What are you reading at the moment?

The battle to get the thread back on track begins here!

 

So, I dropped Martial God Asura after 70 chapters and started I Shall Seal The Heavens (ISSTH).

Strengths for ISSTH:
Written well.
Competent translator and proofreader.
MC relies on a mix of strength and wit, not just his ridiculous OPness, which already makes him more interesting.

Weaknesses:
He's found a weapon that can make animals' butts explode, I shit you not confused.

 

Kinda like Jean Claude Van Damme as Jean Claude Van Damme in Jean Claude Van Johnson? Which is actually a show that exists on Amazon, by the way.

On topic:

A weapon that makes animals butts explode? Wha? How? Why even?!

 

That completely freaked me out and for a chapter or two I reconsidered reading the series. Thank goodness I stuck with it! Turns out this is one of those authors you should just trust and go with the story. He explains the weapon's power pretty well a bit later on, after obviously enjoying the reader's panicked bewilderment. To summarise,

Spoiler

it has to do with agitating the Qi of living beings, which is located a couple of inches below and behind the navel. Weak beings like small animals have no defense against this kind of attack so the energy leaves the body explosively through the nearest exit...

Anyway, I'm now on book 3 and I have fallen in love with this series. Meng Hao, the main character, is by no means a perfect Western hero. He is at times petty and vindictive, and has no compunction in exploiting a situation if it will benefit him. This makes him more relatable to me, as he gets to be somewhat OP once the story gets started (which takes a while, this is no small world and there are quite a few characters). Fortunately, he has a talent for making enemies and pissing off really powerful people, so the fights and conflicts do not get too one-sided.

Have to mention the author's sense of humour. Besides the above, there were a few scenes where I snorted out loud in laughter and quite a few more where I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. The author has a real talent for creating humorous situations which plays off well against his character's nature, which can become rather merciless and cold-blooded.

 

What do you mean? I only read the first book in the Enders Game series and there are no 'different game worlds'? Just different challenges?

 

honestly i dont remember this is what i get for posting late at night

 

Afrikaans is great as a second language because it's fairly close to English . . . those rolled rrr's and the choking gargle for the "g" murder me, though.

 

Also: I feel bad for those small animals. I get my Qi manipulated the exact same way every time I eat a spicy curry.

 

Ha. Going to think about this every time I have a bunny chow from now on .

 

Hatchling I picked this one up because I enjoyed Fairburn's other book, Trash Tier Dungeon. I'm afraid this one wasn't quite as charming. There was a lot to like about it - it's well written, and the premise of a half PC/NPC character who struggles to control the glitchy powers she just learned she has is intriguing, as is the worldbuilding. To the NPCs, their god instructs them to work to gain favor points, without which they won't resurrect when killed by the frequent monster attacks on their town that the PCs are supposedly there to stop. The main character, Margot, is enraged to find out the PCs don't really care about saving the villagers, they're just there to kill monsters and level up, and they get more points by letting the monsters attack. They have absolutely no interest in going to the source of the beasts and actually stopping the attacks for good. So when Margot discovers her biological mom was a PC Beast-tamer and has left her a wyvern egg which hatches into an adorable little critter, she and her half-sister (who is full NPC) decides to make it their mission to destroy the source so the villagers can live in peace.

The main problem for me was Margot, who came across as a cold and unlikable person. She doesn't like her stepmother, but when the woman discovers she and her sis have been training at hunting monsters, she is horrified for a very good reason - if the sister doesn't do enough work and gets killed, she won't respawn, and is dead forever. Margot's reaction is aggressive and snarky to this completely reasonable and relatable fear. She's even thoughtless when caring for her wyvern - after buying him the flight skill, she thoughtlessly tosses him into the air and he falls and hits a rock. A watching character says it perfectly - "There's something wrong with you, you shouldn't throw your baby.". Margot's reaction? To tell the woman they're both cranky because they didn't get sleep, so she forgives her disagreeing with her. Doesn't seem to feel much guilt for injuring her small, trusting bond animal. It makes reading a slog despite the interesting setting. The book ends with the world just beginning to be explored, it's clearly just part one, so maybe Margot will get better further on.

