What are you reading at the moment?

Well it is a Russian novel, In fayroll the harbor master is a homophobe from the dark ages (aka hit those man loving fairies with a stick until they bleed! They're after me arse I tells ya, me arse!) and it's played off casually, not even a joke character or whatever. How is the Dark Paladin? I heard the translation is sub par compared to his way of the shaman books.

 

Dark Paladin started out okay, but I regret spending money on book 2. It started bad and only got worse from there, and I definitely won’t be picking up book 3.

 

Yeah. Book #1 wasn't bad, I liked the idea of turning the normal premise around by making us the NPCs. But that thing with the prostitute annoyed me enough that I couldn't really like Judge McJudgerson much after that, so I've dropped it. As for the translation, I didn't have much of a problem with it but then I've just been reading Legendary Midnight Sculptor so a translator with the abilities of a dyslexic chimpanzee would be a welcome relief.

Anyways, I've started with Opening Moves (The Gam3 #1) by Cosimo Yap and so far, so good.

 

I tried so hard to like this book. I really did. I tried six times to get past chapter one and failed every time.

 

I couldn't get past chapter three in that. The premise is so condescendingly stupid that I felt personally insulted by it.

A pro gamer, PRO gamer, is loaned 10 million dollars for a capsule to play this game. The most popular game on earth for the past 10 years.

1. He goes in without even looking up basic info about the game.
2. Doesn't know how to even play anything, even at the basic level.
3. knows nothing about this game that EVERYONE in his world has been playing for 10 years now.
4. Acts like the loan is no big deal and it's all just a game to him, other characters shout and shout about how important the game is yet the MC never acts as such.
5. He creates an AI to help him in game, that's cheating.
6. The AI is the puppet master and the MC is the puppet.
7. The AI is ANNOYING!

And this is three chapters XD

 

I just finished Paperbacks From Hell - about trashy pulp horror novels from the 70's and 80's, and man was it a frolick down memory lane! I ate this stuff up when I was a kid, would read it, have nightmares for a few days, then go back for more. And as much as I like being able to carry hundreds of books around on a kindle, I miss those paperbacks with the embossed, foil-bedecked, die cut covers and hyper-realistically rendered creepy artwork (that started falling apart just about the moment you bought them), which probably influenced my taste in art quite a bit. It was usually an arms race between me reading them (usually hiking out in the woods first so I wouldn't be bothered) and my mom throwing them away.

When I was in 5th grade I won a Halloween story-writing contest and the prize was getting to order any book I wanted through the school library. My choice: Stephen King's The Dead Zone, the only King book the local library didn't have. The school librarians were concerned about letting me have a 'scary' book but by that point I'd read so much pulp trash it was like, oh honey, you have no idea.

 

I LOVED book #1 and I am loving book #2 so far as well. I love a good sci fi adventure and this gives that in spades. Plus, the MC isn't too far away from how I would do things. Why work hard when you can have a smart AI feed you the answers? Seriously, it's scary how much his decisions make sense to me, from his choice of class and his skills to the guild he joins and the quests he completes.

After the last two forays into LitRPG (Legendary Moonlight Sculpture and Dark Paladin), The Gam3 is exactly what I needed: The Matrix meets Ninjas meets The Shooter. I'm only sorry there are only two books out so far.

5/5.

 

Recently finished Steven Brust's most recent Vlad Taltos novel, Vallista.

Overall it was a disappointment. Not a lot of action, although always snappy dialogue and some background information for those interested how the world works, etc. It was mostly Vlad wandering around, trapped in a magical mansion, talking to servants and a few 'important' characters, trying to figure a way out for himself and a girl (tied in from previous novels).

 

I loved book #1 of The Gam3 and enjoyed book #2 enough that I will be looking forward to book #3. I found that a lot of the objections mentioned were either answered in the books, or simply didn't matter to me. For instance, I didn't see him having an AI as cheating, nor did I find the AI annoying. If any player can create an AI and enter the game I think any player who DOESN'T is an idiot. Of course, this is just my opinion and besides, I like sci-fi

Started Mirror World and I'm on book #2. I quite like it, despite the fact that there is almost no action. It's a pretty decent story, told fairly well, so I'm interested to see what happens next.

 

I started the Coiling Dragon series by fantasy/kung fu writer I Eat Tomatoes （我吃西红柿）. In the beginning I wasn't certain what all the fuss was about but they really do get better as the series progresses. On book 8 now and it's fricking awesome. It reminds me a lot of the Cradle series by Will Wight, probably my favourite fantasy series I discovered and read last year. Also, quite a few elements that should be interesting for LitRPG authors, with levels that warriors and mages can achieve through training and meditation, special attacks and spells granted with each level, and secret breathing techniques that help combatants enhance their energy to create more powerful attacks, not to mention magical beasts and in some cases the ability to transform.

Check out Wuxiaworld to find out more.
http://www.wuxiaworld.com/cdindex-html/

 

Dungeon Lord
By Hugo Huesca

Disclaimer. I was binge reading Terry Pratchett for the past few month. I am now officially spoiled as other books that I've attempted to read recently don't match up.


