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I was randomly searching around on Amazon looking for a new fantasy novel to read when I stumbled across Unsouled and Soulsmith, the first 2 novels in a new open-ended fantasy series called Cradle by a guy named Will Wight. They are essentially western-interpreted versions of a fairly standard cultivation based xianxia setting. While the world and some of the plot beats (especially in Book 1) are distinctly xianxia inspired, they are also novels instead of web-novels and are written with a different story structure than your standard xianxia. I enjoyed them immensely, and definitely think they're worth the $2.99 they cost. What follows is my slightly spoilerish overview of book 1: As I said above, I very much enjoyed both of these novels - The world is well-developed, the cultivation system has some complexities that could be very interesting down the road, and the characters seem much more fleshed out than your standard xianxia side characters. The first novel covers a fairly cliche opening arc of a xianxia - The main character cannot cultivate and is ostracized by his clan, so he must use his wits to outsmart his way forwards. After a brush with fate shows him how much greater his destiny could be, he escapes his valley into the wider world, learning in the process that the strongest person in his valley is like a child in the outside world. So yeah, pretty cliche when you're just laying out plot points. But at the same time, it uses a much different story structure, and it definitely benefits from being written in English instead of read through translation. In particular I love the way the life changing moment is done. He isn't given some super OP magical device, or a magical guardian that trains him or anything, he is just given a glimpse of how big the world is and a nudge out the door. There are several side characters which are very well written, and the arc of the protagonist's growth is well-developed. So anyways, if you can spare $2.99 I say give it a shot.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:05
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Meme Emulator posted:Update: I stopped at The Mummy and by the time I got bored I really had the feeling I could have written a better novel with the same premise and im am ametuer who has communication problems when talking to people IRL. I keep thinking about it. I could definately pull off this premise better Hey, I like Terror Infinity! But it doesn't really hit its stride until you get to the second arc, which starts in Book 11 I think (the end of the first arc is the second Resident Evil movie). Also, you're clearly not the only one who feels that they could do it better, because the basic premise has spawned an entire sub-genre.
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Apr 13, 2017 14:14
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Namtab posted:So how much of this is the author typing out the movie script? Some of the movies adhere more closely to the plot than others. It's been a while since I read the early chapters, but in relatively recent volumes there's been a wide range in how related their story is to the actual plot, ranging from essentially tracing the entire plot of Lord of the Rings from the Shire to Mordor but on the opposite end they enter the world of The Mummy but end up fighting a Pillar Man from Battle Tendency JoJo's.
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Apr 14, 2017 03:07
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Arkeus posted:Well, just finished. I have a theory that Eithan's removal from the head of his family is a large part of what Makiel was trying to accomplish by speeding up the awakening of the Dreadgods. To be fair, a decent amount of this theory is meta, based on the fact that the wax symbol is the cover image and that the letter is juxtaposed beside the "Makiel's full influence on the fate of Cradle" report that we were denied, but it also stands up on its own I think. Cassius would never have pushed for it if Eithan hadn't reacted to the Phoenix like he did, and Eithan not having the backing of his clan makes it seem less likely that he could influence the world at large. Maybe. Then again, if the Arelius main beach is really gone then is clan is pretty meaningless anyways, so maybe not.
