159

[Anonymous No.20382583]

>>20382544
Fang Yuan just seems boring to me.

[Anonymous No.20382584]

>>20382552
>You whiners are even worse than the Bekker shill, why the fuck you must keep talking about it? Why do I keep seeing 30 posts about the bekker spammer but one or two actual Bekker stuff posts? Just keep looking at the stuff you want to engage with or talk about, and ignore the stuff you don't. Is it really that hard? Works well for me.
Even when posts are deleted, bakkerspam still lives in their heads rent free

[Anonymous No.20382591]

>>20382510
It's kinda hard for a setting like that to work without some intermediary system/sect/god/etc... because well, the natural world is amoral. Very obviously in the real world, nature rewards the strong and punishes the weak. There's some balance, otherwise the weak wouldn't exist at all, but not much.

And even in RI it's HARDER to cultivate while retaining your morals, but not impossible. Just as nature doesn't punish evil, it also doesn't punish good. There's even whole paths dedicated to it, like Gu worms that self destruct or stop working if you lie or harm the innocent and gain power by continued commitment to doing good. Of course we also see one such cultivator get absolutely merked by a pure evil sociopathic monster, but then that asshole gets stabbed in the back and killed by the consequences of his own actions.

[Anonymous No.20382595]

>>20382591
True enough, it'd have to be a strange system. Honestly the closest thing that comes to mind is Stormlight Archive, you have to swear and uphold some sort of ideals, even though Knights can come into conflict pretty easily.

[Anonymous No.20382600]

>>20382484
>>literally anything that is not straight white male warrior or male lead
>Reeee pozed

[Anonymous No.20382602]

>>20382583
Probably due to constant negative reactions to RI on this board.
RI is not a comedy, it is mostly action/adventure if described by western standards. Mc is almost constantly on the move doing things, I wouldnt call it boring.

[Anonymous No.20382604]

>>20382390
>People who do not like RI mainly don't like it because mc is evil and does not allign with moral views.

Also, I wanted to address this. I think it's missing the point a bit, it's true that one can make a moral argument against reading something lik RI if you find it's morals distasteful but the bigger problem isn't just the character having morals that aren't appealing to someone but having a first person story about this character, thus forcing this perspective on everything in the story. It's tied to the way many web novels are often structured, with focus on first person storytelling and story revolving around MC exclusively rather than MC being part of larger story.

To elaborate - the close to opposite extreme is something like GoT, which has plenty characters many will find morally repugnant, hell it's probably impossible not to find someone in that series to be so, regardless of one's morality, but the story isn't about any one character and thus you can appreciate the story regardless of your views on character.

There are also novels with evil/villain MCs that are worthwhile because of the story/plot that makes use of it. But a character driven novel focused on one character with a radical ideological stance, which some people promote based on that stance, is gonna filter a lot more people that just any novel with MC whose morality you find repulsive/disagreeably.


>>20382544
I'm sure that it makes sense in your head somehow, but back in reality things like >>20382349 are still degeneracy at the level that makes LGBT advocacy for genital mutilation of minors look moral by comparison. At least those morons believe they are doing someone other than themselves a favour.

[Shiller No.20382605]

>>20382567
>Example.

Unironically, why would I care? Ten minutes of effort for him, I skimmed it with my eyes in less than 10 seconds and automatically discarded it as not relevant to my interests. If there's a janitor who sees that the same IP keeps spamming stuff, then just let him ban the spammer later and ignore. A fly that buzzes around my head does more damage to my psyche that random few bekker posts. That spammer is literally less capable than a bug.

[Anonymous No.20382611]

>>20382604
Isn't RI third person?

[Anonymous No.20382612]

>>20382602
No, I find Fang Yuan boring. His motives, personality, everything about him, is just boring.

[Anonymous No.20382616]

>>20382568
That could be an interesting concept, have a standard litrpg isekai xiaxia where the protag is a pure evil psychopathic serial killer, but the system only rewards altruistic selflessness and so he's driven by his lust for power to be the most ruthlessly efficient righteous cultivator possible.
You run the risk of it degenerating to utilitarianism though, with the MC calculating the system rewards to maximize the tradeoff between good and evil. That itself could be interesting but doesn't really scream "pinnacle of morality".
So maybe it's a contagious system where it rewards him for the actions and strength/number of his followers, and rewards them for the same thing, so the optimal strategy is to create as many righteous disciples as possible and have them also create as many righteous disciples as possible, with there being cripplingly terrible punishments even for someone several steps down committing an offense so every layer has to be extremely selective and careful in who they teach and it's far too dangerous for him to recruit other people like himself who'll try to play the numbers, and then very difficult to get any of those extremely righteous disciples to bend their principles to aid him in minmaxing utility without extremely convincing arguments and dire consequences for failure.