 

That right there guarantees I will never read anything by this author. I have a thing about animals and won't read books with animal cruelty in them.

***

I'm happy to say I love the series I'm currently reading, I Shall Seal The Heavens. It started out as a web novel and every now and again the author, Er Gen, included a personal note at the end of a chapter.

 

Accidental Thief

The plot is your basic regular guy from our world gets pulled into a RPG-like fantasy world to save the day. In this case, Hal Dix's wife has taken their kid to see the grandparents for the weekend, and rather than do the chores she asked him to perform, he decides to unwind from a stressful day trying to get a promotion at work by playing the alleged pre-release of an upcoming game he bought at a flea market. Little does he know it's a spell crafted by the world's four last mages, who are desperate to stop a warlord taking over their realm and banning magic.

Hal pops into the world with almost nothing going for his character except for a huge Luck score, which is where he dumped all his extra points. He almost immediately gets framed for murdering one of the four wardens who rule the city after the warlord murdered all but one of the former aristocracy, and is tossed in jail, where he meets Kay, a teenage boy - a former aristo turned slave - who burns with vengeance for his slain family. The two team up to escape, and as Hal gradually levels up and learns how to use his Luck, they become vigilantes taking down the wardens one by one. Hal's initial goal is that reclaiming the city will surely attract the attention of the mages, who he hopes will send him home, but he does begin to care for the people he meets and genuinely want to root out evil.

The book has a complete plot with room for more stories, but no obnoxious cliffhangers that make you feel like you just paid for 1/3 of a story. The writing is good, the setting is well-realized with lots of details, and colorful side characters. The "secret" of Kay's identity is pretty obvious way before it's actually revealed, but to the author's credit it doesn't really change Hal's relationship with Kay, or derail the plot in any way you might expect it to. Sometimes the author leans a little too hard on contrived co-incidences to feed Hal information, such as being in the right place at the exact right time to hear a important conversation, but this can be excused as the world being game-like rather than grittily realistic, and it keeps events rolling along so this is a fast read.

My main critique is Hal's Luck. In the real world, he bitches that he's the unluckiest guy in the world, mainly because he's been looked over for a promotion several times.And yet . . . he's already making what seems to be a good income, he has a house and no pressing financial worries, he has a wife who loves him and a cute little kid, everyone seems healthy and content. Hal himself doesn't seem to have any of the pressing reasons to escape reality you see in other LitRPG main characters - failing health, extreme poverty, disability, etc. It makes him come off as a bit of a whiner. Then, in the game, he gets this Luck ability that carries him through a lot of dangerous situations. The problem is, in this sort of narrative, the hero usually learns that what he wants (good luck) is not what he NEEDS.

For example, most people don't fail to progress at work merely because of "bad luck". It's usually something within their control. Someone who writes off all of their problems as "bad luck" usually have the fault of not wanting to take responsibility for their actions, or change anything about themselves, in order to find ways to succeed. And someone complaining about "bad luck" when there are people WAY worse off in the world look naive and self-absorbed. A plot with a magical element like suddenly being able to succeed by good luck alone gives the hero an easy win, but as he wins he should be having his other flaws corrected. And although the book does do this - Hal, who has a great family, sees what becomes of Kay, who has lost a family - it often doesn't seem to have quite the emotional torque the author could have put in. What really would have sold the theme, though, would be Hal's losing his luck during the final boss fight, and relying on his other skills and the connections he's made with the characters to win the day. The author is almost there, but frustrating not quite, and it feels like one more draft would have pushed this over into great rather than just good.

Still, that shouldn't take away enjoyment from reading an otherwise solid LitRPG, and I'll definitely check out the other two in this series on the author's strengths to see where else Hal's adventures take him.