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Oct 3, 2017 15:49
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Ytlaya posted:By the way, are those Cradle books something I would probably enjoy if I'm enjoying FoD? I'm looking for something similar, but it seems like most actual "straight" xianxia stories (as opposed to something like My Disciple Died Yet Again which takes place in a similar setting but is otherwise atypical) slip too far into typical Asian WN "overpowered wish fulfillment protagonist" territory. One thing I kinda like about FoD is that, even though the protagonist is exceptionally talented and is lucky in various ways, you still get the impression that people "below" her are fully capable of hurting her and the author isn't afraid to let genuinely disappointing things happen in her social life (characters growing closer and then genuinely drifting apart is something very rare in stories like this). She also comes off as less important than some of her peers, for whom she's a pretty peripheral figure at best. I haven't read FoD so I can't speak to that, but I'd say to almost anyone that they should give Cradle a shot, especially someone who is familiar with the tropes of a typical xianxia story. The first one in particular reads like a xianxia origin story that benefits from A) being written in English and B) being written as a novel, so it tells a relatively complete story with a good structure. After the first one they stop leaning as hard on the xianxia tropes and become more traditional western fantasy novels, with a magic system based on cultivation and a continued focus on getting "stronger" and reaching the next level of power. By the end of book 4 the protagonist is definitely not yet OP, although he has started to walk that path. One of the best parts of the story is that ~10% of it is written from the perspective of a God Tier (not the actual power level name) warrior and her tangentially connected story, and those bits do a good job of keeping in perspective exactly where the main characters stand. Tldr: they're great, give the first one (Unsouled) a shot at least.
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Oct 7, 2017 23:25
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Sindai posted:I haven't read Forge of Destiny so I don't know how it compares, but I'd say most xianxia isn't particularly creative when it comes to fights. Mostly it comes down to who has the higher level. Unless you're the MC, then you can kill people 2 levels higher than you with ease.
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Nov 3, 2017 19:36
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Fallorn posted:Isn't that the esports mmo webnovel who the mc is like late twenties guy who smokes and had to retire and wants to come back to the esport? I remember reading a few hundred chapters, iirc he was kicked off his old team so that they could replace him with some Young Gun, but then throughout the story he continually proves that he's still a God-tier player, so it really makes you wonder what moron was running the team that decided to kick him off the squad - in a super insulting way, I recall. Like, what was the end game of removing the best player in the world from your team and burning all bridges with him at the same time?
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Nov 14, 2017 02:07
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Edit: wrong thread
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Apr 9, 2018 14:59
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For anyone who has read the Cradle novels (a currently 4 book series written by an American author that is inspired by xianxia tropes), the author has published an except from the next book on his blog: http://www.willwight.com/a-blog-of-dubious-intent/its-still-april-right-ghostwater-excerpt The past couple of books had moved away from some of the more heavily Chinese fantasy inspired plot tropes, but this one looks to be diving back into it. Lindon seems to have found his way into some sort of pocket dimension treasure hunt populated by members of more powerful factions - a classic xianxia storyline if I've ever heard one. Unfortunately, I think that the author is mostly focused on writing a novel in a different series, so we probably won't see the rest of this one anytime this year.
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May 4, 2018 13:35
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Neopolitan style, the original pizza. The good stuff.
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May 9, 2018 01:13
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Ytlaya posted:I read some lovely manhua based off of a Chinese WN that's about some Wuxia (I think) character reincarnating into this fantasy world that's kinda like a Xianxia but with everyone having a "spirit item" that they use in combat. As a result, the protagonist knows all this kung-fu from his previous life. Sounds like Douluo Dalu, which is the most famous webnovel by Tang Jia San Shao, the most famous Chinese WN author. So not, like, some lovely write-off thing no one has heard of, although maybe not as popular in translation as it was in the original. Silynt fucked around with this message at 21:53 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 21:50
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:eerily similar to douluo dalu God, yes. I will admit to a guilty pleasure enjoyment of that series, to the point where I've read more than half of the entire run of all 3 on LNMTL. In all 3 (and several of the author's other works), there is a TERRIBLE trope plot line where the relatively powerful and self-sufficient female lead/love interest is forced lose her memories or revert to a childlike personality, therefor becoming 100% dependent on the lead character, and then they recover but realize that the lead really is super awesome and worth being 100% obedient to in all things. The series can be dumb fun, but the gender politics are not great. That storyline is usually about where I lose interest. P.S. Don't read Heavenly Jewel Change
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May 16, 2018 00:48
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I've commented on Will Wight's Cradle series in this thread in the past, and a number of people have read them and mostly enjoyed them. Cradle is a series of short (90,000ish words) novels that are based on Chinese xianxia concepts but are written with a Western audience in mind, digitally self published through Amazon. I've read a number of Amazon self published authors, and Will is EASILY the best of the bunch that I've read, across all his works and not just the Cradle series. A week ago, Will announced on his blog that the 5th book in the series, Ghostwater, is getting surprise released on June 1st - surprise because his fans thought he was writing a book in a different series and weren't expecting this book until 2019. Today, Will announced that book 1 in the series, Unsouled, will be available for free download on Amazon until Friday. I encourage anyone who likes Chinese xianxia stories to give these ones a shot. If you like book 1, the rest only cost $5 or are free if you're a kindle unlimited member.
