Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I read Worth the Candle last week and enjoyed it. I like how the conflicts are not resolved by the protagonist steamrolling the opposition.

There's a lot of shaky alliances and interesting situations with no perfect solution. I really want to see where the author goes with the level up addiction.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
The only thing I'm reading that's not on that list is Savage Divinity. It has a strong start but gets later gets bogged down in the slice of life sections. It also has some anime/wuxia influence so it may not be for you.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

Anias posted:

WTC: Uther being monstrous In multiple ways was surprisingly upsetting.

Yeah. There been some hints he would not be the Arthur that Joon remembers but after those last few chapters I'll be surprised if he's not an antagonist.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Practical Guide: I can't wait to see what Juniper has planned but also worried about the consequences of deploying goblin fire after what we learned previously.
Will that technically break the agreement and allow angelic intervention?

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Worth the Candle put out a few more chapters.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I gave it a shot and thought it would be about a girl with no talent making up for it with knowledge and cool applications of her power. Instead it was surprise they screwed up the test and she is really super OP.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed and allowing Akua to develope a police force and power up her own minions. Seems pretty obvious she will usurp the sovereign title and mantle at some point.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Worth the Candle updated with 4 more chapters.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Those were some chapters. The whole sequence post level up was almost physically uncomfortable to read. I wonder how making enemies out of the librarians will cause issues in the future.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
It's a bit that Lindon is a blank slate but also that he is desperately hungry to get stronger. So Eithan has the blank canvas to work with and someone motivated enough to even go beyond his extreme training regiment.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised that as time goes on, Eithan gets caught up in other things and Lindon developed new techniques and improves on his own.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
PracGuide Good to have mortal Cat back pulling crazy (maybe?) bluffs. Indrani would be pissed if she were still around.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

Ytlaya posted:

Hahah, Rumena owns

Rumena holding saint by the neck while Cat continues negotiations was so satisfying.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I think that was right when Captain went into beast mode to secure victory but instead put her into story driven, inevitable death.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

A big flaming stink posted:

there's also Epilogue which was pretty okay, though its been finished for a while.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21374/epilogue

From last page but thanks for recommending this. Read it on Sunday and enjoyed it quite a bit overall.

About halfway in I was hoping their way back wouldn't work or only Carl would get sent back to wrap up lose ends.

Instead everyone focused on their own issues and left Carl to spiral down by himself. I wonder if that was part of having a teenager body/brain again or just their own personalities reacting to stress.


I wish there were more stories that dealt with the aftereffects like this.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

nightchild12 posted:

just finished what exists of The Menocht Loop on Royal Road which is much higher quality than the normal RR fare (admittedly a very very low bar).

Sorry no loop suggestions but read up to current on Menocht Loop and enjoyed it. Thanks for the recommendation!

Although almost wish I found it later with more chapters. At least book 1 is finished so that was a satisfying conclusion.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I know one is (major Jelly spoiler) when Gell becomes human but what is the other?

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I honestly stopped reading it not long after she joined.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I have up on actual harry potter on book 4 or 5 but holy crap was HP20 amazing. I was so pumped when it came back just to find it quickly abandoned again.

Last week I marathoned arrogant master template just to find it dropped right in the middle of a critical event. Maybe I should just stick to completed serials.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

Mulozon Empuri posted:

well, he turned it into what he hated.

That makes sense. I thought the whole reason the latest events were happening were to kind of reboot and get it back on track but I could see author dropping it if he wasn't confident to fix it.

I should finish vainqueur. Left off around 120ish and didn't know it was finished.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I mean, book 2 is probably my least favorite so I can understand dropping it there. I did enjoy book 1 even though the series picks up and becomes amazing in book 3.

Different strokes for different folks.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I read it for a bit but dropped it when instead of clearing up the misunderstanding with her mom, she decided to become a movie star on too of everything else she had planned.

I've been reading Re:Monarch and finding it decent. The prologue chapter is a bit weird and the main antagonist is cartoonishly evil but the adventure has been fun.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I don't mind characters making mistakes as long as it is relevant to their character and not just blatant stupidity to make a plot event happen. I thought these were done well:

Zuko from avatar siding with his sister rather than his uncle then later regretting. Fits his character and motivations.

Lindon from cradle (bloodline spoiler) going to the wei clan himself as a savior with unsouled badge instead of delegating to someone else they might respect and listen to.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Isn't it more than hinted that (cradle slight spoilers) Emriss tried to educate everyone globally and was murdered for it? The powerful maintain the status quo just like our world.
We also see Mercy rebel against it somewhat and may be related to Eithan's plans to tear down the current rules.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I have horrible taste and am reading more web novels than books now but sometimes the writing gets to me.

Recently I think it was The Hedge Wizard where everyone is screaming, sometimes more than once in a paragraph. No one shouts, yelps, bellows, or grunts... just screams.

Edit: Not even a shriek in surprise.

Kyoujin fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jul 16, 2021

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I've been enjoying Outcast in Another World

Despite the generic title it has been pretty interesting with a human transported to (early setting spoilers)a fantasy land where the other races genocided humans a decade prior.

