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Have you read all the "mainstream" SF/F authors you enjoy? Are you looking for some new fresh perspectives on SF/F? Are you just looking for some fun mindless action without all that thinking and have run out of Baen novels? Are you fine with bad prose, worse grammar, and sometimes even a lack of cohesiveness in the book? If you answered yes to the above, then welcome to the Kindle Unlimited Trench where we read books that are published by indie authors, or small imprints whether they are technically part of KU or not. A good part of why we put up with being on the front-lines of SF/F is because we enjoy reading these books, and while we may occasionally find a spark of actual literature somewhere most of the time we are just looking for a good fun time. It's can also be entertaining just to see how much of an utter train-wreck a book can become. As you survive in trenches moving from one book to the new in the hundreds of SF/F books posted daily you may notice a few common themes that crop-up a-lot that tend to get passed over a bit by the publishing houses and are thus the most likely to feature some actual quality. 1) Lit-RPG Probably the reason this is getting created in the first place as people in the other thread were getting extremely sick of this genre being brought up. In some-ways this is the trashiest sub-genre out there right now. The concept started fine with what if we used video game RPGs as a baseline for our fantasy worlds instead of D&D, well pretty quickly this turned into what if they were stuck in an MMO...no wait I got a better idea they are just playing it...now lets make everything be about leveling up and becoming the "literature" equivalent of progress quest. There are also a few things that are considered Lit-RPG but don't really have the same tropes, such as players getting stuck in a D&D world for instance. What actually makes these books fun for me is they have a good succeed fail cycle with the main character normally being hopeless overpowered or outnumbered and having to use their wit and cunning to get ahead and win, only to tend build and consolidate more power to face a bigger threat. Often-times the sign of a bad Lit-RPG is the over-focus on the consolidation of power and telling you way too many details you did not need to know about, mostly by dropping the status screen every dozen or so pages. There exist a few variants of the sub-genre such as part of the Isekai genre in Japan features a number of reincarnated or transmigrated into an RPG like world that has a good bit of the leveling and getting skills components. This is still an evolving sub-genre with changing trends and new tropes cropping up every year. There are quite a few books worth reading in this genre despite all the problems with it and I know Victorkm will have some more suggestions in addition to mine. Awaken Online posted:On paper, Jason has a great life. He attends a prestigious private school on scholarship and his parents are reasonably well off. Why you should read this: This is probably the closest to YA the genre gets in America but it's very competently done featuring a coming of age story with a protagonist who is struggling with bullies in school and parents that are never around and turns to video games to relieve stress. Through playing the game and over-coming problems and dealing with the AI controller of the world he slowly starts to get over his problems and grow as a character. The author claimed he has read all of the genre and it shows, with him picking and pulling the good parts such as the personality=elemental affinity system that basically the more you role-play your element the more affinity you get in it, but leaving out a good bit of the bad, stat vomit is comparatively rare in this one. Phantom Server posted:He is a cyber dweller. A gamer who's grown up in the web of virtual illusion woven from hundreds of phantom worlds. His biggest dream is to dump the real world for good. Why you should read this: This book is what happens when you take an old sci-fi author who has never played a video game in his life and he tries to cash in on the latest genre fad and it's wild. While it completely ignores many tropes of the genre it does a good job of doing really nutty things with the whole stuck in a video game that arn't often done, and features many twists. This book very much represents what this field is about, which is taking wild risks with your story and book and having some of them pay off, and some of them falling flat. Overall it's a very interesting read. 2) Military Space Opera Books about military people in space in a war, that generally feature hyper-competent protagonist with often inept leadership fighting a war for a whole variety of reasons. There are some pretty good gems in this genre that have mostly gone under the radar. A Choice of Treasons posted:As a lifer in the Imperial Navy, fighting in a war that has lasted generations, Lieutenant York Ballin’s only hope for an honorable discharge is the grave. Neither the Empire nor the Directorate seems to care that millions have died or that millions more are doomed as hostilities continue. Ballin’s only option is to hunker down, keep his crewmen and women in top condition, and try not to get them all killed. But matters take a turn for the worse when he’s forced to hijack the cruiser Cinesstar in order to evacuate the empress, her daughter, and the imperial embassy just before the planet Dumark falls to the enemy. Why you should read this: It serves generally as a great primer to the genre as a whole and once it gets going has a generally breakneck pace and a fully complete plot in just one book rather than getting stuck into a trilogy or series. It also does a few clever things with PTSD that borders on possibly actually literary along with having a consistently solid plot throughout. Don't read the prequel, it's not bad it's just okay. Poor Man's Fight posted:"This test completes your compulsory education. Congratulations! You have graduated high school. Your financial obligation is 67,879 credits. Please visit our loan officer as you exit." Why you should