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May 22, 2018 16:42
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Ghostwater discussion: At the end of the day, Ekeri was using the threat of lethal violence to shake him down (also, even if she left in alive he would die without the Eye when the world collapsed). Saying "I won't kill you if you give me your stuff" is effectively the same as saying "I will kill you if you don't", so it's hard for me to empathize too much when it comes back to bite her. I thought Ghostwater was a big improvement over Skysworn, and I was glad to see the world and some of the major power players in more detail. I liked the self contained story - Skysworn would have been better if it didn't have to spend the first half wrapping up the Jai Long fight storyline. I'm excited to see where the story goes next.
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Jun 15, 2018 21:16
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Per the recommendations of this thread and the English Web Serial thread, I finally got around to reading Forge of Destiny - honestly, I should have done it sooner. I loved it, combining my two greatest guilty pleasure reading outlets - Xianxia and LitRPG. I would suggest anyone who reads xianxia stories to give it a shot.... That said, I HIGHLY recommend that you skip reading the thread because hoo-boy, what a dumpster fire. There's so much salt from people on the losing side of various votes that you could salinate a lake, much of it still coming out months after the relevant vote was cast. Event voting is particularly bad about this.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:34
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SerSpook posted:we need to pick up a bunch of archery arts and here is why, also betray cai at the first opportunity (this is a joke, i am not serious) I've been hate reading the responses after some key sequences and it makes me want to pull my hair out. "We lost a fight that the Elder later told us we weren't supposed to win. I'm going to spend the next 40 pages of the thread bitching that we haven't abandoned our developed path and switched to an entirely different skill set. Oh you wanted to discuss our next actions? Too bad, I'm about to spend 20 pages arguing about how the trickster moon spirit we have been getting help from is Chaotic Evil. We agreed to be a follower of a high ranking character instead of being a typical xianxia murderhobo, we have officially given up all player agency and chance of character development. You loving idiots voted for the option to [insert choice] and it had an unforeseen negative consequence. If we had [insert other choice], obviously nothing else bad could have possibly happened! God you're all so loving stupid." Help me I can't stop.
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Jul 19, 2018 16:22
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Everyone talks about Way of Choices as the hands down best cultivation novel, so I'm finally giving it a chance. I tried reading it a few years ago and dropped it because it seemed too slow, but I've picked it back up again and am now partway through the Grand Examination.... I'm not that impressed. Its prose is well enough written and the Gravity Tales translation is fine, but the plot has started to feel a little too generic for the amount of praise that gets heaped on it. I was especially not happy with how his Purification problem was resolved. CCS gets built up as this super genius who can solve unsolvable cultivation problems, but his own problem gets solved by a Dragon feeding him blood? On accident, not even by his own design? Boring. And obviously dragon blood body is the best body anyone has every seen, because xianxia. And then when that dragon turns into another beautiful chick to join his harem (the 4th? Phoenix, princess, Mo Yu, dragon, maybe Empress in the future)... give me a break. I'm about to check out. I'm going to finish this arc at least but I don't know if I have another 900 chapters in me, plus whatever is still left to be translated.
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Jul 26, 2018 18:52
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I'm glad to hear that the story goes in a different direction than standard Chinese cultivation fantasy; while I've read a ton of those, they are increasingly hard to swallow. My growing disdain for the genre is mainly why I posted that first rant - the dragon blood deus ex machina resolution to the main character's long built up cultivation problem felt too cliche and I was frustrated that the story went in that direction. I'm also glad to hear that it doesn't descend into a harem novel, although I'm a firm believer that female cast members don't need to be the actual love interest to be a part of the harem. Even if Luoluo never becomes an actual lover, if she keeps being 100% obedient to CCS and never regains her agency as a character then I would still call her a harem member and I hate that poo poo. It sounds like that's not the case, though, so no problem. As for the Empress, where I am in the story there's definitely been no major hints that she is the primary antagonist - she's stared wistfully at the sky and philosophized about his connection to her fate or something like that, and she's also gone out of her way to help his growth (or at least has avoided stunting it). Other characters have repeatedly pointed out the contradictions in her actions, so I'm now interested to see what her motivations are.
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Jul 27, 2018 20:35
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Liling fight is up, for any FoD readers.
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Sep 5, 2018 17:54
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sunken fleet posted:Are there any Chinese novels with female leads that are good and aren't "romance"? I read like 200 chapter of Venomous Consort because the premise tickled me and the first 50~ chapters grabbed my interest. The lead character is some sort of poison master who reincarnates. She assassinates someone in the first couple chapters and then she slowly claws her way back into her families good graces with her skills - it's all pretty cool so I sort of figured that would be what the story was about. But then it just sort of downslides from there because she never kills or fights anyone again and the main male lead gets introduced - he this weird omnipotent stalker guy who follows her around and sometimes randomly strips her of her powers some she can be a damsel in distress for him to rescue... some of it is probably different cultural norms or whatever that made the guy come off as hugely unlikeable to me but yeah. He was really unlikeable. Forge of Destiny Edit: it will be tempting to read the thread conversations on some of the decisions while you're reading the story, but I recommend that you avoid it. It's like staring into the  abyss
Silynt fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Sep 29, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2018 20:00
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:it's time for more valhalla saga, bitches. pro-gamer einherjar tae ho becomes the master of asgard (via a plan set up by odin on this random guy, in case of ?????), allowing him to defeat ares in a climactic battle at the gates of tartarus. however, being the new all-father isn't enough to handle echidna and her subterranean monster city, so he digs deep and taps into true ultimate power: the background lore from a mmo he played. also, girl niddhogg, the matryoshka doll/dragon of the apocalypse finds a kindred spirit in the hydra, who is freed from the mountain heracles dumped on her. yes, her. the hydra is also a girl, and she also takes human form. These book titles are getting out of hand.
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Dec 12, 2018 16:20
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Megazver posted:Thoughts on any of these? I’m a big, big fan of the Cradle novel series that the question is based on, anyone who likes cultivation stories should absolutely read them. Of the other ones listed, I’m current on Painting the Mists and Forge (now Threads) of Destiny. FoD is discussed to death in this thread, it’s basically a CYOA LitRPG Cultivation story, read it it’s good. Painting the Mists is a pretty good, if predictable, cultivation story. The first book is EASILY the worst, which is unfortunate for anyone interested in reading it. The series is telling a pretty bog-standard Xianxia story, but it has the benefit of being written in novels as opposed to chapter by chapter, so there is at least a little narrative structure built in. It is released chapter by chapter on Royal Road and also available by the book on Amazon.
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Jan 6, 2019 19:24
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If anyone in the thread likes cultivation or martial arts based fantasy stories and hasn’t yet read the Cradle novel series by Will Wight, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. They are easily the most competently written stories in the genre that I’ve read. The fifth novel, Ghostwater, just won r/Fantasy’s award for Best Independent Novel of 2018, so other fantasy fans seem to agree. Obviously $4 or $5 per book is a bigger commitment than free webnovel trash, but they are worth the expense.
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Jan 9, 2019 17:32
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Does isekai have standard conventions beyond the whole “transported to another world” thing? Would you consider The Wandering Inn an isekai story, anyone who has read it?