 

I'm with you on that boet, I can't even watch those humane society commercials with the sad animals without getting messed up emotionally. If it had been an opportunity for the character to reflect on her actions, it would have been more excusable.

 

Talk about serendipity: I just added a new book to my Want To Read list based on somebody's recommendation. Stop me if this sounds familiar...

Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World
by Mad Snail

"The world’s largest VRMMO, Conviction, was almost like a second world for humanity. It had integrated itself into the real world’s economy, with both corporations and individuals seeking their fortunes through the game. In this game, Nie Yan prided himself in his Level 180 Thief. He could barely be considered among the top experts in the game. Though, that was the only thing he could take pride in. He was penniless and unable to advance in life; a situation he was forced into by the enemy of his father. If it weren’t for the little money he made by selling off items in Conviction, he would’ve barely been able to eat. In the end, he chose to settle his matters once and for all. He assassinated his father’s enemy. He lay dying shortly after being shot in the pursuit. However, that wasn’t the end of his story. Instead, he awoke moments later to find that he had reincarnated into his past-self. Armed with his experience and knowledge of future events, he sets out to live his life anew."



https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35166177-rebirth-of-the-thief-who-roamed-the-world

 

Mogworld

by Yahtzee Croshaw


An MMORPG from the NPC's point of view. Where the game goes from open world to classic 90's RPG with immortal NPCs that have no function other than humoring the players and how that affects the NPCs mentally.

Just some back info. The author has a long running comedy review channel on youtube called Zero Punctuation where he does nothing but riff on games using cartoons for five solid minutes not even stopping to breath -it seems anyway- using black comedy and self deprecating humor to entertain.

Considering turn base RPGs, open world MMOs and first person shooters are his go to pet peeves I suspecting this book would be nothing but him riffing on the genre. (published in 2010 so before Litrpg was a real thing)

Even the cover is a mix of WOW and HP.



Now the set-up is decent. It explores how this change affects those in the world with the MC being secondary to all of this which is all good.

Thing is this book was the author's debut. As such the execution suffers. You have the MC being a self-insert of his youtube persona, all the secondary characters suffering from one-traititiss -are you laughing yet? are you? how about now? IS IT FUNNY YET!- and the "twist" of them being NPCs in a game fairly obvious from chapter 2.

There are continuity errors, sometimes within the same page believe it or not, and sometimes the author forgets he is not the MC and you have a medieval peasant talking about deleting things, guns and middle management before remembering his roll and reverting back to talk about turnips.

My fav. one has to be this one

Chapter one "the journey to the school cost me a basket of turnips"

Chapter three
"What's that?"
"Currency, what? you don't know what currency is. What backwater turnip economy did you come from?"
"We... errrr still used the barter system...."

scams some cash and gets into trouble for it as the entire group had no concept of currency.

Chapter ???

The Dev "what account are you using? I don't have you registered."

MC "Account? what account! I don't have a bank account. I lived in a poor farm and kept all my savings in a tin can under my bed!"

You.... this was a very important plotline and it just got thrown out the window while this line was now used as the new plotline!

With all it's faults and lack of polish I really enjoyed this book. It used all of the typical RPG troops just from the NPC point of view going from how weird it is to have strangers with perfect bodies walk up to you asking for a quest and demanding exp points for them, to how the entire economy is now based around that since "adventurers" dropped cash like it was nothing for pretty armour or even just exp quests.

It was a fun romp and for a debut novel pretty good. All the troops are here just from a very cynical point of view. 3/5 stars. A good book for a lazy afternoon.

 

Started reading this. For lovers of wuxia, LitRPG, gamers and fantasy fans. If you've read The King's Avatar and enjoyed it then I recommend Rebirth of the Thief who Roamed the World. Nie Yan, desperate, poor and bitter, assassinates the man he holds most responsible for the disintegration of his family and his life, but gets killed in return. As he lies, dying, regret and sorrow fills him for a life he never got the chance to live. Moments later he wakes to find that he has been given a second chance: He has been reborn as his past-self!