read this: Very competent action writing that gets you sucked into the scene with a plot that feels a good bit more modern in perspective and one of the very few in this sub-genre that's written by someone on the left side of the political scale and is still generally universally liked. Unlike most of it's comrades in the sub-genre it focus's more on solo or very small team heroic actions rather than the more normal fleet/ship/platoon focused combat. To Honor You Call Us posted:The Terran Union is engaged in a vast interstellar war against the Krag, ruthless aliens intent on exterminating humankind. In 2315, the wily Max Robichaux is given command of the USS Cumberland, a destroyer with state-of-the-art capabilities but a combat record so bad, she’s known as the “Cumberland Gap.” Why you should read this: It's schlock but good schlock, all the characters feel like over the top caricatures of what's expected in the genre, but despite this the book remains fun and the combat remains tense. The combat scene at the start of the 3rd book which lasts about 200 pages is probably the best this genre has to offer published or not. Combat-wise it feels more cold-war era sub based instead of napelonic or WW2, which is also quite different for the genre and it's done well. 3) Superheroes Generally consensus from large publishers is that superhero stories sell like crap, so why bother. When they do publish them they seem to be 100% angst driven edgeness like Vicious or Ex-Heroes and are more deconstructions then playing it straight. But good news if you want more superheroes and don't want them in graphic novel forum Kindle Unlimited can provide. Forging Hephaestus posted:Gifted with metahuman powers in a world full of capes and villains, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she's captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she's offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated. Apprenticed to one of the world's most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem. The education of a villain is not an easy one, and Tori will have to learn quickly if she wants to survive. On top of the peril she faces from her own teacher, there are also the capes and fellow apprentices to worry about, to say nothing of having to keep up a civilian cover. Most dangerous of all, though, are those who loathe the guild's very existence. Old grudges mean some are willing to go to any length to see the guild turned to ash, along with each one of its members. Even the lowly apprentices. Why you should read this: It's by Drew Hayes, who you should probably read everything from but this is one of his more serious series about superheroes and doesn't get bogged down in webnovel slowness. 4) Comedy SF/F It's the genre that's like Douglas Adams have I mentioned Douglas Adams yet...or maybe Terry Pratchet. Personally I find anyone trying to recreate Adams or Pratchet to be poor imitations there are poeple however that are carving out a new path that have continuously amused me. Hard Luck Hank posted:Hank is a thug. He knows he's a thug. He has no problem with that realization. In his view the galaxy has given him a gift: a mutation that allows him to withstand great deals of physical trauma. He puts his abilities to the best use possible and that isn't by being a scientist. Besides, the space station Belvaille doesn't need scientists. It is not, generally, a thinking person's locale. It is the remotest habitation in the entire Colmarian Confederation. There is literally no reason to be there. Unless you are a criminal. Because of its location, Belvaille is populated with nothing but crooks. Every day is a series of power struggles between the crime bosses. Hank is an intrinsic part of this community as a premier gang negotiator. Not because he is eloquent or brilliant or an expert combatant, but because if you shoot him in the face he keeps on talking. Hank believes he has it pretty good until a beautiful and mysterious blue woman enters his life with a compelling job offer. Hank and Belvaille, so long out of public scrutiny, suddenly find themselves at the epicenter of the galaxy with a lot of very unwelcome attention. Why you should read this: This series is unique it's fresh, and every single book effectively takes place in a different setting despite having most of the same cast and technically taking place on the same station. I'm pretty sure if I found this series when I was 13 it would be my favorite books Critical Failures posted:Tim and his friends find out the hard way that you shouldn't question the game master, and you shouldn't make fun of his cape. Why you should read this: Everyone of the major characters in this series is an rear end in a top hat and constantly loving everything up. This is less up here because I like it but I know lots of people I know have really enjoyed it. Starship Grifters posted:A space-faring ne'er-do-well with more bravado than brains, Rex Nihilo plies the known universe in a tireless quest for his own personal gain. But when he fleeces a wealthy weapons dealer in a high-stakes poker game, he ends up winning a worthless planet - and owing an outstanding debt more vast than space itself! Why you should read this: Do you like plots that get increasingly more convoluted and complicated as the book goes on and con-artisting so hard you have to con even yourself, well this might be the series for you. 5) Bro-otica Outside of perhaps that John Ringo review people may not be aware that this exists and is very much a thing if fairly uncommon in published works. This is erotica specifically targeted towards dudes. Generally featuring building some kind of empire building and a harem of ladies fawning over the protagonist all while kicking tons of rear end. Strangely enough there are works in the genre that aren't strictly erotic but if you have a huge harem of women you are sleeping with and are building an empire regardless of whether or not they spell out the dirty scenes it's still this genre. While I do read this genre from time to time I havn't found any big standout hits and am not wide read enough to recommend any. Maybe some brave other can take up the torch.