It has lit rpg elements but not too heavy outside of the full character sheet posted at the end of chapters in spoiler tags.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I really enjoyed early practical guide to evil despite it's faults because it was a fun read. It seemed to get less and less fun so I'm glad I dropped it. Every once in a while I'm tempted to binge it but this thread keeps me from that mistake so thanks.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42385/an-outcast-in-another-world-subtitle-is-insanity

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Snake report is really good even if it does shift gears towards the end of part 1. Hoping this hiatus isn't as long as the last ones.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

nightchild12 posted:

I've been looking through the Royal Road Writeathon winners (https://www.royalroad.com/blog/45/writathon-winners) and found a couple of standouts:

War Queen - First Contact Sci-Fi from the Point of View of the Alien Bug Monsters. Strange creatures attack Skthveraachk-colony, behaving oddly and doing impossible things, and the Queen is wounded in the battle. She wakes up abducted and attempts to establish communication and to ensure the survival of her species.
The Queen's Guard - Black Powder Fantasy (18th century-ish) Adventure. A kingdom is invaded suddenly by the use of strange magics, and a soldier is given the duty to escort his prince to safety.

Both of these are, in my opinion, at or near publication-quality. At the very least, I've read professionally published works that were not written as well.

I'm also really liking Tori Transmigrated, a "otome game villainess" serial, but while I find it highly entertaining it's very "serial fictiony" and I don't think as high quality as the above two.

This was from the other page but thanks for recommending war queen. Binged it all yesterday and it is a fantastic breath of fresh air. The author has great talent for writing from a nonhuman perspective and I'm very excited to see where it goes.

I've been reading Tori and it's pretty decent and I like the way they implement the game world although the main character is getting on my nerves. She feels like a Mary Sue and always complains about how much she has going on then takes all help for granted or turns down help because she is a perfectionist (writing invitations). Maybe it's supposed to be a character fault but doesn't feel like it yet.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Yeah, I thought the fashion stuff was fine the way it was introduced as conflict with the love interests and heroine. Wish it went to the background after she hired some competent staff and focused more on the delta project.

The food stuff I would completely remove unless there was a plot reason to introduce new cuisine at a party or something and includes all the difficulty and set backs using strange ingredients.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Yeah! War Queen definitely rules. It can be a bit hard to follow at times but that's probably my brain turning to mush after too many web serials. It definitely rewards you for paying attention as some of the great jokes can be missed in translation

As the true nature of the humans was revealed I thought Svera might end up working with the Coalition although that seems less likely now after making up with Hathan and having enough trouble comprehending an empire of individuals, much less a (democratic?) coalition.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
War Queen chapter 24 we are finally past the prologue. I never expected to cheer the giant red soldier turned into a tank A-team style with human armor and body parts to charge down the killing corridor. His confusion at the touching and illogical human interactions in the face of death was interesting too. Really love the alien feel of the colony's point of view.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

Zore posted:

The story does weird things to you when you realize you're cheering for a giant insect who welded dead human bodies onto himself as ablative armor so he could slaughter a bunch of people rebelling against a horrifying empire. I cannot wait for Svera to learn more about why her colony is being set to kill these specific humans and how she ends up dealing with that. Its also interesting to be in another bug's head, especially as they seem to be developing more individuality as their exposure to weird human behavior grows.

I'm excited to see how the individuals develope since putting self over colony is considered frenzy and they are immediately killed and even the remains are isolated. I'm sure that will need to be addressed at some point and maybe a source of internal conflict for the colony.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
War Queen 25 look down and fear humanites as the colony turns 1 menial to 2 with the power of wheelbarrows!

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Yeah, while it might seem mundane to us it really shows a shift in the thinking of the colony. They never had to develop technology when they had the resources to just throw more bodies at a problem. Love seeing their thought process slowly leave the box.

I'm a couple days late but just read the latest public Outcast chapter and his has some great lines:

outcast 92 posted:

“Ah, no, not that Dungeon Crawl gone wrong. I’m referring to the one before.”

I do wonder how the fiends will use the information that Faelynn got some sort of exp boost while in Rob's party. They may not know it comes from Rob specifically but he IS the only human so should be pretty obvious.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
War Queen 26 made me remember the "I love helmets" skateboarder guy.

A lot to unpack in this chapter and hope next chapter we get the Queen's perspective on the fiasco that lead to artillery ambush and massive losses. I do wonder what she is hoping to learn from prioritizing humanite dissection.

I love this story so much - that whole sequence with saving and prioritizing the human over colony members was heartbreaking from mender's perspective.

Looks like the evil dystopian empire is not tolerant of religion. Wonder what they think of the Composer.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009

90s Cringe Rock posted:

Humanites are just the worst.

And the Pod is one of the worst of them. In a chapter filled with hypocrisy this line stood out:

"We aren’t animals. We aren’t monsters. This isn’t what I taught her, Pri, any of you."
- says the one who was involved in torturing the queen and pressed the torture button herself on at least one occasion.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
Yeah it really was a fantastic chapter. The build up to revealing that every single activity or conversation that ever took place with the colony - Svera was there. The humans classified the colony as eusocial but never really gave them a thought what it really meant and it shows. I like how that followed on a bunch of chapters where the queen was not the POV character but this reminds us she was always there.

War Queen is my favorite serial I'm following at the moment and I hope it keeps up this quality for the long haul.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
War Queen book 2 chapter 1

I love the introduction of the new warrior/drone cast. They definitely fit against the new enemy with squishy bodies and iirc a drone got into one of the vehicles in a previous battle and was able to slaughter the crew inside. Change to new ideas that don't fit the previous mold is hard for the colony and neat to see how practical demonstrations change their views. Hope we eventually see some Ender's Game strategies with mini drones riding armored soldiers and wielding scavenged lancers or projectile weapons.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply