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...is that the next Jurassic World?
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Nov 9, 2018 00:51
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A human heart posted:Does he gently caress the dinosaurs Naw, there's that spider-lady, though. And maybe an elf? I dunno. Also it doesn't preclude a sexy dinosaur lady showing up later. I've learned to avoid any book that makes a big deal with a 'warning' of something like 'This book has SEX and VIOLENCE and the main guy does THE SEX with a lot of GIRLS sometimes a few girls AT ONCE so BACK OFF TIPPER GORE.' Also a bad warning sign is when any women is described like they would be in the copy for the latest offering from Bang Bros.
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Nov 12, 2018 00:31
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Dawgstar posted:Naw, there's that spider-lady, though. And maybe an elf? I dunno. Also it doesn't preclude a sexy dinosaur lady showing up later. I've learned to avoid any book that makes a big deal with a 'warning' of something like 'This book has SEX and VIOLENCE and the main guy does THE SEX with a lot of GIRLS sometimes a few girls AT ONCE so BACK OFF TIPPER GORE.' Also a bad warning sign is when any women is described like they would be in the copy for the latest offering from Bang Bros. The bang bros bang spider ladies?
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Nov 13, 2018 01:45
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Dawgstar posted:Naw, there's that spider-lady, though. And maybe an elf? I dunno. Also it doesn't preclude a sexy dinosaur lady showing up later. I've learned to avoid any book that makes a big deal with a 'warning' of something like 'This book has SEX and VIOLENCE and the main guy does THE SEX with a lot of GIRLS sometimes a few girls AT ONCE so BACK OFF TIPPER GORE.' Also a bad warning sign is when any women is described like they would be in the copy for the latest offering from Bang Bros. I tend to avoid them if it has "A LitRPG Harem Fantasy!" in the title.
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Nov 13, 2018 11:27
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Years of anime have innoculated me against silly harem stories.
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Nov 13, 2018 13:46
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Victorkm posted:I tend to avoid them if it has "A LitRPG Harem Fantasy!" in the title. A wise move. It just means 'he has a dark elf and a light elf for a wife and also they talk about hit points.'
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Nov 13, 2018 14:31
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Dawgstar posted:A wise move. It just means 'he has a dark elf and a light elf for a wife and also they talk about hit points.' I'd be down with it, tbh, if they were written any better, but the ones I've tried reading were pretty bad even when reading with lowered expectations.
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Nov 13, 2018 16:11
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Maybe it gets better, but I couldn't feel the energy coming out of the writing, I didn't get that feel of the author thinking awwww yeah this is the coolest poo poo while writing it that I often get from a lot of trashy books in KU. I can't remember which book I finally reached full  and gave up, but I believe I was at the point in the story where Tiger Marine had just subjugated both the Space Chinese (Via defeating their literal shapeshifting Dragon Emperor in single combat, because Tiger Marine is so awesome) and one of the major clans of Space Vikings (By defeating their warlord in single combat because Tiger Marine is so awesome), and was working on uniting the rest of the Space Viking clans so they had a big enough fleet to take on the evil Space Vampires who are coming out of hibernation and will slaughter every living thing in the universe, but nobody believes Tiger Marine and only he knows the true danger the evil superpowered Space Vampires pose. (Because Tiger Marine is always cool and good and right.) It's like someone gave the make believe ramblings of a 13 year old the Axe Cop treatment.
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Nov 13, 2018 18:20
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...so it is basically Mass Effect?
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Nov 13, 2018 19:05
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Siegkrow posted:...so it is basically Mass Effect? Actually, it kinda is a lot like Mass Effect
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Nov 13, 2018 19:57
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Siegkrow posted:...so it is basically Mass Effect?  This never occurred to me, but you are 100% right. The whole series is literally Mass Effect fanfic with the serial numbers filed off.
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Nov 13, 2018 21:09
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Verloc posted:It's like someone gave the make believe ramblings of a 13 year old the Axe Cop treatment. So why do all the lovely ladies love Were-Tiger Space Marine? Because he's just that amazing?