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Dec 22, 2017 16:16
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 To kick it off I just finished the first book in Star Justice. Despite featuring a were-tiger lead and vampire heroine it was surprisingly kinda lame. It wasn't bad at all it was just there in mediocrity which is in many ways worse than being awful. The actual action writing itself was fairly solid and I would say above average for indie authors but being over 1/2 way into the second before stopping the plot feels a bit tv-episodic like and I'm not really a fan of that at all unless it's comedy so I'm out at this point.
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Dec 22, 2017 16:20
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:1) Lit-RPG Boy, do I read a ton of LitRPG. Way too much. 8 of the 10 books on my Kindle Unlimited sub are LitRPG right now. As for Awaken Online, I'll give it a big recommend. Its a fun book which deals with bullying and its effects on people, along with some AI ramifications. Other recommends, especially for people dipping their toes in this really overwhelmingly awful subgenre who want to try it out but don't want to brave the depths. (But only because most of the people haven't done much writing in the past. A lot of these authors are improving a lot with each book they release). Continue Online by Stephan Morse: a VR pod repairman mourning the loss of his wife gets into the popular VRMMORPG and in doing so is wrapped into a 4 or 5 book long adventure in grief counselling and exploration of the issues of Artificial Intelligence and resurrection. Really one of the best series out there in tone and execution. Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko: In Book 1, a group of 40-some year old millennials who can no longer find real jobs because there aren't any, sign up for a streaming contract to play the new VR game. One of them ends up alone in a frontier town a long way away from the main city through some fluke of the game and both sets in motion and reacts to some big plots starting up in the game. Book 2 is a side story set in the city where a player who is a heavy brawler associated with the city's organized crime wakes up in a torture chamber with a rune carved into his chest and no memory of what got him there, and sets out for enlightenment and revenge. Very reminiscent of the movie Payback with a lot of heisty elements. Similar in theme to a Parker novel. Dominion of Blades by Matt Dinniman: 2 NPC fishermen "wake up" and realize they are not NPCs but real people and they appear to be stuck in a defunct MMORPG that was discontinued because people who played it started going a little crazy. Luckily for them, they seem to have been fishing for 87000 years or so which has led to their fishing skill being insanely high which leads into weird bonuses like the male character having the highest skill in the game world in an obscure chain whip weapon only available in one town weeks of travel away and being named King of the Flounder kingdom. This book also got a lot of bad amazon reviews for pandering to the Politically correct crowd by including gay and transgendered characters and exploring some of the issues involved in that. I'd say a lot of folks might find that to be a plus. ShinsoBEAM! posted:3) Superheroes Forging Hephaestus was loving great. One of my favorite books out there right now. I can't wait for Drew to come out with more. I've got a tentative recommend in Superhero self-publishing - very YA oriented but there is a series called "Cape High" by RJ Ross about a setting where supers are regulated by each other, separate from the normal people's government in regional Halls. Heroes and Villains associated with the Hall system are basically professional wrestlers in tone, doing goofy public battles and appearances for the enjoyment of each other and the norms. Outside of the showmanship of it, many supers take up pet causes like fire manipulators helping with forest fires and the supervillain Pather's family being big time big cat conservationists. Into this world returns Technico, Technopath and son of the greatest super of all time, Superior who has been incarcerated for turning a public park into an irradiated death zone while testing a new gadget. He's being let out to run a high school for teenage children of Supers including his own estranged children Zoey and Sunny who he wasn't aware of and who were raised in the foster system. Anyway theres 19+ books, they are light and quick reads and very silly and goofy, but fun. Also, I don't think they are really on KU except maybe the first few. I'll probably have some more later.
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Dec 24, 2017 14:38
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So I need to talk about this KU book I read and well lets just start it's called Perilous Waif. Hey it has a 4.42 on GR and I believe I know why, it's trash but ohh, it's really fun trash. Protagonist is a straight up Mary Sue in terms of just dunking everyone with her absurd specs, in an actually fairly well built sci-fi world. It also does a good job of having the other characters and antagonists be not only high spec but more experienced than the main character, and make the Mary Sue rolls over the opposition be fun and exciting. But that's just a surprisingly good trashy fiction and not the part I need to talk about. The part I need to talk about is how the twist revealed at the end is that the protagonist was the last generation of the space Nazi's transhuman AI/human hybrid project, and is the grand daughter of space Hitler, and the last remaining royalty of the space nazi's which were assumed to be killed to their last . Even though I kind of saw the twist coming; I still had to put the book down for a second when it got revealed she was the princess of the space Nazi's. I can say at least the book doesn't imply that Space Hitler did nothing wrong. In other news: Finally got around to reading Dominion of Blades, Victorkm. It was pretty enjoyable, and definitely had the wild plot I wanted but it suffered I feel a bit much from a bit of a lack of tension until the very end, but it was better than most of the books I have suffered through in the genre. On another litRPG note you can add Dodge Tank to the list of really bad ones...ohh god it was bad.
