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I've been enjoying CivCEO, a LitRPG 4X. It's competent, and the main character fucks up a bunch because of their values as a boomer businessman, but it doesn't get too stuck in the weeds of dumbass stats, other than using a few higher concept videogame abstractions and modifiers. Definitely nothing special, but a good easy read.
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Dec 8, 2020 01:20
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Darkrenown posted:That sounded interesting, so I googled it, ended up on the US amazon page, hit the "UK kindle store" link, and the closest match it could offer was "Femdom & Extreme BDSM : A Night to Remember, A Life Dismantled ([A 15,700 word explicit extreme-bdsm erotica])". The second closest was "Philips Hue White Single Smart Bulb LED [B22 Bayonet Cap] 100 W with Bluetooth, Works with Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit". So, uh, thanks amazon. That’s loving hilarious. I’m in the UK, so it should show up fine. Try this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/CivCEO-Lit-Accidental-Champion-Book-ebook/dp/B07YRTVLMZ I’ve read more of it, it remains very shallow, but it doesn’t do any of the bad poo poo at all thus far.
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Dec 8, 2020 19:47
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The audiobook for that one is really impressive. I think it gets better, but you kinda have to embrace the dweebiness.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:20
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avoraciopoctules posted:I feel that for people who read multiple cultivation stories, Street Cultivation's satire of cultivation turned into modern economics could be well worth reading on its own, but Sarah Lin does a pretty good job of putting a solid story in there too. They also have a really amazing scene at the end... I guess I'd describe it as an omake or movie outtakes? I laughed just as hard as I did at that one McDonalds Cultivation text meme. Yeah that final April Fools chapter was funny as poo poo. I thought Street Cultivation 1 was an enjoyable story, but 2 and 3 were kinda mediocre as stories. Fun worldbuilding exercises though!
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Oct 16, 2021 20:11
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I liked Superpowereds. Superhero university is a cool concept, way more interesting than superhero high school.
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Feb 21, 2022 17:10
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Larry Parrish posted:It's an epic serial and my biggest criticism is that I'm current on it. Same, I love it and clearly a lot of others do given how much the guy gets on Patreon.
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Jun 22, 2022 17:22
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pradmer posted:When does it get good? I tried it when it was still on royalroad and read until a chicken fought a fox and gave up because it was pretty bad up to that point. Yeah as the others were saying it's more about the comedy and the daily life shenanigans. What kind of stuff do you enjoy? It kinda relies on knowledge of Cultivation tropes.
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Jun 23, 2022 16:14
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8one6 posted:I will second the Glynn Stewart recommendation. Duchess of Terra is good. Most of it is fairly reasonable people solving problems in a reasonable way as well as dealing with the aftermath of paranoia/reasonable contingency planning against threats. Love it when “kill slavers” is a core recurring thread.
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Jun 30, 2022 16:28
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They really did a great job of selling why some of these powers are extremely powerful.
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Jul 28, 2022 11:01
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There’s something about those books and their portrayal of Corin’s lack of trust in the people around him that I think really works, and I actually do enjoy them thanks to that aspect, but I’m not particularly in a rush to read book 4.
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Oct 5, 2022 20:23
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Anyone read Virtuous Sons by YB Striker? It's a cultivation novel in a Greco-Roman society, and I'm enough of a dweeb that sounds appealing. It goes from absolutely fantastic to a complete slog to fantastic again fairly often. Incredibly inconsistent but still highly recommended, at least for a breath of fresh air.
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Oct 15, 2022 13:41
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LLSix posted:I liked the start of Street Cultivation but bailed shortly after the MC inherited a relative’s debts. Death clears all debts. I did think the cultivation leeches were clever, but the story just kept breaking my suspension of disbelief after that; it seemed like the author hadn’t done even cursory research on how important plot points worked in the real world so couldn’t provide the narrative framework to justify why things worked differently in the story. Not only do all places not have the same rules, rules have changed over time in many places. In a grounded dystopian fantasy world set in the very near future, it's not impossible for it to change. Plus debt collectors love to try that poo poo even if it isn't legal.
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Oct 17, 2022 18:16
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The first Street Cultivation book was the only good one, and that parody chapter was sheer perfection. CivCEO finished. I think I'm the only one here who read it, but it finished as it started, as a perfectly average and pleasant progression fantasy without the main character being a murderhobo, solving situations through wafer thin diplomacy and negotiation. I want more kingdom management/leadership poo poo, ideally without them being an adventurer.