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Jan 11, 2019 17:54
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It’s a play on a common xianxia trope, for the worthless cultivator protagonist’s life to be changed by a brush with God-tier power. I think that it’s handled very well compared to most of those stories. Lindon doesn’t get an OP God-tier item, like in ISSTH or AWE. He doesn’t get a super powerful teacher tag along like in Against the Gods or Martial God Asura. He just gets a pep talk that says “You’re only as weak as you let yourself be”, a glimpse at just how powerful a person can get, and a push towards the door.
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Jan 26, 2019 13:10
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For any Cradle readers, Underlord was confirmed today for March 1 release, and put up for pre-order. The Amazon page has the following synopsis: A tournament approaches. All around the world, great clans and sects prepare their disciples to fight against one another in a competition of young Underlords. Even the Blackflame Empire is drawn in, but their youth are not strong enough to compete. Yet.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:26
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I know that I’ve been posting a lot lately about Cradle series, considering that it isn’t even technically a webnovel, so I promise this will be the last one out of me for a while. With Book 6 of the series, Underlord, currently on pre-order for March 1 release it is a great opportunity for people who don’t read the series to catch up. Apparently the author agrees with me, because he is offering the collection of the first 3 novels, Foundation, on sale for $2.99 for the next 5 days (usual price $9.99, separately purchased price $15). Jump in while it’s cheap! The idea of the series is that the author, Will Wight, has taken the core concepts of a xianxia world (martial arts based magic, meditating to advance your power, a power scale with incredible verticality) and made a believable world out of it. The magic system is very well defined, like he took a xianxia power system and made it almost Sandersonian. The writing isn’t exactly Faulkner, but it is miles ahead of most serialized trash, especially most serialized trash that also needs to get translated. The series avoids a lot of the tropes which bring down xianxia stories - the protagonist isn’t a super genius, the female characters are great and not mindless slaves of the hero, the advancement (for the most part) feels earned. Thanks to the series being written in novels instead of chapters, you don’t get the same word/chapter bloat that you get in typical xianxia stories. Give it a shot! Silynt fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 11, 2019 17:09
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Ytlaya posted:Finished Soulsmith. Looks like Lindon is finally going to learn some sacred arts in the next book! I think it’s mentioned when they’re discussing Iron bodies that hers doesn’t provide as much of a benefit until later levels of advancement. In later books, we first see that it gives her outsized strength benefits when she hits Highgold. Basically, it naturally generates a level of physical strength that other paths need to use a technique to match, but you don’t see it at the level she’s at in Soulsmith.
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Feb 18, 2019 18:23
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The fact that a group of Jades killed the Sword Sage seems like a big plot hole, since it came from book 1 before the levels beyond Jade were defined and we now know that a Sage is basically a god compared to a Jade. The author swears that it isn’t and that he had a plan from the beginning, but we’ll have to wait and see.
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Feb 18, 2019 21:34
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My theory for the tournament is all 4 of our protagonists make the top 8 and get the special tattoo, and from there that Eithan advances to Overlord during the tournament (specifically mentioned by Akura Charity as allowed within the rules) and either wins or competes in the final match. Charity mentions several times in Underlord that she has a first choice picked out from the Blackflame Empire, which is implied to be Lindon. However, she doesn’t keep Lindon on the Blackflame team and Eithan claims to be her first choice when she announced the team at the end. Malice had “seen some of his plans” in Skysworn, so maybe the Akura dream artists know that Eithan has a shot at winning. With absolutely no basis other than a meta understanding of stories, I think that Lindon faces Sha Miara and pushes her far enough to reveal who she is. I also think that, despite the name of the book, there is too much story to tell before the end of the tournament to fit in 100,000 words so it will be broken up across the next 2 books. Silynt fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Mar 11, 2019 |
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Mar 11, 2019 18:10
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Book 4, Skysworn, explicitly states that Ozriel (the missing Judge) is the first Patriarch of the Arelius clan. I do not believe that is the same Monarch as the one mentioned as being recently “lost” in the epilogue to Underlord, but as far as I know that distinction is still unclear.