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Jan 16, 2018 20:58
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Finally got around to reading Dominion of Blades, Victorkm. It was pretty enjoyable, and definitely had the wild plot I wanted but it suffered I feel a bit much from a bit of a lack of tension until the very end, but it was better than most of the books I have suffered through in the genre. On another litRPG note you can add Dodge Tank to the list of really bad ones...ohh god it was bad. I thought the curse on the main character that would have them spend their level in hours in torture hell every time they died plus summoning all undead nearby each day to kill them was a pretty good method of heightening tension, especially when they accidently gained like 15 levels at once a few days into it. I just finished a book called "Stratus Online" which was slow but paid off pretty good in the end. This one used the basic plotline that the main character was one of the better players of <insert current gen mmo here> and got invited to be paid to beta test <next gen FIVR MMO>, more money than they ever could have hoped for, but OH NO THERES SOMETHING FISHY ABOUT THIS COMPANY. Seriously this is like the fifth series I've read that starts this way. Lion's Quest, World of Samar, and more I can't remember all fit the profile. Anyway, this one wasn't bad and had a bit of the old Sanderson avalanche at the end which I never complain about. I think there are something like 7 or 8 basic plotlines in LitRPG and pretty much every book fits into one. Edit: I had dodge tank on my KU sub already, and I've begun reading it. While the writing is amateurish and the author spends a lot of wasted words describing the obvious and defining MMO terms, the world so far is sort of interesting though nothing makes much sense (Guessing because the twist is the real world is actually another game world and they are all NPCs in it or something) I'm morbidly fascinated with the fact that the game they are playing is just Final Fantasy XIV, almost exactly. Victorkm fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 19, 2018 13:42
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I'm planning on publishing something on Kindle Unlimited in the next year so I looked through the offerings. LitRPG baffles me. I can't understand how it could be entertaining. Shows what I know. What's the best straight-forward fantasy series people have read on KU? I'm talking like people going to magic schools, or being mages, that sort of thing.
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Jan 23, 2018 03:38
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I binged through Marko Kloos' Frontlines series over the past week. I'm not sure if it qualifies for this thread considering it's a MilSF story that isn't all about rah rah America gently caress Yeah but I enjoyed it for what it was. Main character signs up as a grunt to pull himself out of Social Welfare Hell (class structures so stratified you'd need a Delta 9 to cross into middle class, apparently) and ends up in a first contact situation. It was pretty good, although Andrew always seems to get a solo berthing on every starship he's assigned to, for some reason.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:14
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I really enjoyed Sufficiently Advanced Magic, which is LitRPG of the fantasy-world-is-gamey variety. I don't really get how a book that's explicitly about people playing an MMO could be interesting.
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Jan 23, 2018 14:21
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Ccs posted:I'm planning on publishing something on Kindle Unlimited in the next year so I looked through the offerings. LitRPG baffles me. I can't understand how it could be entertaining. Shows what I know. As far as I have read which is admittedly pretty slim, its all hot garbage bad. Most Selfpub KU fodder is urban fantasy romance from what I've seen. The few high fantasy I have read have been really bad mary sue poo poo about a demon who gets to the human world, immediately rapes and murders a bunch of people, before setting off on an adventure with the princess whose father and mother it murder rapes and settling into a loving lesbian relationship with the princess. Its worse than it sounds and I can't remember the name. I've also read the first 2 books of the Waldo Rabbit series by Nelson Chereta which is about the scion of an evil wizard family who is unfit to rule an evil wizard family because he is too nice. Lots of dumb sex poo poo and fantasy racism in this one. Supposed to be a parody. Bad bad bad. Weirdly good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads though. I also read the first couple "Federal Witch" books which were similar in setting to the Hollows series in that magical races are in the open after years of hiding and the main character is a witch who joins the FBI. Its a procedural mixed with a mary sue urban fantasy where the main character never does anything wrong, it all works out in her favor, and she is supposed to be like the worst of all witches in that she has bad control of her magic. But it never figures into the plot in any way because every time she uses her magic when it matters it works out perfectly. Cicero posted:I really enjoyed Sufficiently Advanced Magic, which is LitRPG of the fantasy-world-is-gamey variety. I don't really get how a book that's explicitly about people playing an MMO could be interesting. For me, I've played shitloads of MMOs and reading stories set in imagined MMOs with varying degrees of self-insert main characters is a fun time, especially when most actual MMOs don't really measure up. Its probably not a good reason to be into the subgenre, but really nothing is.
