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So moving away from terrible rpg stuff, has anyone else read The Spiral Wars?
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Nov 18, 2019 02:29
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:So moving away from terrible rpg stuff, has anyone else read The Spiral Wars? I haven't read the latest books but I read up to book four back when that was as far as it went. It's a decent mil sci-fi series with a lot of the usual occasional eye-rolling politics that tend to be mostly inseparable from military science fiction - with libertarian leanings, overly-perfect soldiers and marines, and a weird, repeating implication that when interacting with alien cultures, instead of trying to imitate anything about them or their language or culture and fit in, you'd be better off just being aggressively, dickishly human because they'll just despise you for weakness otherwise. It was interesting enough, though, and nothing was obnoxious enough that I wanted to stop reading, and it' good as a mil-sci fi series I've read in a while - with interesting alien and AI political drama. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 08:35
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Wolpertinger posted:I haven't read the latest books but I read up to book four back when that was as far as it went. It's a decent mil sci-fi series with a lot of the usual occasional eye-rolling politics that tend to be mostly inseparable from military science fiction - with libertarian leanings, overly-perfect soldiers and marines, and a weird, repeating implication that when interacting with alien cultures, instead of trying to imitate anything about them or their language or culture and fit in, you'd be better off just being aggressively, dickishly human because they'll just despise you for weakness otherwise. And it continues in this vein. I liked them.
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Nov 18, 2019 11:22
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Elpato posted:Again, making the book about conflict between people is a choice, and that's fine. I just would have been more interested in a larger threat like an insane AI controller or something in the world that can threaten the protagonists in a way other than inconveniencing them. This is book 3. Sort of. Did I not warn that theres a lot of tedious description of grinding and power levelling in between the cool parts with the really hateable bad guy? Book 2 is another one where someone who holds some power decides to abuse it, but this time its for a good cause. But still a lot of grinding description with time skips etc.
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Nov 18, 2019 14:24
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Larry Parrish posted:Reborn apocalypse is one of like 10 books with that exact premise and they're all equally bad. I don't know who likes reading these books where someone reincarnates or goes back in time or whatever and then they effortlessly win everything forever with the power of future knowledge Yeah this is the plot of Blaise Corvin and Outspan Foster's First Song, too.
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Nov 18, 2019 14:26
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Victorkm posted:This is book 3. Sort of. Oh, yes. You warned everyone. Still a valid criticism though. I enjoyed my time in the book (maybe in part because Audible put on a pretty good production of the whole thing) but not enough to revisit the series unless I get a very specific itch.
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Nov 18, 2019 17:53
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So is there anything on par with 1000 li and Cradle?
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Nov 22, 2019 02:36
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Captain Monkey posted:So is there anything on par with 1000 li and Cradle? I'd say go check out stuff on Webnovel.com for stuff like Library of Heaven's Path or Battle Through the Heavens.
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Nov 22, 2019 04:04
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apologies, wrong thread
NotWearingPants fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 04:28
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same as above
NotWearingPants fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 04:31
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Captain Monkey posted:So is there anything on par with 1000 li and Cradle?
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Nov 22, 2019 13:34
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One thing that always strikes me as weird about LitRPG is that the 'system' always comes across as the kind of thing one might encounter in a lovely MUD from the 90s. Also of course that the main character always gets some kind of huge power boost by doing something 'clever' that nobody else has ever thought of and this is somehow superior to people with equal 'system' numbers who are for example professional soldiers/warrior nobles who have had expert preparation and trained for hours a day their entire lives. I guess making the main character somebody who has trained a lot would ruin the power fantasy though, even if it would make more sense for the badass isekai/LitRPG protagonist to be a commando or athlete or something in their late twenties rather than the standard 'generic loser'.
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Nov 22, 2019 19:55
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It's not really weird at all. I mean, I doubt every author is thinking about the underlying reason but if you consider modern MMOs they're a lot less of an open space to gently caress around with than before. You sort of need this easily exploitable wild west of unintentional interactions to make a lot of stories work. Otherwise, the game merely serves as a backdrop rather than as a setting that's part of the plot.
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Nov 22, 2019 20:04
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Yeah. I used to play a PVP MUD for like 10 years. At first I hated the combat because the people who sat and grinded every day were guaranteed to win, but then I discovered the one weird trick of combining rarely used perks and support equipment like grenades that people considered useless to win fights. So it makes sense but pretty much only if you played an old MUD like that I guess. Its really funny how many authors just describe someone power leveling or grinding like it's some forbidden technique nobody has ever heard of though. Especially in the ones that take place in an actual game that's also the most popular game ever or whatever.