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Nov 13, 2018 22:00
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Megazver posted:I'd be down with it, tbh, if they were written any better, but the ones I've tried reading were pretty bad even when reading with lowered expectations. A lot of people like the Super Sales on Super Heroes books by William Arand. Not sure on the reception to the latest one that just came out, though I thought it wasn't as good as the last two in a lot of ways. The series centers around a schlub managing a McDonalds type restaurant in a world that is decidedly not earth who has the seemingly worst superpower. Felix can view and modify the stats of items he owns. The only problem is, it takes an amount of "Points" much higher than the 100 he has assigned to him daily to actually do anything of note. His life changes when a mistaken delivery ends up with him accepting the ownership of an indentured servitude contract of a super hosed up but still living superhero, defeated by the local supervillain who has taken over the city. He discovers that owning another human gives him the ability to use their points, and supers have a ton more points than he does. Anyway, he ends up in a harem situation with all the slave supers he recruits, and its mostly fun.
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Nov 17, 2018 11:35
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Victorkm posted:A lot of people like the Super Sales on Super Heroes books by William Arand. Not sure on the reception to the latest one that just came out, though I thought it wasn't as good as the last two in a lot of ways. The series centers around a schlub managing a McDonalds type restaurant in a world that is decidedly not earth who has the seemingly worst superpower. Felix can view and modify the stats of items he owns. The only problem is, it takes an amount of "Points" much higher than the 100 he has assigned to him daily to actually do anything of note. His life changes when a mistaken delivery ends up with him accepting the ownership of an indentured servitude contract of a super hosed up but still living superhero, defeated by the local supervillain who has taken over the city. He discovers that owning another human gives him the ability to use their points, and supers have a ton more points than he does. I tried reading this and, well, I have no issues with BDSM erotica; and, like, a book where a super-villain has a harem of semi-unwilling super-heroine slaves that he eventually subverts into a polygamous lifestyle-BDSM relationship? Yeah, sure, whatever, it doesn't bother me. Thing is, it's just so badly written. That guy is so bad at it. What I've read of it was seriously cringe. The first writer who is good at writing the harem wish-fulfillment poo poo and also not terrible at just general loving writing is going to become a millionaire.
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Nov 17, 2018 12:35
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Due to years of fanfiction, I'm a very low expectations reader. As long as what I'm reading has these points, I can read it: A) Competently written (aka, the text has flow, there aren't any outstanding grammar errors, etc...), B) The plot premise is interesting enough (that weretiger mass effect ripoff sounds like something I'd read) C) isn't trying to push an agenda on me (book starts about Vikings, ends up being about JESUS) D) Does not try to lie about what I'm reading. (If I go into a sci do adventure novel, I expect it to, y'know, spend most of the runtime on that, not devote half the book to an affair between space captain Goldkoc and Guard Captain Morgan. In such cases you label your book properly)
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Nov 17, 2018 14:35
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Dawgstar posted:So why do all the lovely ladies love Were-Tiger Space Marine? Because he's just that amazing? Honestly, if it didn't violate part A of Siegkrow's requirements, the series would be a fun guilty pleasure read. The setting is certainly interesting in a Mass Effect / Buck Rogers / John Carter mashup sense, and the combat scenes are competently written. Unfortunately if the author isn't describing some big dumb object or Tiger Marine shotgunning his way though legions of corporate mercenaries, the prose is really, really terrible. The characters all super robotic. Tiger Marine and Space Vampire Sorceress especially, I found myself reading their dialogue in the Yahtzee Croshaw 'bleep bloop robot' voice because they sounded so wooden and mechanical. Most of the character interactions read like dialog in a very badly written RPG game.
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Nov 17, 2018 15:22
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Siegkrow posted:Due to years of fanfiction, I'm a very low expectations reader. As long as what I'm reading has these points, I can read it: This is very rare. As an example one sin they often have is often every time a woman appears you will be treated to a clumsy paragraph of how hot she is, how short are her shorts, how her t-shirt struggles mightily with her ample bosom, etc. quote:C) isn't trying to push an agenda on me (book starts about Vikings, ends up being about JESUS) Suddenly RELIGION is unlikely in these books, I've found. There's even a one where the dude has a succubus AND an angel who are magically bound to him (but it's OK because he is a Nice Guy, it walks this really weird line of 'I am a slave of my own free will') and even in a series with actual Heaven and actual Hell it breaks its neck to be very vague. Is there a God? Who knows! Not even the angels! What you're more likely to get is the thing with the were-lion book, where it stopped being fun to goof on because it goes kinda Sovereign Citizen. Verloc posted:It's been a while since I've read the books so my recollection is a little fuzzy, but short answer: Pretty much. The first two entries into Tiger Marine's harem are a highly intelligent but ultimately naive good vampire space sorceress, and a demure but somewhat flighty hacker girl. (Whose characters bear no resemblance whatsoever to Liara and Tali from Mass Effect). Vampire sorceress happily hops into bed with Tiger Marine because he rescued her and because he is awesome. Hacker girl has some serious reservations about a polyamorous relationship, but eventually decides to get in line to have her flakes frosted because Tony The Tiger is just that awesome. Later entries such as Space Viking Tough Chick Stereotype jump Tiger Marine's bones because he is very good at Space Murder and is very Space Honorable. I'd be interested in finally reading one of these series where the women don't all just orbit the dude and and also have meaningful interactions with each other.