Eighteen years old, armed with the knowledge of future events and the experience of a life of struggle, he is reborn and ready to change the world. In his previous life he was a level 180 thief in the world’s largest VRMMO, Conviction. As an experienced gamer Nie Yan takes the first step: He will recreate his game character, Nirvana Flame, and become the world's foremost expert!

I'm nearly finished with the first book and enjoying it so far. Not quite as good as The King's Avatar but a lot more world-building and history. Whereas Ye Qui, the Battle God of King's Avatar, relied on his vast skills as a gamer and ignored the story in favour of returning as a professional, Nie Yan is more focused on exploiting his encyclopaedic knowledge of the game's history to make money and take advantage of future events yet to unfold.

 

I'm currently reading this.


The Fantasy Fiction Formula by Deborah Chester.

She's the author and teacher that Jim Butcher (the Dresden Files amongst others) pretty much credits to teaching him out to be a successful author. He wrote the first Harry Dresden book in her class apparently!

While it's certainly not the end all, beat all of writing instruction, I'm finding it a pretty enjoyable (for what it is) read that's easy to get through, informative, and pretty straightforward about explaining for the most part. She occasionally throws a word in there that takes me a minute to get (such as Character Tags and the way she uses Sequels to mean the period after a scene, instead of...well, the more normal definition) but in all, what she says makes a lot of sense and I'm not sorry that I got it for a present earlier this month!

I would definitely recommend it.

 

That's from Dwight Swains Techniques of the Selling Writer. It's his scene and response structure. Randy Ingermanson who does the "Snowflake Method" has a nice little explanation of it on his fiction blog. he does a pretty good job of explaining.

https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/writing-the-perfect-scene/

 

She's a good writer - her Alien Chronicles trilogy is one of my favs.

 

Way back in the wayback when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was still in school, I learned about the three main types of literary conflict. There’s man vs other, man vs self, and man vs nature.

In a man vs other conflict, there are protagonists and antagonists. It’s probably the most recognizable of all of the conflicts and the easiest for us to understand, seeing as it’s so common. Some examples of this include every Saturday morning cartoon ever, and fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings.

In a man vs self conflict, the fight is internal between two or more warring sides of a protagonist. This one is a bit more ephemeral, but I’d say a good example of it would be What Dreams May Come. It’s also the least common of the literary conflicts because, at its heart, it’s hard to catch and hold a reader or viewer.

Then there is the man vs nature conflict. This is probably the broadest of the conflicts, seeing as it encompasses nearly every story where survival is in play. Zombies, nuclear wastelands, wilderness survival - all of these are examples of a man ca nature story.

Now, in school I was taught that in order to write a good story, you *must* have at least one of these conflicts as the centerpiece of your work. There are other rules, naturally, but the central conflict is the most important aspect of any story.

So what do you do when you come across a story that has zero of these conflicts in it? Or indeed, it has no conflicts at all? Do what I do, and praise it. Because I’m just contrary like that.

I came across one such series, and haven’t been able to get enough of it. The Fourth Fleet Irregulars, by S J MacDonald, has absolutely no conflicts in it whatsoever, yet every book is written with such joy and elegance that I can’t help but absolutely love it. Are there named conflicts? Sure - the different factions are named, but nothing ever comes of them. This is a series of exploration and discovery - it’s basically what made the original Star Trek series be so impossible to translate to any interactive media.

It has antagonists that do nothing, introspection that goes nowhere - not even try hard navel gazing - and it has an environment that is hard pressed to be seen as anything other than sunshine and rainbows. It’s a military sci-fi series that has almost no military action, no discipline, nothing that you would equate with any military, really.

It is a utopia writ large, where all of society’s ills are merely alluded to and handled off screen by others while our characters go off to spread peace and love.

I can’t wait for the next book to come out, even though the author’s writing speed could be unfavorably compared to the speed of a lake of frozen molasses trying to empty itself uphill. I also can’t recommend it highly enough, if for nothing else because it’s an absolute clinic on writing memorable characters and building an impressive world.