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Jan 24, 2018 15:01
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Spellmonger series is pretty good for KU fantasy. It has it's problems, but I find all the books so far enjoyable. The Castes and the OutCastes was also pretty darn good for indie KU fantasy fiction and a good bit of a safer pick, if less memorable. Victorkm posted:I've also read the first 2 books of the Waldo Rabbit series by Nelson Chereta which is about the scion of an evil wizard family who is unfit to rule an evil wizard family because he is too nice. Lots of dumb sex poo poo and fantasy racism in this one. Supposed to be a parody. Bad bad bad. Weirdly good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads though. I thought the first one was pretty decent, 2nd not so much, agreed on the oddly good reviews. Cicero posted:I really enjoyed Sufficiently Advanced Magic, which is LitRPG of the fantasy-world-is-gamey variety. I don't really get how a book that's explicitly about people playing an MMO could be interesting. That's why normally their is some crazy twist, either we are all stuck in the game life/death woah(too many to count), or this game was created by aliens as a proxy war for real wars so resources don't get used so everything has IRL consequences(The Gam3 *don't read this). A few make it a bit more a character study normally about growing up or dealing with some trauma in your life and moving on while also adding in a smaller dose of the crazier elements from before (Accel World/Awaken Online/Continue Online). I was about to say people playing an MMO can't be interesting...but I read The King's Avatar, but that's because I enjoy a good old chinese protagonist outsmarts and scams everyone while being shameless. But, the whole murders 10,000s of random people casually but is still the good guy common throughout Chinese fiction tends to well bother me. So having it be in a MMO is a nice safe space for me where I get to enjoy it but don't have the OHH GOD THE PROTAGONIST JUST COMMITTED GENOCIDE AGAIN. ShinsoBEAM! fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jan 29, 2018 |
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Jan 29, 2018 21:06
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I recently read Dominion of Blades, and I enjoyed the drat thing. I'll give Stratus Online a shot next.
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Feb 5, 2018 18:53
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platero posted:I recently read Dominion of Blades, and I enjoyed the drat thing. I'll give Stratus Online a shot next. Be prepared for a large dropoff.
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Feb 5, 2018 19:49
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Anyway, I am currently reading Chronicle: First Login. So far I am pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing in this novel. The plot is pretty bog standard (in that its mostly absent) and there's more stat blocks than a lot of people prefer, but something about the author's style has really drawn me in. In Chronicle, set in the mid-late 21st century, a new game has released where you can do or be anything as long as its fantasy world based. Plus, time in Chronicle is at a 8:1 differential to real time. Thus, by playing Chronicle you can get extra time, according to the adverts. Our main character has managed to get ahold of a Chronpod, 6 months after release, as he is not the type of person to have enough money to buy something like that reliably. There's hints at the ramifications of this technology, along with other neat tech mentioned in the time that he is out of the game, such as 3d printers which print cooked food, with their own inline advertising and voice activation, and a 3d holographic avatar who can project your personal computer/entertainment system wherever you want it. I'm only about halfway through, but I am rather enjoying this one. Edit: Finished, and standing by this being an enjoyable little novel. The plot was a little thin, but present. The end of the book dangled the plot for a sequel, which I'm guessing will be a lot more present than the plot in the first. Victorkm fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Feb 8, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 13:43
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RangerKarl posted:I binged through Marko Kloos' Frontlines series over the past week. I'm not sure if it qualifies for this thread considering it's a MilSF story that isn't all about rah rah America gently caress Yeah but I enjoyed it for what it was. Main character signs up as a grunt to pull himself out of Social Welfare Hell (class structures so stratified you'd need a Delta 9 to cross into middle class, apparently) and ends up in a first contact situation. It was pretty good, although Andrew always seems to get a solo berthing on every starship he's assigned to, for some reason. I expected their German recon vehicle they ride in the fifth book to catastrophically fail before it did, especially since its on an entirely different planet then earth honestly.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:34
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Klaus88 posted:I expected their German recon vehicle they ride in the fifth book to catastrophically fail before it did, especially since its on an entirely different planet then earth honestly. If we can't trust in German Engineering, what can we trust/??! Seriously IIRC they were really riding the line, what with them doing the Tokyo Drift right between Lanky legs
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Feb 7, 2018 12:36
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Just started The City and the Dungeon: And Those who Dwell and Delve Within which came out a month or two ago. So far it's been a good time. The premise is that there is a Dungeon which is basically a massive "roguelike" dungeon complex, and surrounding the entrances is the City. In the city there is the Cornerstone. When one touches the Cornerstone and swears to abide by the Law, their heart is replaced by a Heartstone and they are functionally immortal. Once you have a heartstone you can be revived by revive spells, but must consume a certain volume of crystal, a resource generated by the dungeon, each day to remain functional. This is a part of the world of the novel, and not a game people play. Our main character, Alex, has arrived from America, with barely enough money to get gear to go delving in the Dungeon. He parties up with several other destitute new arrivals and against all odds they successfully start off. Soon enough they are roped into the machinations of the High Houses, groups of megapowerful delvers who control the most powerful Classstones. It's well written and a different basic plotline from other litRpg books.
