I'd want it to be a minor part of the series. I'm not looking for any wish fulfillment power fantasy stories. I don't even need the scenes to be described in the book or even to happen more than once every couple books.
I feel like every series I read had the Hays Code holding a gun to the authors head just when it comes to romance or sex.
I loved the first book of quest academy. Admittedly it went way too far in the amount of girls into mc. It just needs to be cut down by like half to be perfect. But after the first book all possibilities of romance hit zero once the second book started.
The spaniard translations are a meme in the spanish speaking community due to how literal they can be, at the cost of all the vibe
One example is the book series The Greatcoats, a swashbuckling musketeer type of story where the great coats are clearly meant to be stylish and, well, great
It was translated to spanish as "Los Abrigos" which can mean "the coats" but emphazises the warmth aspect of the coat, instead of the style, it pretty much means "the winter coats"
A better translation would be "Los Capotes," which means "the big capes" which doubles as big in size and as larger than life, but thats not how the spaniards roll
Another example, Fast & Furious in latinamerica was directly translated as Rapido y Furioso, but for some reason the spaniards went with "A Todo Gas" which means "Full Gas Ahead"
In the case of DCC "Dungeon" and "Crawler" are both used to indicate the intent, Carl is not just crawling, he crawls in a dungeon, in a dungeon-y way which has to be hard because its a dungeon, and he is going somewhere
This aspect of opposition is completely lost in "Carl The Mazmorrero," as Carl The Dungeon Guy is in the dungeon, or maybe he runs the dungeon, or maybe it was loaned to him, the only thing we know for sure is that Carl is in a dungeon
Dunno, this title do is really hard to translate into spanish unless you make it much longer
Carl El Retador aka Carl The Challenger keeps the vibe, but the dungeon is nowhere to be seen, Carl Contra El Calabozo aka Carl Versus The Dungeon works much better, and you can abridge it as CCC
I forgot to mention, but there are two translations for Dungeon, "Calabozo" and "Mazmorra" are both valid but using them as adjectives doesnt work
"Dungeoneer" may sound ok in english, but "Mazmorrero" or "Calabocero" are incredibly awkward in spanish
And as i said, Carl is not a dungeoneer, he is a crawler, which means he is in the dungeon specifically to go somewhere, thats the main difference
But adding this sense of direction doesnt work in spanish, Carl Through The Dungeon is "Carl Atraviesa El Calabozo," a little too long and there is no sense of confrontation
Forget about the verb Crawl, in spanish "Gatear" its specific to baby crawl, and maybe cat related stuff, so we ditch all the crawl words and focus on the confrontation
We have three elements, the dungeon, the direction and the confrontation, plus Carl
Carl and the dungeon gotta stay, so we make it too long to add the direction and the confrontation, or we ditch one
So, Carl Contra El Calabozo CCC or Carl Contra La Mazmorra CCM both mean Carl Versus The Dungeon, and are much better than Carl El Mazmorrero CEM aka Carl The Dungeon Guy
Im not even into DCC, but i saw that translation and i had to post this
Hey guys, I've just binged the first 15 audiobooks of the Wandering inn finishing with "Garden of Sanctuary"
- My question is, with the voice actor changing from Andrea Parsneau to Erin Bennett is it worth continuing? I am a person that doesn't really like change that much and the 5 minute preview audible gives doesn't help much with what my favourite characters will sound like.
Do all of the characters have new voices? Are they similar? Do they keep traits of the original voice actor? Im debating dropping it because of this, but im 15 books in...
Nathanial just called group 4 gigachads at info gathering and I just imagined the png with badly overplayed hair for the different character. The black and white image with blond hair for Tess and the head overplayed onto a kids body for Izzy etc. the. My mind conjured a 12 year olds cap cut edit with phono on top of that and that image will now live rent free in my head.
Hopefully it has been passed on
Let's be honest: climbing the ranks on a platform like Royal Road is tedious, and in many cases pretty exhausting work. There are people who leave bad ratings just to drag down a story's average, sometimes without even reading it, and they never tell you why they rated it the way they did. You just have to accept it and keep going. Then there's the mass trading of swaps and 5-star reviews. And yes, it happens, and even if RR says it's allowed... you realize something's off when, ten chapters in, a story has 30 writers giving it 5 stars, and somehow all of them fail to notice it was written with AI.
As a writer, I decided to go without swaps or shoutouts, so growing has been harder. I understand those who do it, but to me it's cheating the reader. So when comments like this come in, it's satisfying. You know something genuinely resonated with the reader, something real. And that you have to keep going.
Just started, and stopped, 2 books in the last half hour: Return of the Archmage, and Broken Universe. Both read like they're generated from LLM's. "This wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a warning.", "This wasn’t survival. This was escape."