Ok so this book has an interesting mixture of things. Edward is your typical white bread nerd protagnist. He has a crappy job, a crappy boss and a crappy life. One day he was playing an outdated -they call it rogue-like but describe it as a dungeon crawler type of game- called Ivalis and the raid on the dungeon was successful with the boss defeated.

This is when I my logic sense start tingling. The whole story is started off by

1. Them killing the final boss of the game/dungeon and the game needing a replacement for him. Three guesses as to who and if you need guess two and three then you've lost this game! Yep it's Santa Clause rules.

2. They have their boss playing in their party. They don't know the guy except from work and they hate his guts... who does that? who plays MMOs with their boss unless they have a personal relationship with him (or is trying to establish one).

The boss throws a hissy fit over not being the star of the raid and... this I could never get out of my head, he told the protagonist off (the guy is just a sales rep) then told him to go inform one of their teammates that she's fired because she didn't heal him in time... because you know that's how that works, random people you work with walk up to you and tell you to pack up, wrongful termination is not a thing anymore.

Because protagonist lost his temper and he might be charged with assault he was... actually this part isn't clear so I'm going to say magikkkkkkked away into the game as a level one dungeon lord to start his new life in the game.

Again there is a damsel, again he rushes to her aid.

Thing is the book keeps contradicting itself.

How about selling your heart for power?
Sure but I will use that power for good!
Errrr the power is from the dark lord and you won't have your heart, you are free to use it as you like though. no strings attached.
FOR GOOD! I spit in the eye of your lord... but I'll take the power of course.

I'm not even sure why that part is in there. He's playing the classic white knight so why the drama to set him up as a bad apple or anti-hero? It doesn't even come into play later which is weird because the pact scene was very graphic and detailed

Once in the game it plays more like a fantasy with minor rpg elements, thing is even the abilities he was given contradict themselves. One of them is similar to the rpg ability identify enemy. In his case it works on some people (normal) not on others that will themselves not to be identifiable or plot, just plot, you can't view them.

Now I like that he starts off weak but the way this book is written to contradict itself within the same sentence is giving me twitches.

My favorite :- kobalts attack girl, Protagonist's only weapon is a starter stick. He thinks ok, this situation calls for an outside the box solution.

Grabs the nearest kobalt

Let us go or this guy gets it!

Genius, you are a genius good sir. Well done...

Summery :-

I thought this would REALLY suck. It didn't, it's not even half bad. More that the little things that started to annoy me just piled up. The writer has potential and with some polish I think something great can come from him. The book suffers from lack of commitment. It's fine to have your protagnist be a classic hero type, but why give him a dark origin story if it doesn't come to play in the plot or affect his personality in any way? The perspective is that of the protagonist, except when it shifts to some else's randomly. Not even to further the narrative or for a joke, it just does then goes back to protagonist.

3 out of 5 stars.

 

wait if the game is so important how is he makeing money off another game? like really what is he playing?

 

I really like mirror world because of the MC being unable to do much but once the removed it it started being a much worse book

 

wait if all i have to do for power is get a pacemaker thats a great deal

 

in gam3? never mentioned. They just tell you he's a pro gamer and people fall over themselves to loan him the money to get into "THE GAME", he doesn't even apply or anything they go to him with 10 million dollars worth of gear and set it all up in his apartment. all he has to do is play...

Because PLOT!

 

started Conor Kostick's Epic today and am on chapter 8. I'm loving it so far. I am also a couple chapters into Headshot 2. To be fair, I'm a slow reader and am listening to Conor's Epic on audio. I am liking both at the moment. Next up is Hellions, which I did start but hadnt gotten far in when I got a code from Connor so I put his as priority.

 

Finished the Coiling Dragon series by I Eat Tomatoes and it is FANTASTIC. Twenty-one books in the series and there wasn't a moment that I wanted to pause or take a break. In fact, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and start reading again until the sun came up and I had to get ready for the day. Epic story, epic characters, epic battles. Also, mega points to the translator who did a wonderful job.

Watched a few episodes of The King's Avatar again the other day and decided to check out the light novels just for the fun of it. Thought it would be something to keep me busy for a while, just some light reading until I found something else. Instead, I'm getting sucked into it! Obviously they had to streamline the anime quite a bit to create a decent story arc in just 12 episodes so there are a lot more detail and background in the books. Sadly, the translation isn't up to the same standard as Coiling Dragon. Fortunately, it's not nearly as bad as The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. Just finished the first King's Avatar book, The Banished Battle God, and it was a solid (admittedly, slightly biased) 4/5 stars for me.

 

Just finished Halcyon 2 and another read of The Divine Dungeon, and I have to say again how much I loved the series.

Next up: No idea.

 

I couldn't resist this just from the title: Trash Tier Dungeon.

Arden is a dungeon sprite with a nasty attitude who's given an ultimatum: get a trash tier dungeon shipshape in two months, or die. The dungeon, Minette, has only spawned four cuddly "workercats" and is more interested in watching them adorably play in their monster lounges than breeding monsters and setting traps to kill adventurers - the usual dungeon core thing, you know. So we've got a bossy, short-tempered, bloodthirsty sprite with a sword of Damocles hnging over her head and an unmotivated, kind of airheaded dungeon, and to add to the pressure, Arden accidentally-on-purpose created a m