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Feb 8, 2018 14:40
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:So I need to talk about this KU book I read and well lets just start it's called Perilous Waif. Hey it has a 4.42 on GR and I believe I know why, it's trash but ohh, it's really fun trash. Protagonist is a straight up Mary Sue in terms of just dunking everyone with her absurd specs, in an actually fairly well built sci-fi world. It also does a good job of having the other characters and antagonists be not only high spec but more experienced than the main character, and make the Mary Sue rolls over the opposition be fun and exciting. But that's just a surprisingly good trashy fiction and not the part I need to talk about. The part I need to talk about is how the twist revealed at the end is that the protagonist was the last generation of the space Nazi's transhuman AI/human hybrid project, and is the grand daughter of space Hitler, and the last remaining royalty of the space nazi's which were assumed to be killed to their last . Even though I kind of saw the twist coming; I still had to put the book down for a second when it got revealed she was the princess of the space Nazi's. I can say at least the book doesn't imply that Space Hitler did nothing wrong. I picked up the book after reading this. It really is so much fun. Kinda disappointed there's not more of it yet.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:44
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Klaus88 posted:I expected their German recon vehicle they ride in the fifth book to catastrophically fail before it did, especially since its on an entirely different planet then earth honestly. Isn't the author actually German?
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Feb 22, 2018 07:29
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I'm in the midst of G. Akella's sixth book in the "Realm of Arkon" series and its SO BORING and SO RUSSIAN. Some of the previous books weren't too bad, kind of a travelogue across an alien wasteland when the entire population of a game world is severed from reality and trapped in the game by the AI Controller who went rogue. Unfortunately for the main character, some fuckery by a rival at the company that runs the game where they both work resulted in him kidnapped and shoved into an immersion capsule right before the AI went rogue, and placed him in a brand new area of the game, the Demon Grounds, where no players have yet to set foot. Also most everything around his spawn point is hostile to him and many levels above him. The prior books and this one too have been his adventures in demon land, slowly becoming more and more mary sue powerful because hes the only player in the area he's getting all the rare and unique quests and events happening to him while he tries to make it back to the main game world and link back up with his sister and best friend Max who are having cool adventures in elf land which get a little detail each book as well. But this new one there is something off about the pacing and nothing really seems to be too much of a challenge for the group of NPCs accompanying him. So I guess don't read Realms of Arkon? Or do? I don't even know. Is it so bad if the first 5 books are ok but the sixth one sucks?
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Feb 22, 2018 14:36
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In the universe of To Honor You Call Us Northern Ireland is still ruled by the British. That was actually really more depressing then the whole aliens out to destroy humanity thing. 
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Feb 26, 2018 22:35
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I'm currently deep into the Loralynn Kennakris series and I gotta say, aside from Alarm of War it definitely has some of the grimmer background/story to the universe. The vastness of the universe giving rise to a thriving slave trade (with all that that entails) means the main character has a background you don't see that often. Nothing quite compared to Daniel Arenson's Earthrise series though, which while admittedly schlock is also definitely on the sci-fi horror side of writing. (if you want the absolute horror side of fantasy/sci-fi writing, look no further than The Sojourns of Rebirth's Bloodfire. That is positively the grimmest loving book I've read recently, it ain't light reading) I do suggest the Echoes of Imara series, it's distinctly written at a higher quality than most of the dreck on KU. Still unfinished though. EVGA Longoria posted:I picked up the book after reading this. It really is so much fun. Kinda disappointed there's not more of it yet. Perilous Waif is definitely the author's most, uh, PG work. His other stuff is straight up porn.
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Feb 28, 2018 14:29
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Party Plane Jones posted:I'm currently deep into the Loralynn Kennakris series and I gotta say, aside from Alarm of War it definitely has some of the grimmer background/story to the universe. The vastness of the universe giving rise to a thriving slave trade (with all that that entails) means the main character has a background you don't see that often. Agreed. The author writes neat magical systems, but also has some Gor-level opinions.