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Nov 17, 2018 18:44
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Dawgstar posted:I'd be interested in finally reading one of these series where the women don't all just orbit the dude and and also have meaningful interactions with each other.
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Nov 17, 2018 19:40
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Megazver posted:I tried reading this and, well, I have no issues with BDSM erotica; and, like, a book where a super-villain has a harem of semi-unwilling super-heroine slaves that he eventually subverts into a polygamous lifestyle-BDSM relationship? Yeah, sure, whatever, it doesn't bother me. Thing is, it's just so badly written. That guy is so bad at it. What I've read of it was seriously cringe. Yeah I don't blame you for not liking it. It was a novel idea at least for the first book and I mostly cruised through the next 2 on inertia.
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Nov 18, 2018 02:28
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Cicero posted:Worth the Candle, kind of. It's extremely tonally different from other LitRPGs and has fairly strong writing even by non-web-serial standards, very heavy on the "rat" part of Ratfic though. what about Wandering Inn where the two biggest protagonists are ladies
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Nov 18, 2018 05:05
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GreyjoyBastard posted:what about Wandering Inn where the two biggest protagonists are ladies
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Nov 18, 2018 21:49
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Gave Advent: Red Mage a try. The early chapters are pretty badly written. Don't bother buying on Amazon.
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Nov 18, 2018 23:27
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Megazver posted:Gave Advent: Red Mage a try. The early chapters are pretty badly written. Don't bother buying on Amazon. Darn, I have that on deck for kindle unlimited. Oh well.
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Nov 19, 2018 11:18
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Victorkm posted:Darn, I have that on deck for kindle unlimited. I must admit, I dropped it fairly early into the book. It might get better like fifteen chapters in? Personally, I just have many other books to read instead of reading bad ones in hopes of them getting better.
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Nov 19, 2018 12:20
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Yeah, I'm working on Dakota Krout's new Divine Dungeon book. That series and his Ritualist series are both pretty fun. Ritualist is one of my new favorites in LitRPG.
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Nov 20, 2018 02:35
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Dawgstar posted:
The Witcher is kind of like this. Geralt is more or less at the mercy of all the sorceresses and such coming in and out of his life. That's not really a harem though as much as Geralt is a slut. In some ways it's hard to have something like a harem and meaningful interactions because the characters by default need to be devoted to the main character. If they have their own agency then they can't really be a harem because there will be something more important to their life than being gurl #7.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:13
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SerCypher posted:In some ways it's hard to have something like a harem and meaningful interactions because the characters by default need to be devoted to the main character. If they have their own agency then they can't really be a harem because there will be something more important to their life than being gurl #7. That's true. 'An ensemble cast who is in a committed relationship with each other' isn't as punchy on the Amazon listings, I expect.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:33
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Another trend in trash scifi/fantasy (especially lit rpgs) is when there is a knowledgeable non-human sidekick type character who's whole job is to give exposition to the protagonist and viewer. For example in Life Reset there is a AI masquerading as a demon, in Expeditionary force it's a talking AI the size of a soda can, in some dungeon book I read it was a fairy I think. It's just really annoying. The authors always think the quippy dialogue between the Protagonist and the infodump is funny (it's not) and it's so much less interesting then them just interacting with the world. The help menu doesn't need a personality.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:24
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SerCypher posted:Another trend in trash scifi/fantasy (especially lit rpgs) is when there is a knowledgeable non-human sidekick type character who's whole job is to give exposition to the protagonist and viewer. Skippy is great and funny and I will tolerate no arguments against this. Expeditionary Force is fun even if it can basically be summarized as Skippy: We have a problem that I the amazingly brilliant computer cannot solve. Joe: what about this. Skippy: That's stupid your stupid that could never work, here's an info dump. *later* Joe:*thinks about something that happened back in Maine.* Hey Skippy would this work. Skippy: Pfttt...no.....uhhh...poo poo...yes. CURSE YOU AND YOUR MONKEY BRAIN IDEAS. It's probably my favorite sci-fi shlock right now.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:37
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SerCypher posted:in some dungeon book I read it was a fairy I think. Haha, yeah there is a dungeon wisp named Dani in the Divine Dungeon series that is named after the author's wife and serves to tell the dungeon how to reach higher ranks and berate him when he does something really mean I guess. At some point she gets kidnapped to drive the narrative of a book and they have a baby wisp that I am pretty sure is named after Dakota Kraut's daughter.