[Anonymous No.20382618]

>>20382552
> I've been here for over a month and not once was I derailed or frustrated by the Bekker stuff.
You wouldn't know what it was like when it was truly bad then. There used to be 2 or 3 of them just as autistic as the current spammer and they would gas each other up with their posts. Threads would be derailed continuously for months at a time. We're very fortunate someone who uses /sffg/ chose to become a janitor recently.

[Anonymous No.20382623]

>>20382616
I like the idea because it could lead to him faking it until he makes it. Taking moral actions that don't reward him, at first just to keep up appearances, then he realises it's becoming his first instinct, etc. It's a nice concept.

[Anonymous No.20382625]

>>20382616
>You run the risk of it degenerating to utilitarianism though, with the MC calculating the system rewards to maximize the tradeoff between good and evil
Just have it arbitrated by an actual intelligence a-la "The Court of Heaven" or w/e and have said intelligence actively do everything it can to discourage utilitarianism
Fatish tags: forced reformation, un-corruption

[Shiller No.20382628]

>>20382602
>RI is not a comedy, it is mostly action/adventure if described by western standards. Mc is almost constantly on the move doing things, I wouldnt call it boring.
Reverend Insanity is only not boring if your mind was broken under the strain of handing chinese webnovels, thus ending up no longer bothered by the fact every chapter spends half its time recounting the events of the previous one, or just talking about the same stuff over and over. And don't make me start about the math, holy shit the math. The author HAS TO keep talking about how using ONE thing in addition with the SECOND thing ends up as ANOTHER thing. Or that having 60% cultivation talent with 10% bonus, ends up with, you would never guess, 70% TALENT.

For people who didn't read Reverend Insanity, I am not exaggerating, such simple math being done over and over again is what actually happens, and you can feel your brain cells killing themselves in real time while reading this. From what I've seen it's some weird chinese thing to do, but a sane man cannot stand it without suffering brain hemorrhage.

[Anonymous No.20382632]

>>20382628
>and you can feel your brain cells killing themselves in real time while reading this.
So, like The wandering Inn?

[Anonymous No.20382636]

>>20382604
>I'm sure that it makes sense in your head somehow, but back in reality things like
That is why I said if you disregard his evil side. He is hardworking, focused, caring, calm and collected, intelligent, he plans ahead, respectful and polite to his elders, strong willed, ruthless (which can also be positive quality), he is even slightly above average looking.

[Anonymous No.20382637]

>>20382636
the model chinaman

[Anonymous No.20382638]

>>20382636
My problem with most villain protagonists is I'd rather they just be compellingly written antagonists because I still want to see them fail.

[Anonymous No.20382639]

>>20382623
>>20382625
At that point just have it be a "grandpa ring" with the soul of a powerful cultivator who's extremely careful about helping the MC and establishes as many checks on his power as possible.
You could even have a final arc where the MC, who appeared to be reformed, reveals he was just scheming the entire time and betrays everyone after killing his mentor, but then the entire world wide system of righteous cultivator's he's personally created is more powerful than he is and defeats him before he can take over the world.

[Anonymous No.20382642]

>>20382639
That feels like a shitty way to end it unless you've built up a secondary protagonist as the true good guy. Just... Just have character development to be less shitty.

[Anonymous No.20382654]

>>20382642
What if it's the other way around, the grandpa in the ring was actually ALSO evil like the MC, which is why he chose the MC. All the restrictions and morality/etc was just a cover story he made so that the cultivators who killed him would never suspect it was him and was secretly just plotting to restore his body and take revenge.
But then the MC, even though he was originally evil and would have gone along with it for personal benefit sacrifices himself to defeat his mentor for no personal gain just to preserve the world he's created.

[Anonymous No.20382655]

>>20382638
Why?

[Anonymous No.20382656]

>>20382637
I guess being competent and capable is too an outdated, too white and too male concept in the west.