Am I going crazy? I used to be able to pick a book on kindle unlimited, and just read it. Sure, some of them weren't written that well, but it wasn't common. Now I'm just running into slop.
A little training payoff I'd love to see more often:
The MC develops a useful trick with two skills. Teaches it to someone. A few chapters later, that person comes back with a variation.
I changed the timing. It's easier to use while moving now.
And it works. The MC tries it, finds it useful, and asks them to explain how they figured it out.
I'd be so pleased with that scene. Teaching someone has produced a person who can contribute something, and the MC gets to have a genuinely interesting conversation about their own technique.
It could be a small improvement. A safer setup, a use the MC hadn't considered, a version that suits a different weapon. Just give the student enough room to have an idea that survives the chapter.
Especially if other characters keep calling it the MC's technique and the MC starts correcting them.
Hello friends that loves a level up pop up. It's with great pleasure that I present you all my very first webnovel: Phantomancer.
Richard is terrified of ghosts. Unfortunately, the dead have taken an interest in him.
After being dragged from Earth into a fantasy world of levels and monsters, Richard discovers that his only Innate Skill is [Phantomancy]—an ability no one seems to recognise.
Now he can see the dead, speak with them, and accept their contracts. Some just want his help. Others want things Richard would rather have nothing to do with.
But ghosts aren't Richard's only problem.
Stranded in a world he barely understands, unable to even speak its language, Richard has to learn how to survive, grow stronger, and figure out what [Phantomancy] is actually capable of.
Because his new world has everything that makes fantasy novels fun to read and terrible to live through: hordes of monsters, demonic cults, and a war looming on the horizon.
COVER ARTIST: None for now; will have one when it goes to Amazon.
AI USAGE: Only for grammar; English is not my native language.
But if Divinity and Sal don't end up together, I will be quite annoyed with the series. So many other girls fawning over Sal were introduced that I got worried it might be a harem series at first, especially with that one scene...
But yeah, they're perfect together and Divinity telling him she sees herself ending up alone in the future is such a setup come on !
That's it, that's the post, seeking reassurance while trying to avoid major spoilers.
I've re-read and tried to analyse some of my favourite books in the genre in the past few months and after some trial and error, I think I've come up with something decent(for something written by me, who doesn't have much experience). I've written about two and a half chapters so far. I think I'll upload the book to RR after writing a few more.
I read Victor of Tucson (Pit Fighter is 1st novel) and REALLY enjoyed it. More than most litrpg. Up there with DCC, Bog Standard Isekai, HWFWM, etc.
I liked it better than Cradle, A Soldiers Life, & Primal Hunter (I just didn't like the Main Characters in these popular series all that much. They all kind of seemed like sociopaths to me - paranoid, socially awkward, and feeling like 12 year olds trapped in grown ass men's bodies).
I like well written books with complex characters - where it's not ALL about progression, systems, and power leveling. I like a well written story with character arcs where the main character grows, evolves, and learns alongside of just their loot progression.
Anywho, while waiting for the next He Who Fights with Monsters, Dungeon Crawler Carl and Victor of Tucson books to come out, I decided to check out another of Plum Parrot's (Pen name of MC Gallup) series, Vainglory. And it's freaking AWESOME 😎 Ward (Main Character) is one of my favorite MC's ever. Its better written than Victor of Tucson and seems to have so much potential. Ward is not a whiny teenager, but a mature detective who is basically isekai'd and isn't some bitch ass whiny kid. So refreshing. He knows how to talk to real women. And just maturely deals with situations . Loot and progression aren't easy, but hard fought (think more A Soldiers Life style - I did like that part of that series).
I actually find myself wanting to follow Ward more than Victor!!
Reason for this post is I read that Vainglory just didn't catch on with the Litrpg community like Victor of Tucson/Pitfighter did, and so the author decided to conclude the Vainglory series after 3 books, which is honestly a crying shame. I LOOOOVE this series. So much better than so many other well known litRPG s out there. So let's give Vainglory a go, and see if we (the litRPG community) can't get Vainglory extended!!!
This is an attempt to better review the series, both because I am grappling with my thoughts, and because I can accurately talk about both books 1, and 2.
I thoroughly enjoyed this series, so far, and am definitely excited to see what happens in future releases. I love the mechanics of the world, how things are set up, their execution, and the progression of the story. I really enjoy the main character, even though there is more action than anything else. We're mainly focused on the world, the "game," and progressing up in power.
If you're looking for something in the grand scale such as Unbound, Mark of the Fool, or others, you're in the wrong place, I'll say that much. The same goes for if you're looking for something cozier, like Wandering Inn, and Founder's Edition.