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Nov 22, 2018 12:26
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Skippy is great and funny and I will tolerate no arguments against this. I couldn't get through the audiobook, but I started reading it, and it wasn't as annoying in text. Maybe it's just an audio thing. There is something about the same person making witty dialogue back and forth with themself that gets old to me really fast.
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Nov 25, 2018 10:10
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I just finished the second book in James A Hunter and eden Hudson's series The Rogue Dungeon, Civil War. So far I've found both books in the series very enjoyable. Hunter also has a series called Viridian Gate Online about the remnants of humanity living digitally in a virtual fantasy world and the conflict between the tyrannical creator of the game and a pizza delivery guy who stole an authority position in the game world from someone else that was supposed to get it. Also, both are now in conflict with a third party military AI that was installed as the game's villain, which is attempting to wipe out humanity as a whole via a virus that can delete characters entirely. Anyway, Rogue Dungeon is about a noble scion of a destroyed house in a fantasy country called Traisbin where magic is done via writing out what you want to happen and paying the cost in energy or blood. Roark, the main character, is attempting to assassinate the tyrant that has taken over his country and murdered his family but it turns out its all a trap. In his desperation, Roark steals a priceless artifact from the tyrant and uses magic to create a portal to safety. Unfortunately portal magic is notoriously unreliable and Roark is brought to relative safety in the VRMMO Hearthworld, in a new body. Roark discovers he is a troll changeling - the lowest level mob in the Cruel Citadel dungeon, with his race the remnants of the Inferniali, an ancient faction in the war with the Celestiali. He sets out to level up by killing players and converting more mobs to his side using the Worldstone Pendant he stole from the tyrant. In doing so he starts a feud with a player named "Pwner_Boner" when he unexpectedly kills his lowest level alt and his team of similarly goofy named guildmates. Both books have been really fun, funny, and packed with rapier fencing maneuvers and descriptions plus Roark's unique style of magic brought from his world. He is joined by fellow changeling Kaz and his stone salamander pet Macaroni and the troll reaver Zyra. I highly recommend.
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Dec 1, 2018 14:40
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Ok this bit from one of the Expeditionary Force books actually made me laugh. "Everyone on this ship is smarter than you Joe..." Which makes sense given the circumstances. A+ burn from the immortal talking AI in a beercan.
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Dec 5, 2018 08:39
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Skippy is great and funny and I will tolerate no arguments against this. I read through the first 3 of these back in 2016 and found it humorous, but it started really grating on me somewhere in the middle of book 4 and I put it down and never came back. A dissimilar sci-fi book series I just finished (literally finished book 6 ~30 minutes ago) that I thought was very good is Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper by Nathan Lowell. Book one is Quarter Share. It follows the career of a merchant spacer, starting from when he signs up to a ship at 18 years old as the lowest possible rating (the eponymous "Quarter Share") as a way to avoid crippling debt or military service. The ships use a type of magnetic sail arrangement to move in systems using the solar wind, with tugs and chemical thrusters for precision "in-close" maneuvering, and some kind of jump drive to do interstellar travel. There are zero space battles and I could count the number of fights on one hand, action sequences on two hands. There is a fair amount of trading activity and shipboard slice-of-life stuff, as well as a considerable amount of focus on interpersonal relationships (the vast majority of which are not romantic). I would classify them as a sort of "cozy" sci-fi, that's about people doing their jobs and helping solve each others' problems and become better people. Kind of along the lines of Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books or Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. With the notable exception of book 4, which involves him being on a troubled ship and contains depictions of sexual assault (which in my limited opinion are not particularly graphic and are not treated in a prurient fashion). Book 4 does wind up being about making people better, etc, but I did find it pretty uncomfortable to read at times due to people being real lovely in it. Fantasy-wise, I enjoyed the Spellmonger series by Terry Mancour. Book one is Spellmonger. This is a long series. Really really long. There are 10 main series books so far, the shortest of which clocks in at 435 pages, and the longest of which is 1122 pages, according to Amazon. Most are in the 550 - 750 page range. There are also a number of short stories and 3 books in a young adult side-series following one of the characters. They start with the main character being a wizard who retired from military service and moved to a rural village in the middle of nowhere to do small-town wizard stuff like finding lost cows. Then goblins invade and he gets caught in a desparate seige situation, an ancient evil threat has arisen, etc, etc. There's a lot of action and violence and some sex. They read like the author is a real medieval buff and did a crapton of in-depth worldbuilding, and the later books have a lot of stuff revolving around how feudal lordship and politics work. The writing is perfectly readable, but never really great prose-wise. I read them straight through, plus the side stories and some of the short stories. The world really sucked me in and I found them entertaining the whole time.