[Anonymous No.20382661]

>>20382591
>natural world is amoral
That's a common take but it's not true exactly, morality is function of ethics, that is to say of human ideological decision making. But human ideologies aren't based on whim alone, they are derived from conflict with environment, each other, and within our own decision making.

If you want to map morality on animals it's entirely possible to find that they have morality, in fact they have different takes on morality, on their decision making that is. Morality of a lion, a ram, a wolf and a parasitic cuckoo are different because their decision making is different.

Going back to humans if we go by what you are advocating and apply it then every child should be strangled on birth because they are weak and require support, and thus a waste. It is not hard to see why such an ideology would be self destructive for not just society but a biological species as a whole.


>>20382611
That's the issue with talking about novel I only have an impression of, and not one I've read for myself, kek. But what I meant by first person about web novels isn't just about chosen tense but the fact that perspective, camera, if you will, is always focused on the MC rather than presenting world trough multiple viewpoints.

Again, feel free to correct me about RI not being in this mold, this issue is by no means exclusive to RI but applicable to WN as a whole - a lot of them focus heavily on MC to exclusion of all else and thus if you don't like MC you won't like the novel. Whereas more traditional literature that focuses on plot or has multiple perspectives can be appealing even if MC is not.

[Anonymous No.20382662]

>>20382655
Because I like to see villains lose. It's one thing to have a ruthless protagonist who's neutral at best, because you can still sympathise with them, but protagonists that go out of their way to be awful never feel TOO sympathetic to me.

[Anonymous No.20382665]

>>20382656
a high-functioning psychopath is 100% a model chinaman

[Anonymous No.20382677]

>>20382662
Seems reasonable enough.

[Anonymous No.20382686]

>>20382677
It's a balance thing. I'm sure I could enjoy a villain protagonist to a point, especially in more absurd settings. But there comes a point where I just go "I wanna see this guy lose", and that's where me wanting these characters to just be compellingly written antagonists comes into play.

[Anonymous No.20382690]

>>20382686
No, Insee your point and understand it, I have those same feelings as well.

[Anonymous No.20382693]

>>20382661
>every child should be strangled on birth because they are weak and require support, and thus a waste
Abandoned at birth. Strangling is a waste of effort.

[Anonymous No.20382702]

>>20382693
You are right, thank you for the correction, kek.

[Anonymous No.20382708]

>>20382661
>strangle newborns
That's a strawman if ever I've heard one, but some people LITERALLY DO kill their own children for personal benefit, it's called abortion.

And RI has several side characters with different motivation, characters, morality, worldview, etc... some one which are as important and prevalent as Fang Yuan, but 95% of the story sticks to him like glue and you only see their stories from when they overlap with his and occasional brief interludes where the pov changes. Though an important note is that about half of the other characters are MUCH MORE EVIL than Fang Yuan, to show you the difference between his "anything that works" philosophy and those who actively despise humanity and live for the sole purpose of exterminating them. This too ranges from "alternate morality" like beastmen who aren't human at all, to literal death cultists who worship killing. The other half is vary shades of "good" as well, from the somewhat selfish but in general beneficial bureaucrat to the selfless martyr who lives only for the benefit of others. There's even a few characters who, from different points of view, fit into multiple categories at once "what happens if a selfless martyr who only wants to save his people isn't human and finds out the humans plan to genocide all of them" style.

[Anonymous No.20382710]

I read these YA novels when I was young but I cannot remember the name. They were very surreal in their depiction of a dystopian world.
The one thing I really remember was sail driven overland ships that launched tiny manned corvettes at each other in combat.
There was another arc inside of a walled city and I think it had to do with saving an orphaned infant or something.
Anyways, if this rings a bell I'd appreciate any help.

[Anonymous No.20382716]

>>20382708
>abortion for personal benefit
not even for personal benefit, it's become a weird death cult for some american identitarians

[Anonymous No.20382721]

>>20382716
seethe

[Anonymous No.20382724]

>>20382710
Mortal Engines
it has a shitty movie

[Anonymous No.20382732]

>>20382708
>That's a strawman if ever I've heard one
Nah anon. Straw man is misrepresentation of the argument, I've done no such thing I believe. It logically follow from what you seem to be are advocating. If weak beings are bad or worthless, then it stands to reason to get rid of kids, as they are by nature weak.

[Anonymous No.20382754]

>>20382662
Any examples you can think of?