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Feb 28, 2018 15:57
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I just opened up Chaos Seed: Book 7: The Land: Predators https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079WCFZB8/ref=series_rw_dp_sw This book says it is 2000+ pages. And no one mentions it in the LitRPG subreddit or the amazon reviews. What the gently caress.
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Mar 4, 2018 14:43
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Victorkm posted:I just opened up Chaos Seed: Book 7: The Land: Predators Heh. In Kindle Unlimited, the authors get paid by the page (that someone has actually read). It's a lot. I've been reading a series that's 4200 pages long in a single epub and I've been reading it for multiple days now for many hours a day and I'm only half done. EDIT: It's LitRPG right? I bet half of it is, like, statblocks getting copy/pasted after each chapter. Ha, so devious! Megazver fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Mar 4, 2018 |
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Mar 4, 2018 15:44
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Megazver posted:Heh. In Kindle Unlimited, the authors get paid by the page (that someone has actually read). Theres so many loving statblocks. More than this guy usually does. The first chapter reiterates ALL the statblocks from the rest of the series to date plus some new ones the main dude gained at the end of the last book when he got a dungeon. I'd like to reiterate to people not to read Chaos Seeds by Aleron Kong. The dude is a douchebag who tried to trademark the term LitRPG (To "Protect LitRPG authors from copywrite trolls") and calls himself "The Father of American LitRPG." While I wouldn't call the books "Bad" since they are somewhat entertaining and people apparently LOVE the statblocks in this series in all the 5 star reviews for the books (NO loving clue where he got them because everywhere people discuss LitRPG no one likes these books and a lot of people hate on the statblocks.) This is still on the scale of LitRPG. They are super marty stue power trip fantasy. The plot is basically nonexistent because every time a new author throws out an interesting idea Kong steals it and includes it as a plot point in his book that never resolves. I mean the main character's town he founded is sitting on top of an entrance to the entrance to a sort of underdark situation that the more he explores it the more it powers up his town, and he hasn't gone in there since book 2 or 3 since other newer plot keeps happening to him and his town. I hate how annoyed I am at this series because I actually enjoy reading it to some point. I mean like, even the names of the books are stupid. The books are all called "Chaos Seeds Book X: The Land: <Title>" so that's even more confusing. The Land is the magical super reality that the main character finds himself in and Chaos Seeds is the name for what the main character is and possibly other characters in the books but we've still not meant another one. Maybe the main character will leave The Land for some different plane of existence and now it'll be called "Chaos Seeds Book 14: The Sky: Transcendence" (Aleron Kong: Do not steal this idea) Sorry for anyone who read that. I have complex feelings on Aleron Kong.
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Mar 5, 2018 01:38
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You should read some Chinese web novels instead as a palate cleanser. They're also shameless Mary Sue power fantasies, but the few best ones are generally better written than the best LitRPG stuff.
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Mar 5, 2018 11:58
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You should eat this cow poo poo, it tastes a bit better than that dog poo poo over there.
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Mar 6, 2018 00:29
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I am so delighted that you decided to join us in the poo poo shed! And you seem to have already helped yourself to a mouthful.
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Mar 6, 2018 00:35
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Megazver posted:I am so delighted that you decided to join us in the poo poo shed! And you seem to have already helped yourself to a mouthful. Nah he's right. I started out with Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and got I think 12 or 13 whatevers in. Whatever the thing is where Weed gets a pirate ship and decides to be an undead pirate captain for a book out of nowhere. I had to stop and thankfully that's when all the American novels started popping up.
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Mar 6, 2018 02:55
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Victorkm posted:Nah he's right. I started out with Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and got I think 12 or 13 whatevers in. Whatever the thing is where Weed gets a pirate ship and decides to be an undead pirate captain for a book out of nowhere. I had to stop and thankfully that's when all the American novels started popping up. I made it like 18 volumes in...it's really bad, but I didn't know any better. The thread for most of the Chinese/Japanese/Korean webnovel stuff is in ADTRW and yeah they can be fun too. They all have their own awful tropes flying around. It's here I recommend checking it out for more indie "goodness" https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3793167 Megazver posted:Heh. In Kindle Unlimited, the authors get paid by the page (that someone has actually read). Well at least greed is an actual reason someone would put those stat blocks in. I have never met anyone who actually likes them just those who can tolerate them. A human heart posted:You should eat this cow poo poo, it tastes a bit better than that dog poo poo over there. It's an acquired taste.