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Dec 12, 2018 06:09
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That Quarter Share series has been on my maybe list for a while, so maybe I'll pick them up it sounds solid. Spell-monger series is great, it's a fun long fantasy series schlock. So the books I want to talk about is the Virlyce ones, I mentioned them a few times before when I was going through the Blue Mage series and really loving it by the end of the 2nd book. Every book I read from them feels better than the last, as the author seems to be perfecting this kind of cringe comedy. If you read the Critical Failures series it's kinda like that, but way more absurd. Blue Mage series features someone a bit more innocent and naive. While the Godking's Legacy series(the one I'm currently going through) features an ADHD murderhobo at peak performance, who I'm pretty sure you are supposed to dislike and just sit in a constant state of cringe and who's perspective is so skewed a lot of times the story has to be told from one of the side characters who are just swept along by the momentum. Both of the series I feel consistently get better overtime and boy do I love them, but I'm not sure if it's acquired taste going on or just specific taste.
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Dec 12, 2018 20:25
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Megazver posted:I must admit, I dropped it fairly early into the book. It might get better like fifteen chapters in? Personally, I just have many other books to read instead of reading bad ones in hopes of them getting better. I ended up reading this since it was in my KU list. I actually enjoyed it a lot. There's a lot happening in the universe of the book and it's doled out gradually throughout. I think the author has an issue with showing the personalities of his characters to an extent but I think it'll improve as time goes on. Some of the teases he gave seem like they are a long way off from being paid off though unless there's some serious power creep for the main guy in the future.
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Dec 16, 2018 14:33
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I liked the new Expedtionary Force book but holy poo poo is the crew of the Flying Dutchman and Earth in general ever going to do anything besides put out fires?
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Dec 17, 2018 08:02
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After finishing Red Mage, I have jumped into a non-LitRPG KU Book by Drew Hayes, author of the NPCs/Spells, Swords and Stealth and Forging Hephaestus that I am really loving. It's called Secondhand Curses and it is about a trio of mercenaries having episodic adventures in a somewhat darker version of a fairytale land like that in the flashbacks in the show Once, where the whim of fate is controlled by an agency known as The Narrative, which tends to drive events to create a good adventure or story. Jack, Frank, and Marie are the shockingly effective mercenary company known as The Bastard Champions who will help with curses, pied pipers, fairy bargains, etc... for the right price. Jack is a man of many titles, specifically Jack Be Quick and nimble, known for shoving a candlestick up a man's posterior (it wasn't very far, and seemed necessary for the job at the time). He's probably also Jack the giant killer, but no confirmation of that yet, 4 vignettes in. Frank is a transplant from a far away land, logical, intelligent and soft hearted, and is notably Frankenstein's monster. Marie has a vendetta against fairies as she has been cursed with lycanthropy of some sort. I'm not sure who exactly she represents from fairytales yet but she seems to be a princess of some sort. The book is presented in a series of vignettes with a through line of the Champions looking to track down the Fairy Godmother's cadre of sub lieutenants such as the Blue Fairy. I was thinking this morning that it would be a great adaptation to series on a channel like HBO or Showtime. Something in the style of Legend of the Seeker shot in the forests of New Zealand would probably work well for it, since most of the action of the book so far takes place in villages and forests/caves. Victorkm fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Dec 17, 2018 |
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Dec 17, 2018 13:22
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Sounds a bit like Jim Hines' Princess novels.
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Dec 17, 2018 23:30
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Victorkm posted:Marie has a vendetta against fairies as she has been cursed with lycanthropy of some sort. I'm not sure who exactly she represents from fairytales yet but she seems to be a princess of some sort. Boy, I'm dense. It was made obvious who Marie represents when we are introduced to her parents, King Adam and Queen Belle.
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Dec 19, 2018 12:46
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