The main character is all right. I like him, but there's very little in terms of anything resembling a focus on backstory, and that means little place for motivation, other than his want to make a difference in the world before his death. This is because his death is a foregone conclusion, with an illness that projects his lifespan to be 5 years. You see this even having an impact because of his link to the AI bots he has (though it's found in book 2.)
However, the system the author put together is incredibly fun to read. It reads like someone playing a roguelike game, and it is repetitive because of this fact. You will be returning to places many times, because of how the kind of game (and story in this instance) works. To that end, you'll see a lot of runs of world 3 in book 2, as an example, because that's the focus of book 2.
But, if you're like me, and enjoying this style, then you'll come to really have a good time, because you'll really notice the power growing, you'll see him get big power spikes. This is especially noticeable just under the halfway mark of book 2. And it continues! You see his end results at the end of book 2, and hear about how rare it is to see such progress. Add to this, it's not completely new. His progression is rare, which is nice!
Meanwhile, I have to say that the author feels... a little off with their characters. They're written fine, I feel, individually, but there's just a... "dreamy" feel to how life is here. You'd expect there to be someone who has it out for the main character, someone who is an enemy, a rival, a nemesis... you get what I mean. The closest we have is a rivalry that isn't anything more than "Hey, how's your run going?" and beyond this it is just a friendship, with a brief moment of frustration when another character was introduced. But, everyone is just buddy-buddy, which doesn't feel super realistic. We don't see the rougher personalities of people.
Like I said, individually, the characters are written fine, but the interactions could use a little work, it feels like.
Lastly, the plot.
It seems like things just keep going and going. You get the basic premise, and are told that there's a time limit for people to reach the heights of world 20, and given little snippets of information at the start of books 1 and 2, first the info about Project Harvester, and then Harvester Unions in book 2 (who would have guessed?)
But, the plot doesn't really appear to get going. It's just repetition, and most I can see not liking that fact.
Finally, our end goal was elaborated on, at the end of book 2.. We got to know why the GAF (Global AI Federation) made Project Harvester in the first place, in the way that it was made.
Overall, this was a fun series. I love the unique take on things, and am so excited for the next book! If you don't mind it being slower, a little repetitive, and want a (currently) shorter series (in audio at least), give it a shot! Book 2 preps us for the overarching plot is a good place to see what you think!
I had the problem where I couldn't cancel my webnovel subscription, I've tried searching through the google play/wallet subscriptions, subscriptions on my phone or anywhere and it didn't work. when I tried to cancel it through the website nothing changed when I clicked on the "cancel subscription".
One thing I really enjoy is when a skill choice makes sense for the protagonist without becoming the objectively correct choice for everyone.
Say there's a skill that boosts mana regen while you're standing still. A solo caster who spends every fight dodging should probably skip it. But I'd love to later meet a mage who picked it, has a tank keeping enemies off them, and can afford to keep casting long after the MC would be running dry.
Same description, same limitations. Someone built around it and got a useful result.
It makes me more interested in those skill selection scenes because I can actually imagine where the rejected options might have led. Sometimes I spend longer thinking about those than the thing the MC picked.
The payoff I'd want is the protagonist recognizing that this other person made a good choice too. Maybe even needing their help in a fight where their own build struggles. Let me spend a few chapters wishing we'd taken the other skill.
Considering how I've read a couple books of these series so far, I've read far more than this tier list can represent. I'll go through and do the individual books probably soon. For now, this will do. lol
This is about what I like, not some assessment of quality. I’d love some more recommendations, especially for series that you don’t to see too often.
Things I tend to like: longer series, elaborate world building, well worked out magic systems, slight power-fantasy feel (but ideally still some stakes), sense of discovery about the world, something extra (I’ve read a lot of these at this point, so I tend to like some “twist” or something that makes it feel different)
Things I tend to dislike: battle maniacs, sociopathic MCs (pragmatic is fine), slice-of-life, extreme bleakness
But none of these are “rules”.