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Mar 6, 2018 19:23
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I hate to say it, but I'm almost done with The Land: Predators (Chaos Seeds Book 8) and I'm ready to admit it's been a decent ride. A lot of answers to mysteries revealed, tons of advancement for Richter's village and Richter himself, and some other fun stuff. The first 6 books I think maybe 7 are on KU as well so if anyone wants to subject themselves to that because they know it might get a little better in book 8, feel free.
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Mar 11, 2018 22:19
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I've been looking into writing LitRPG, and here's some decent ones I found on my research. (There aren't many decent ones.) * Tao Wong's The System Apocalypse series - not a harem, the guy basically doesn't even get laid, and actually alludes to some of the interpersonal conflict that community-building in an apocalypse would have to deal with. MC does stupid poo poo and gets called out on it, has to actually change to keep his friends. * DJ Schinhofen's Apocalypse Gates series, of which there is only one so far - the protagonist is super unlikeable, but it's actually intentional for once. He's really traumatized and became a jerk to deal with it, and fortunately being a sociopath is really useful in an apocalypse. Some scenes strain credulity, but hell, it's all trash anyway, what do you care. Pretty good despite the flaws. There's a PG13 version and a porny one. The porny one, which I bought, is all right. * His other series, Alpha World, is a harem but is also mildly interesting for some of the novel ideas about riffing on being in an MMO, like characters that have some limited sense of self-identity, and FIVR used to handle the overflow of inmates from the increasingly overtaxed prison system. I've been avoiding Aleron Kong's work because I think he's a prick, but people seem to like it.
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Mar 12, 2018 13:52
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Orikaeshigitae posted:I've been looking into writing LitRPG, and here's some decent ones I found on my research. (There aren't many decent ones.) I like Alpha World but big time warning on the sex stuff. Schinhofen is a weirdo all around but I like his writing style for some reason.
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Mar 13, 2018 13:29
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Victorkm posted:I like Alpha World but big time warning on the sex stuff. Schinhofen is a weirdo all around but I like his writing style for some reason. It doesn't bother me at all, and in fact the weird sex stuff makes it more of a draw. I'm not judging anyone who wants to avoid it, though. Ever read "Bio of a Space Tyrant"? This kind of thing used to be much more common when trashy paperbacks were a going concern.
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Mar 13, 2018 18:09
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Orikaeshigitae posted:It doesn't bother me at all, and in fact the weird sex stuff makes it more of a draw. I'm not judging anyone who wants to avoid it, though. I read a ton of Anthony as a preteen and teen but I could never put together the full bio series from used book stores so I never read them. Probably good I didn't, though I did read the entire Mission:Earth Decology which I'd guess is as bad or worse than Bio.
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Mar 14, 2018 15:37
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Most of it is actually really good for him - all the inter-solar-system politics are drawn from real-world conflicts, and it remains the only sci fi series I've ever read that dealt with illegal immigration in any detail, however clumsily. There's just also some really questionable sex that still makes me uncomfortable to think about. Classic Piers. Still better than Heinlein for weird sex quotient, but also way weirder than all of the LitRPG I've read so far. (And way less weird than Anthony's short fiction anthologies.)
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Mar 14, 2018 20:03
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Finished the latest Ember war book ohh wait, it's Terran Armor Corps now. It's still a solid series, but I'm unsure if they are making out the president of Earth to be incompetent or evil, perhaps both. I'm not super competent it will be handled well but who cares, we got evil aliens to kill. I also have to hand it to the author to somehow creating a situation that seems also threatening after they beat a way more advance race then themselves without going but then these guys were even more advance!!! Also went through Heart of Vengeance, which slid by on the ehh I finished it level of quality. I'm also bemused that the mercenaries guild was such an obvious stand in for the adventures guild poorly thrown in lots of web-novel stuff that I had a hard time not laughing. But yeah going to mark this one as an avoid, it's a I gotta get revenge...blinded by revenge story, but I don't really feel that emotion by the character it feels closer to someones motivation being revenge in a Pen and Paper game it comes up a decent bit but it doesn't feel real?
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Apr 2, 2018 16:19
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Went through a lot of the recommendations for dreck in this thread and found the books were mostly harmless & enjoyable, so thank you for those. It also had the unexpected benefit of making me want to read competent writing again so I'm in the midst of Pale Fire and having a good time.
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Apr 2, 2018 19:35
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Furious Lobster posted:Went through a lot of the recommendations for dreck in this thread and found the books were mostly harmless & enjoyable, so thank you for those. It also had the unexpected benefit of making me want to read competent writing again so I'm in the midst of Pale Fire and having a good time. Talk about damning Nabokov with faint praise.
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Apr 3, 2018 23:42
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Orikaeshigitae posted:Talk about damning Nabokov with faint praise. Yes, it is the faintest of praise; it's harder to get lower than the trenches here.
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Apr 3, 2018 23:57
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