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Mar 11, 2019 21:36
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Ytlaya posted:Wait, isn't Sha Miara a Monarch? Near the end there's a blurb of her saying she wants to compete and her handlers are like "Monarchs can't compete in the tournament." Yes, she is a Monarch and yes her handlers said she couldn’t compete, but I just can’t envision why you would include that scene and then not have it pay off in the tournament, seems like a wasted detail if she doesn’t compete. I guess it emphasizes her childish nature, so it DOES provide a little character detail for someone we know very little about. To me, that still doesn’t seem like it’s worth including, unless she actually does compete.
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Mar 13, 2019 03:26
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I’m current on TWI and even a Patreon subscriber so that I can read a post ahead. If you want to have a real conversation about it, I suggest the English language Web Serial thread in the Book Barn. I’ve only read the original version so I can’t comment on the Royal Road or Amazon versions. It’s a good story. The author’s prose isn’t amazing but the story is entertaining and the slice of life chapters in particular are fun to read. Book 5, which just wrapped up, dragged a bit and the author kinda got lost pulling a bunch of plots together but 6 looks like it’s going to open up the world a little bit. Skip the weird sex chapter when you get to it, it was originally written as a joke and is entirely extraneous and frankly unnecessary.
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Apr 2, 2019 02:53
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LLSix posted:Started reading Street Cultivation. It starts off pretty good and 12 chapters in it is still cruising. Only one plot twist from way out in left field so far, but that one was a real gut punch in-universe. Overall writing quality is high and the author is updating every few days, which is impressively rapid. I started reading this and just got past the big plot twist you mention. I feel like the debt leeches are incredibly contrived and poorly presented in the story. For one thing, this isn’t some dystopian society, this is the modern world with a twist, I find it very hard to believe that there are laws that allow debts to pass to inheritors like this. And if there are, surely the MC would be aware that this would be a possibility going in to the meeting with the lawyers given his parents issues, but it doesn’t even cross his mind. Or even if the MC is too young/poor to understand the law, his uncle surely should have known that this was a possibility. Also, the lawyer had previously mentioned that their debts had already been paid. All in all, I found it to be a really lovely plot contrivance.
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Apr 21, 2019 20:23
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NinjaDebugger posted:I don't know the precise circumstances here, but uh, I got some bad news for you in general. It is entirely possible, RIGHT NOW, in the US, for something like this to happen, and a lot of people get completely blindsided by it. Edit: never mind not a discussion I want to get into. Silynt fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Apr 28, 2019 |
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Apr 28, 2019 16:11
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They’re manufactured in the Cradle novels, for example (or scales are, which is the in universe equivalent of a training tool/currency). It really just depends on the property, but generally speaking I’d say they’re a naturally occurring mineral.
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Jun 10, 2019 19:48
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I feel like you could just say “Make a Man out of You” and everyone would know the song, since it’s the 2nd greatest Disney song of all time (behind Eye to Eye)
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Jul 19, 2019 03:49
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I’m sitting here reading between the lines, hoping for an August 1st Uncrowned release. Will listed August 1 as the release date back on his April Fool’s release schedule post, captioned as “April Fool’s!..... or is it?”. He just had an all-books-for-free day on July 4th, which he’s done before other releases. And the narrator for his audiobooks, who loves them enough that the Underlord release from March is still his pinned tweet, has his current project listed on his Twitter as “classified” and then sent the following tweet, which Will then retweeted: https://twitter.com/twinstickgames/status/1150221455210115073?s=21 Fingers crossed! I want to know what happens next.
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Jul 22, 2019 01:46
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When is Uncrowned Tl;dr: Uncrowned coming sometime before Halloween
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Aug 2, 2019 23:20
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On his blog, Will Wight has announced the the preorder for Uncrowned will be going up on September 5th and has revealed the cover. He is deliberately vague about the actual timing of the release. All of the previous books have released on the first of a month but the vagueness seems to imply that it won’t be October 1. Perhaps he’ll be doing an early release Kickstarter like he mentioned a few months ago? Only time will tell.
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Aug 31, 2019 21:39
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