[Anonymous No.20382757]

>>20382732
That is correct and it is a perfectly usable stance on morality in a book of fiction

[Anonymous No.20382759]

Just ordered The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, Can't wait to read it I've heard great things. What do you guys think of the book? Do you like it?

[Anonymous No.20382761]

>>20382754
Of what?

[Anonymous No.20382764]

>>20382759
It insists on itself.

[Anonymous No.20382767]

>>20382761
ruthless protagonist who's neutral at best, because you can still sympathise with them

[Anonymous No.20382775]

>>20382759
>female author
yikes

[Anonymous No.20382776]

>>20382764
Any reasons why you feel that way?

[Anonymous No.20382779]

>>20382767
I'm struggling to think of a recent example, but it's fairly common for protagonists these days to care more about their close circle than any particular ideals. They're good to their friends and loved ones, etc, but neutral to most and ruthless to any opponent.

[Anonymous No.20382782]

>>20382732
I said "the strong benefit by exploiting the weak", and you fail to see the concept of the superorganism, there's such a thing as "purely selfish altruism" and is even a somewhat popular explanation for human behaviour. Strangling your own children doesn't benefit you(ignoring succession struggles, abortions, and abandonment which frequently occurred throughout history), because your children strongly benefit you socially(the man with more sons is richer and more powerful than his neighbor), and to a certain genetic extent ARE you.

The basic question of RI is "but what about if you can become an immortal god-wizard?" and the realization that if one man can stand alone against all others "selfish altruism" gets thrown into the trash and there's absolutely no barrier to the most heinous depths of immorality save for the limits of imagination and personal benefit.
In reality you protect your children so they'll assist you in acquiring riches and support you in your old age. But what if you don't age, can fight an entire army by yourself, have unlimited riches, and the only threat in the entire world to you is your own children growing up and killing you?
Suddenly things are different.

[Anonymous No.20382784]

>>20382776
It have very common messages and tackle themes that are almost dead horses at this point, but seem to think they're the first ones to realize

[Anonymous No.20382789]

>>20382767
Define neutral. It's entirely possible to think of Fang Yuan is neutral, or even good depending on the scope. Sure he tortures a few hundred people to death, but most of them were assholes or going to die anyway.
Honestly, if he weren't so apathetic towards his won actions I think he could probably play up justifications for everything he does enough for most readers to not notice.
It's only because he's so matter of fact and shameless about it that he appears worse than the average xiaxia MC.
Many "heroic" webnovel MCs have killed as many, if not several orders of magnitudes more, people as Fang Yuan.

[Anonymous No.20382791]

>>20382789
Not going to read your shit story.

[Anonymous No.20382796]

>>20382791
I don't care.

[Anonymous No.20382798]

>>20382754
Not him but I think there are several common ways to make Villian or Ruthless protag work. First and most obvious is "Evil" vs "Evil". In fact by the sound of it from people who like RI it seems to rely on it. Secondly you have plot focused novels, where MC's character isn't the driving force of the novel but only the perspective through which we view the plot/story which drives the novel. After that we got multiple perspective to get away from being married to one particular value set.

I can probably think of a number of other solutions but it's getting late.

>>20382757
Think we went past fiction part a couple posts ago. If we are to return to it, then we return to the problem of a character with such ethics being linchpin of a novel resulting in a novel driven by such ethics. Which filters people, hard, and with good reason.

[Anonymous No.20382801]

>>20382782
Sorry anon but it really is getting late around here and I'm tired, so I'll not be responding to this post.

[Anonymous No.20382805]

>>20382367
>The Wandering Inn,
But that is utter shit. I'm not reading 2000+ pages of Volume 1 and Volume 2 for it to "get good" in volume three. Fuck that shit.

[Anonymous No.20382807]

>>20382134
When does MW go off the deep end?

[Anonymous No.20382810]

>>20382798
Evil vs. Evil is the main one that I can sometimes enjoy, but those tend to be kind of hopeless worlds and I'm never too fond of them.

[Anonymous No.20382813]

>>20382807
Chapter 2.

[Anonymous No.20382817]

>>20382767
Heaven's Laws: Prodigies has an entire plotline revolving around if male MC is ruthless enough to pair with femMC as she rises to the apex of cultivation.

[Anonymous No.20382829]

>>20382779
That’s fine take your time.

>>20382817
Thanks.