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Nov 24, 2019 01:56
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Larry Parrish posted:Yeah. I used to play a PVP MUD for like 10 years. At first I hated the combat because the people who sat and grinded every day were guaranteed to win, but then I discovered the one weird trick of combining rarely used perks and support equipment like grenades that people considered useless to win fights. So it makes sense but pretty much only if you played an old MUD like that I guess. You have the case of SAO where the economics of things makes it highly implausible, among many other things. It's like hacking in movies, or logistics in warcraft. It's easier to suspend your disbelief when they're not outright trying to snap it in half.
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Nov 24, 2019 02:27
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I always imagine that when the protag is Uber powerful due to grinding that they are grinding so incredibly hard/long (lol) that nobody else could possibly do the same. A level beyond poopsocking.
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Nov 24, 2019 16:06
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I just got recommended a Lit 4x book called CivCEO. That’s a new genre I haven’t seen yet and am going to have to see how terrible it is.
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Nov 24, 2019 22:58
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I've tried one called Civilization: Barbarians out of same curiosity. It wasn't that great, but not because of the 4X stuff. I've also read Paths of Civilization, which was a decent read if you like, say, fiction-y Paradox game reports.
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Nov 24, 2019 23:15
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Virigoth posted:I just got recommended a Lit 4x book called CivCEO. That’s a new genre I haven’t seen yet and am going to have to see how terrible it is. I couldnt make it past 50 pages.
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Nov 25, 2019 04:14
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for some reason I read the stork tower books if you want to talk about terrible concepts
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Nov 26, 2019 01:51
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Finished Dungeon Lord 4 and can confirm it's very good by LitRPG standards. Even by regular fantasy book standards I think it's pretty decent.
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Nov 26, 2019 18:15
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Patrat posted:One thing that always strikes me as weird about LitRPG is that the 'system' always comes across as the kind of thing one might encounter in a lovely MUD from the 90s. The Codename: Freedom series actually doesn't do this at all, which was interesting even if I didn't entirely pick up on it at the time, although it sort of makes sense why not later on when things get weird. I find myself getting annoyed at stupid decisions the players make that the authors think is clever but would actually never be a good idea. I distinctly recall reading a passage where a guy is like "a perk that permanently lowers the required XP to reach the next level by 10%? nah, that's not broken or anything I'm gonna get some magic specializations!"
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Nov 29, 2019 09:52
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Yeah once and a while you get one of these where the author has obviously never played an old RPG, or was very bad at them. Those are always funny.
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Nov 29, 2019 10:23
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I like (dislike)the ones that are the opposite, where you realize the only MMORPG they ever played was Everquest, or Everquest 2, or Final Fantasy 11 and the system in the book is an exact rip off of them. Somnia online does this with EQ1 and 2, and there was another series that did it with straight up Everquest but I can't remember the name. He kind of got away from it in the sequel. Crystal Shards online 1 is exactly a Final Fantasy MMO reskin though again he mostly fixes that in the sequels.
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Nov 29, 2019 14:11
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I read the Delphi in Space series. Its trash. And not even particularly good trash. If you've read the Stones of Silence, you've read this book. In fact I'm going to go double check that they dont have the same author. The author is obviously a succ lib with CNN brain worms, including an (incredibly badly written) Trump. Like he's super articulate and smart and everyone just thinks the people he trusts give him bad info but really he does love America but theres also literally a 'you're fired' scene. Theres also a bizarre thing about hiring UN refugees and 'making sure they know there wont be any Sharia law here'. Also a lot about 'polynesian work culture' which is pretty lol. That one might actually be a real thing but I'm pretty sure its because theres no loving jobs worth doing. Anyway the aliens are literally just star trek aliens that have elf ears and are otherwise completely the same as humans which is a lame cop out no matter how you look at it. Its basically three short books worth of 'drat, I've got a problem [thinks hard for two seconds] good thing I have space magic that perfectly fits this situation'. I'm not kidding when I say John loving Ringo wrote a similar series that had more suspense. In conclusion it's one of those books so boringly bad the only reason you finish it is so you can get a read on whether the author is just an idiot or insanely bad at writing.
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Nov 30, 2019 15:50
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Trump only really works as a villain if you're a 1980s pulp author, he's too cartoonishly incompetent and morally/sexually depraved to really work in anything else.
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Dec 2, 2019 09:17
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Tried a few more suggestions I have seen in here, the stork tower series had what I thought was a really interesting world but the actual book itself I couldn't get into, a little stat heavy perhaps. Minimum wage magic was actually pretty good, one of the characters was a bit over the top powerful and came across as "im 15 and this guy is so cool" but otherwise was a really fun read. I also read " The City and the Dungeon: And Those who Dwell and Delve Within" which is pretty litRPG but a fun read, no harem stuff, no weird sex scenes and only fairly light mechanical references without huge stat blocks. Finally I re-read "Perilous Waif" again, it is still absurd with an obscenely overpowered main character who happens to be a 13 (I think) year old girl. But I read it again because its some weird easy to read book where I know nothing bad is going to happen.