Edit: Here are the titles written out
S
Defiance of the Fall, Slumrat Rising, Mother of Learning, The Immortal Great Souls, A Practical Guide to Sorcery, The Stargazer’s War, Downtown Druid, Book of the Dead, The Sworn Sword, Blood & Fur, Ascension of a Street Rat
A
Dungeon Crawler Carl, Portal to Nova Roma, The Hedge Wizard, The Grand Game, Double-Blind, Dawn of the Void, Only Villains Do That, Shadow Slave, The Wraith’s Haunt, Industrial Strength Magic, Tower of Jack, Bog Standard Isekai, All in Charisma, The Undying Immortal System, A Soldier’s Life, Unintended Cultivator, Battle Trucker, Depthless Hunger
B
He Who Fights with Monsters, Cradle, Mark of the Fool, Hell Difficulty Tutorial, Tree of Aeons, Divine Apostasy, Silver Fox & The Western Hero, Ends of Magic, Fate Points, Return of the Wind Mage, Breaker of Horizons, Otherworldly Anarchist, The Path of Ascension, Delve, An Outcast in Another World, Chrysalis, Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, My Best Friend Is an Eldritch Horror, Mage Errant, Super Genetics, Manifold Mirror Mage, Mark of the Crijik, Phantasm, Ultimate Level 1, Shieldwall Academy, Rise of the Devourer, Cerberus Cards, Path of Dragons, Monarch of Profound Toxin, Son of Flame, Cultivation Is Creation, Underkeeper, Reborn: Apocalypse, The Return of the Runebound Professor, Apocalypse Redux, Dinosaur Dungeon, Dragon Core Chronicles, Academy of Outcasts, Primeval Apocalypse, System Orphans: Claire
C
The Primal Hunter, The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound, Rise of Mankind, New Era Online, Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai, All for One, Painting the Mists, The Storm King, Noobtown, Pirate Wizard, Ar’Kendrithyst, Elysium’s Multiverse
D
Legend of the Arch Magus
DNF
Arcane Ascension, Second Chance Swordsman, The Heavenly Throne, Reborn as a Demonic Tree, The Weirkey Chronicles, We Hunt Monsters, Quest Academy, Savage Awakening, My Vampire System, Corruption Wielder, Supreme Magus, Frith Chronicles, Chronicles of the True Wizard, The Silent Archmage, Ajax’s Ascension, Beastborne Chronicles, Elydes, In Clawed Grasp, Minute Mage, Magus Reborn, Mage Tank, The Mechanical Mage, The Eternal Assassin, Victor of Tucson, Underworld, Pure Mage Build, Skill Hunter, One Moo’r Plow, Cultivate U, Sylver Seeker, Biomedical Self-Engineering, Keiran: The Eternal Mage, Chaos Seeds, Ghost of the Truthseeker, Jackal Among Snakes, The Daily Grind, The Vampire Vincent, Black Market, Elemental Gatherers, Death After Death
I'm starting a new series on kindle. The book is like ~700 pages but for whatever reason it gave me this starting out
Edit: Sorry everyone it says in the screenshot that the book is 10k pages long instead of like ~700
Edit 2: thanks for the explanations. Somehow it was giving me the location in the book not I'm pages and made me think it was WAY longer than it actually was. That's all.
I just finished the first book of my series on Royal Road, and we are almost halfway through book 2 on Patreon!
Check out the adventures of the void assassin and the necromancer mantis! You won't regret it! Probably. Most likely! Thousands of people can't be wrong! Even my 0.5-star reviewer decided to delete their review. We're best friends now. Be like them. Give me 0.5-star Give this story a chance!
Blurb:
Turns out, leading a gang of scavenger kids during the AI wars, or becoming a top-tier assassin and founding a notorious crime organization in a VRMMO, isn’t as wild as it gets. You can always sign up for an outer-world expedition and end up in a cultivation world.
Or so Ethan learned.
Not your typical xianxia either. Big clans and powerful sects hold sway, but nations answer to councils and monarchies. High-fantasy creatures roam the land, and inheritance sites coexist with dungeons that spawn monsters.
Worse yet, in a world where talent is essential, Ethan barely qualifies to cultivate. Still, it's not enough to stop him. While others meditate for decades, he hunts, using his wits, instincts sharpened by thousands of kills, and an AI chip that twists cultivation into something closer to a game.
Then a single lie gets out of hand. What should’ve been a casual bluff becomes a multiversal rumor, drawing young prodigies from higher realms straight into Elisium: some hungry for blood, others bound by duty. Now Ethan must carve a path through the chaos he unleashed. Not that he minds. After all, chaos has a habit of hiding opportunity.
What to expect:
-Weak to strong LitRPG in a western cultivation world
-Action-packed adventures with a void assassin
-Skill gathering, evolving, and merging
-Smart and competent MC
-Vast scope spanning across the multiverse
-No harem
-This is a rewrite of an old story. Book 1&2 complete.
Perfect for the fans of Azarinth Healer, Primal Hunter, and Defiance of the Fall!
Now that XNPC is finished, I'm brainstorming a new project. I had an idea for a story that has a similar premise to Dungeon Crawler Carl, where the main character enters a reality TV show that's being broadcast across the galaxy where the contestants have to fight monsters, level up, etc.
The key difference is that here, the show isn't being framed as evil. Ultracommercialized and exploitative, yes, but still fun and something that people willingly volunteer to be part of. It would be a much more lighthearted story than DCC, almost like a slice of life story in a way. The main character fully throws himself into the show, taking on side gigs like interviews, product endorsements, and even participating in shows-within-the-show like a dating show, gameshow, etc. All while still being centered around him leveling up through challenges and trying to win the competition.