[Shiller No.20382837]

>>20382805
>But that is utter shit. I'm not reading 2000+ pages of Volume 1 and Volume 2 for it to "get good" in volume three. Fuck that shit.
Volumes 1 and 2 aren't bad, they are not as good as the later ones. But they are still better than 90% oft he webnovels you will see. I keep saying to not expect incredible story from the very beginning to not dissapoint people, but those volumes are still more than decent. Honestly, it's baffling how people keep recommending Practical Guide to Evil, yet its first book is worse than The Wandering Inn's first book. Suddenly people don't have a problem with saying that the first book isn't as good as the rest. For fuck's sake, even Pratchett's Discworld is not great at first, it gets much better at the 4+ book. And still the first ones are good enough to be enjoyed, just as early TWI.

[Anonymous No.20382842]

>>20382837
The wandering Inn is terrible tk the point that even the author had to retcon shit later on.

[Anonymous No.20382843]

>>20382829
Well, an example I recently read is Dungeon Crawler Carl. I'd hesitate to call him truly neutral, he's clearly got a righteous fury thing going on, but he's perfectly willing to kill NPCs in the dungeon as he thinks it's for the best for them, because they'll just be mindwiped and repurposed if they live, and he actively antagonises basically anybody that isn't a fellow Crawler because he's pissed as hell about being forced into this awful situation. He's erring more on barely good, but with a flaw towards anger and overly quick decisions. He's a generally good person to all the friends he makes, but he's a fairly terrifying enemy. For reference, he makes a promise to kill every single hunter (outside-the-dungeon person joining the dungeon to kill Crawlers) that comes to the sixth floor (the floor where they show up on, and they can die for real if they're killed there compared to other floors out-of-dungeon people can show up in). The average mortality rate for hunters is 2-3%. Carl winds up making it 100%, beginning the floor with teleporting to their city and setting off a bomb that kills a bunch of them and even more NPCs. Ruthless, ultimately more moral than immoral, but still really fucked-up on some levels, though he's admittedly self-aware.

[Anonymous No.20382848]

>>20382843
I’ll probably get around reading that, review about it have been okayish so far

[Anonymous No.20382856]

>>20382848
I'm admittedly a guy who likes moral protagonists, so I don't have many examples of 'neutral-at-best' ones that I like.

[Anonymous No.20382858]

>>20382856
Again, anon. It’s okay. Dungeon crawler Carl is fine.

[Anonymous No.20382871]

>>20381698
>I never heard of Wheel of Time
the kind of people who browse this thread, now I guess, actual children

[Anonymous No.20382876]

>>20382807
It is gradual but it really starts when he ascends to the higher world. After that every trial, every training session just becomes tiresome and boring. Going to train into that other world with its own laws of magic (forgot the name) was terrible part in the story, then towards the end it just gets worse and worse.

[Anonymous No.20382877]

>>20382871
Either that, or someone trying to bait.

[Anonymous No.20382896]

>>20382876
Cool. I'll keep an eye out. I'm the anon 500something chapters in, at the start of Skysplit Tower floor 3.

[Anonymous No.20382905]

Shiller bro, I'm about to start Volume 4 but I've noticed that it starts with like 200 pages of Flos
Is it good? I really don't feel very motivated to continue reading at the moment
I feel like pirate went overboard at the end of Volume 3 with the slice of life and it's gonna be just pure "story" for way too long now

[Shiller No.20382910]

>>20382905
It’s down hill from there.

[Anonymous No.20382913]

>>20382843
Sounds pretty based.

[Anonymous No.20382923]

>>20382896
There are still plenty of good parts waiting.

[Anonymous No.20382926]

I have shilled Human Emperor xanxia/litprg webnovel? Has anyone atleast attempted to read it?

[Anonymous No.20382933]

>>20382926
Fuck off ESL chink

[Anonymous No.20382934]

>>20382926
Doubt it. That Reverend Insanity shill has been here for months and almost no one had read his shitty story.