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Oct 19, 2022 02:44
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You really have to understand that at this point at the bottom of the barrel, you either get a story that does not care about these things or a story that only cares about these things. There is never compromise.
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Oct 20, 2022 03:11
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Hey, Arcane Ascension 4 isn’t too bad. Corrin’s more fun now. Still not great, but an enjoyable read.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:59
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Happiness Commando posted:CivCEO is kind of painfully boring and I'm still reading it It's just so perfectly straightforward and vaguely pleasant with nothing particularly interesting outside of a couple sentences per book.
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Nov 3, 2022 20:00
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Caught up with Mage Errant. Wow, the latest book sucked after they went on their power boosting expedition. Alustin bits remained good throughout.
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Feb 18, 2023 21:08
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The thing that makes Cradle good is how strong each character's voice is. Everything else is fine but the distinct texture of how everybody speaks is truly wonderful, and that preview of the final book is a brilliant example of that. So I read the Portal to Nova Roma books. Wow, that is a shockingly good example of an author not knowing what's interesting in their story. You get a couple paragraphs about the literal driving motivation of the protagonist coupled with just a few lines for the most definitive relationship they had as an AI. Then you get a few decent bits where they're interacting with people and understanding the world in between the dogshit. It starts to build up and the story reveals itself to be that of the protagonist forming a new society and military to right some social wrongs and save the world and all that, only for the next book to just be him on his own for most of it. It also has this really annoying tendency to be like, "Wow, I sure am reckless and emotionally affected. Shouldn't have done that." It's like they listened to some advice on how to make an interesting flawed protagonist and then took that in the most literal way possible while missing the lesson on show, don't tell. It's especially annoying because it's not pure trash. The parts that are good are really good (for KU).
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Apr 4, 2023 22:26
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MadHat posted:Yeah I gave up somewhere in book 2 after I think the 5th time there was some contrived reason he had to be alone and fight hordes of random monsters. It greatly improves after that! Book 3 is mostly the good stuff. Book 2 really suffers. Coq au Nandos posted:I think that’s what’s annoying me so much about The Captain (also the name is poo poo): None of the characters so far have a voice or much of an actual character. This is especially egregious in the protagonist. Writing in first person gives you heaps of opportunity to build character, and every opportunity gets wasted. It’s such a frustrating read. You can really tell Will Wight is still very immersed in Cradle, but he's very much not willing to just transpose those characters to this one. Feels like he wants to get away, but can't. Bit of a shame that. I feel like it'll improve dramatically after Cradle is over for a while.
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Apr 5, 2023 17:00
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Yeah, it was all a bit weird with the "Ah, I was too weak all these other times, now that I have six times the power, knowledge and training... I'm still too weak? Except for when I choose not to be?"
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Apr 25, 2023 12:10
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Yeah I greatly enjoyed the Last Echo, not as good as the Siege of Skyhold but still very enjoyable. Never did get quite a handle on the scale of Heliothrax, both physically and the size of their defences, but that’s just a small quibble.
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May 24, 2023 13:57
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Marsupial Ape posted:As some who uses KU mainly for the access to magazines like Asimov’s and Clarkesworld, I’d like to delve more deeply into, well, this stuff you guys are talking about. I know that’s there is hyper specific niches like ‘progression fantasy’, but I have no idea what my ‘in’ to the most representative, best example works in the KU sci-if fantasy categories. Duchy of Terra is good for KU SF.
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Jul 11, 2023 00:14
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Ceebees posted:I did enjoy how the resolution to the final galaxy-shaking threat was "hey, did we every try asking nicely for them to stop?" Yknow I've actually completely forgotten what the ending of the series was, what even was the final threat? I vaguely remember some cult under the thrall of the guys that spooked the precursors/forerunners/whatever the ancient guys who the mesharom used to serve were? One thing I really liked about that series was how it presented a universe where, typically, problems were solved by reasonable people on both sides talk things out while setting hard lines like "say no to slavery and genocide"
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Jul 12, 2023 10:47
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I enjoyed his Space Carrier Avalon stuff, it has a weirdly brisk start and struggles to find its footing, plus some unfortunate terminology that he summarily drops presumably when it’s pointed out to him, I enjoyed it because it’s nowhere near as clean as Duchy of Terra, with issues usually only being partially resolved. Stewart seems like a really well meaning guy honestly, so I’m happily reading everything he’s done just for that.
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Jul 27, 2023 02:50
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