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Dec 11, 2019 13:30
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City and the Dungeon is a pretty decent LitRPG adaptation of Nethack. I've noticed theres a couple more books in the C.M. Carney series the Realm - I haven't read them yet but I am looking forward to it as I rather liked the first few books.
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Dec 11, 2019 15:05
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It's Mordor/Demise more than it is NetHack. It's really noticeable if you grew up playing the shareware version of Mordor!
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Dec 11, 2019 15:08
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Victorkm posted:City and the Dungeon is a pretty decent LitRPG adaptation of Nethack. I bounced off this series pretty hard during the Two Week Curse mostly because of the characterization of the two MCs and the narration in the Audiobook. In your opinion, does the characterization get a bit better as the series goes on? I feel like the MCs are just too good at pretty much everything, and the whole supporting cast are there to ooh and ah at appropriate times.
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Dec 11, 2019 16:00
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That’s a different series, the Ten Realms by Michael Chatfield. It sucks, yes. I haven’t read the one in the post your responded to, though, so no opinion to offer on it.
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Dec 11, 2019 16:07
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Woops. You’re right. I have read Barrow King though. Kind of quit after that one.
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Dec 11, 2019 18:12
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Elpato posted:Woops. You’re right. I read barrow king and never followed up as well, so if you go back let the thread know. IDK why I bounced, it was weirdly bland.
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Dec 11, 2019 19:45
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Anyone read any of The Tide series and can report before I waste my time ramping up for a bigger series? I noticed a new Tao Wong System Apocalypse is out so I’ll catch up on that to see what kind of OP shitlording goes on this book.
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Dec 12, 2019 01:14
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Virigoth posted:
Actually I kind of liked this one.
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Dec 12, 2019 01:41
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Anias posted:I read barrow king and never followed up as well, so if you go back let the thread know. IDK why I bounced, it was weirdly bland. I liked Barrow King a lot so it may not be for you. Or actually good. I like a lot of stuff that isn't good. The second book/book 1.5 is a nifty take on Groundhog Day, where Lex has been separated from Gryph and trapped in a time loop which resets when he dies, on a day which ends with the main adversary's head assassin tracking him down and capturing him.
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Dec 12, 2019 03:43
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 So I just got finished reading this one, and it's a real shame that this author wasted a decent story by using his protagonist as a finger puppet to spout politics. For those not familiar, this book is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian story where humanity is fighting to get the Earth back from rogue nanotech by convincing it to follow the rules of "the game." The game is your bog standard VRMMORPG but pretty much all of humanity is dedicated to playing it to keep their society alive. So far so good, but then the author tries to be Orwell by warning of the dangers of communism and political correctness (which somehow contribute to the downfall of Western civilization and then the world somehow). Now humanity is run by the party who control access to the game and how players spend their time in it. Boone, the MC of the book, is constantly scoring rhetorical points against peers that are members of the party and makes a bet with the scion of a major guild that, given a fair shot, Boone could become a top player like any party member. Anyway, against the backdrop of this incredibly simplified view of economics, politics, culture, and such, the author then proceeds to tell a very human story about a misfit constantly struggling with not fitting into an oppressive system. The MC is betrayed by his best bud, he reconnects with his distant father, and he learns the value of hard work and persistence. His conflict with the powers that be and the true believers among his peers is pretty compelling. The villains are villainous, not because they are part of a "communist" party but because they are elites that horde all the resources and keep others from getting a fair shake by using the party's high level players, RL money, political power, etc. I mean, the story would not change much AT ALL if we just switch out the communist party for just a cardboard cutout totalitarian regime run by the wealthy. Then at least when the MC waxes poetic about the evils of the regime, I could roll my eyes a bit less. Instead, the guy rails against political issues that are most certainly still worth talking about but not in my loving nerd fantasy books. I should know what to expect going into things in this genre, but this one hit me pretty hard. Fuckin a Edit: I see the above happen a lot in this thread, so I made a thing Elpato fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 06:11
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i think those topics could be talked about in fantasy books but so far, even the most leftist author is usually some flavor of liberal, so seeing them trying to talk about mass politics or worker's rights flip flops between being hilariously out of touch or infuriating
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Dec 13, 2019 17:29
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Honestly, I don't really care if some fantasy/scifi author is libertarian or full on communist or what. In this genre protagonists get to be: -Author self-insert -"Right about everything" If you have to put either of these elements in your book (you don't), pick only one. Even then it's a coin flip as to whether the story will be anything but an eye-roller.
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Dec 14, 2019 04:17
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So heres a possibly very tricky to fulfil request. Books with a female protagonist which are not awful? (specifically on kindle unlimited, I know there are many good books with female protagonists but have struggled to find them on kindle unlimited)
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Dec 14, 2019 22:54
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