[Anonymous No.20382935]

>>20382913
Yeah, he's honestly pretty compelling, and the world-building is interesting. It's clear that while Carl is a major player in the current Crawl, he's at most a blip on the radar for the movers and shakers for the most part. My major complaint is how generically shitty all the bad Crawlers are. Quan is just a kill-stealing shitter, Eva was crazy because crazy, we didn't see enough of her to really justify her being so absolutely awful, Maggie and Frank were duped and then Maggie went psycho for Carl accidentally causing the death of her daughter to an absurd degree, Hekla was actually okay but still stupid to attempt what she did, I'm at least interested in whatever the fuck Lucia's deal is. It's not something that affects things too much but it's still annoying to me because I'd like to see some more 'human' conflict, even as much as I like the united front of humanity approach. I want Carl to have to deal with a Crawler opposing him who has at least a semblance of a point because while he's ultimately pretty justified in his actions, he does need to be challenged on them at least somewhat.

[Anonymous No.20382950]

>>20382935
Sounds like the author couldn’t get everything right, but as long as it doesn’t detract from the story. It should be fine.

[Anonymous No.20382966]

This has been one of the most pozzed threads in awhile, we need King Bakker to make the thread pure once again

[Anonymous No.20382972]

>>20382950
Yeah, it's one of the best LitRPG things I've read, and it's just genuinely a really good read. Author does seem to rely a bit too much on "Teehee Carl has a plan but I'm not telling you what it is until it's relevant", which is... Eh, even though most of his plans go wrong anyway. I suppose you can infer a lot of the details about his plans anyway, from the dialogue, but it just feels disingenuous, especially given it's a first-person narration. He never outright lies, but occasionally he obfuscates.

[Anonymous No.20382980]

>>20382972
So, essentially an unreliable narrator? Or something of the sorts?

[Anonymous No.20382989]

>>20382972
I think it’s the author trying to be cheeky. I could be wrong. I see it all the time when it comes to stories written in first person.

[Anonymous No.20383003]

>>20382980
Not quite. He's perfectly reliable, it just feels more like the hand of the author omitting things until you can learn them, because I guess to fulfill the narrative trope of "plans can only go right if the audience doesn't know of them ahead of time". Sometimes it's just to avoid infodumps, I assume, but sometimes it feels a little grating. Again, small critiques, nothing that kills it for me. I also generally enjoy the contrast of how serious every Crawler is, excepting a few, against how absurdist and 'meme-y' the Dungeon itself is.

[Anonymous No.20383004]

>>20382972
>Teehee Carl has a plan but I'm not telling you what it is until it's relevant"
Is it cringy or bearable?

[Anonymous No.20383008]

>>20383003
I'll take your word for it.

[Anonymous No.20383011]

>>20382989
I get that, and it was fine the couple times it showed up in book 4, but book 5 did it with so many things. We get a lot of ideas of what things ARE in the works, but little context for what they are because the context was omitted.

[Anonymous No.20383017]

Never thought I’ll see a thread go to 500 posts.

[Anonymous No.20383023]

>>20383004
It's pretty bearable, and arguably great because it helps mirror the double-take the people affected by the plan have at its best, but the act of having so much of Carl's plans being obviously there but he's just conveniently avoiding mentioning too many details in his own narration makes it feel a bit 'hand of the author'.

[Anonymous No.20383034]

>>20383017
such is the power of litrpg autism

[Anonymous No.20383037]

New thread
>>20383035

[Anonymous No.20383040]

>>20383017
Not to mention over 120 IP.

[Anonymous No.20383043]

>>20383023
>but the act of having so much of Carl's plans being obviously there but he's just conveniently avoiding mentioning too many details in his own narration makes it feel a bit 'hand of the author'.
I know what you mean, but as long as it doesn't affect the story in anyway, it should be fine.

[Anonymous No.20383046]

>>20383037
Fucking finally

[Anonymous No.20383049]

>>20383046
New threads are made at page 10.

[Anonymous No.20383060]

>>20383034
It’s nice. This thread is finally discussing stories.

[Anonymous No.20383065]

>>20383043
Yeah, fair enough. It's something I more see in hindsight now I've read every book, and it was fine when it was just
>So we made a plan
>Cut to next chapter, they're doing the plan and Carl only backfills it in when necessary
That's great, I enjoyed that, but when it was a huge multi-step plan and we're privy to practically nothing until it comes into being, it feels a little odd.

[Anonymous No.20383070]

>>20383065
>That's great, I enjoyed that, but when it was a huge multi-step plan and we're privy to practically nothing until it comes into being, it feels a little odd.
Ah, now that's a bit different, a bit more understandable, I think that author could have discuss the plan with different characters if he wanted to avoid infodump.

[Anonymous No.20383085]

>>20383065
>>20383070
This. Author should at least discuss it with the group in-story, if only for a bit.

[Anonymous No.20383097]

>>20383070
Well, for example, the latest book has a multi-step plan for the climax. Carl admittedly knows he's planning from pretty incomplete info, so it's a shaky plan and he's basically just got a lot of contigencies for what to do if it goes wrong. We're privy to none of the planning until after the climax is underway, and we start seeing snppets of the planning discussions at the start of chapters before they come to fruition (or have been so derailed that they're doing something else with the components), and while there are vague references to them discussing a plan and some details are mentioned here and there, you're at most left to infer some key parts. It's not awful, but it feels disingenuous when so much is hidden from the reader when so little is hidden otherwise.

[Anonymous No.20383102]

>>20383097
>We're privy to none of the planning until after the climax is underway, and we start seeing snppets of the planning discussions at the start of chapters before they come to fruition (or have been so derailed that they're doing something else with the components), and while there are vague references to them discussing a plan and some details are mentioned here and there, you're at most left to infer some key parts. It's not awful, but it feels disingenuous when so much is hidden from the reader when so little is hidden otherwise.
I can see how that gets annoying if the authors just keep repeating it often. I hope he/she gets over it, or changed things up.

[Shiller No.20383105]

>>20382905
>Shiller bro, I'm about to start Volume 4 but I've noticed that it starts with like 200 pages of Flos
>Is it good? I really don't feel very motivated to continue reading at the moment
>I feel like pirate went overboard at the end of Volume 3 with the slice of life and it's gonna be just pure "story" for way too long now

You are entering so called 'Flos Wall of early V4.' Putting so much Flos at the start of V4 was probably a mistake by Pirate, but it's the most important Chandrar arc in the early TWI, after this you won't see Flos for a loooooooong time, or at least not for longer than a single chapter somewhere in V5, I thing. The most important thing is after you are done with this arc, you are about to experience the start of the REAL TWI, V4 being basically the end of the prologue. Flos Wall is the last hurdle before the truly juicy stuff.

Personally, I like this arc, it has some memorable scenes that people still mention to this day, like the conversation about Hitler . if you didn't like Chandrar plotline before, it's possible you will with this series of chapters. There is action and important reveals, especially at the end, giving the plotline its own identity and goals. Some people like this, some don't, but this kickstarts this plotline to something more than just 'that annoying Chandrar plotline that takes me from reading about Erin.' Don't worry about slice of life, the ratio of them doesn't change significantly for a longer time than you'd care to know, just enjoy the story, and remember, if you find something really boring then just skim a bit.

In the extreme case you read the first chapter of the arc and REALLY cannot bear to read longer, then just skip to 4.05K, this way you will read only the conclusion. The next chapter, 4.06KM is not a Flos chapter, but one amazing (in my opinion) scene that concludes the arc and makes Trey as a character. The rest of the chapter is Izril stuff.

Enjoy!

[Anonymous No.20383109]

>>20383102
It might've just been a 'that floor' thing, because the planning in the book prior was more "we're privy to the overt plan Carl has, even if we didn't see the discussion he's open about the details because that's a fake plan meant to throw the people watching off and he then does a similar but different plan to catch them off guard". It's fine, but it's an annoying mark on an otherwise really good series.

[Anonymous No.20383127]

>>20383109
Sounds like there’s a reason for it, though again, I don’t know how much it can hold up if it’s down repeatedly. Though again, I’ll have to read it and fine out myself. Thanks again.

[Anonymous No.20383132]

>>20383127
Fair enough, it might just be something that bugs me specifically and other people won't mind at all. I still enjoy the overall plot, and Carl is still an enjoyable character for just being this slow burn into a righteous anarchist crusader of vengeance.

[Anonymous No.20383139]

>>20383105
Thanks for the heads up.

[Anonymous No.20383147]

>>20383132
Yeah, but thanks for discussing it. It seems interesting so far and looks like I’ll enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.20383152]

>>20383147
Have fun, it's genuinely surprising how entertaining it ended up being for me. Based on the rate things are going there's gonna be... Quite a few more books so I hope the author can keep it going that long, but we'll see.

[Anonymous No.20383157]

>>20383152
I will, thanks again for reviewing it and discussing it here.

[Anonymous No.20383172]

>>20383037
Thread is off to a poor start.

[Anonymous No.20383183]

>>20383172
Shitposters just can't wait to shit up the new thread.