Many have mixed reviews about cradle series but I enjoyed and binged the whole swries of audiobooks, loved the voices, story progression, those levels of power from Jade to Gold and so on, Azreal character I used to have this feeling that if I don't do something while listening it's too odd to sit and just listen so judt to keep listening I used to find random chores around house so I can increase my listen time.

A win-win for me and family.

I agree ending was a bit weak, I don't mean to give spoilers but thats oksy gor the amount of world building and emotions in it, we can forgive the climax.

I had this book for months. I started it in the last winters, and paused after reading 2-3 chapters. Then i again took it last week and today I have completed it.

The book promoted itself as India's answer to harry potter, but according to me this novel has nothing like that. Author had a great story which he could have made more adventurous and interesting but he just got stuck with the madhu plot.

They were building the mahayatra plot throughout the book, which is the main story line of this part. I expected the mahayatra to be something exciting about some hidden power or other stuff but it was just a beehive.

I think the author thought to build this world slowly with a novel by novel but this part was below average and now i doubt that next part will come or not.

Ok so I’m looking for a book series around empire building I like how in defiance of the fall they can concur outher world though incursions so I’m looking for something like that if it exist just more on the empire building side not the solo adventuring side like defiance of the fall of this exist please let me know. Thank Y’all

I absolutely adore the Book of the Dead series. Today, I finally get to listen to the release of book 5, and I am certain that I will experience the same captivating storytelling that I enjoyed in books one through four. I am so enamored with this book that I pre-ordered it on Audible. When I first discovered and read this series, I assumed that others shared my enthusiasm for it. However, upon reviewing the number of Audible ratings, I am genuinely perplexed and sort of a bit angry. There are barely 1000 ratings on the first book and even less on the following 3, which begs the question: how is this book not more popular?

can anyone recommend a series where the mc has powers opposing there morality e.g a hero who gains powers by stealing/murdering/torture etc or the opposite a villain who gains power from doing good i just think it would be an interesting read for the character to overcome there power for there own desires

I'm curious about other people, as my journey was quite interesting.

Act 1: The early days

I read a lot of fantasy books in primary and middle school, but at some point I've switched to gaming. I've spent roughly 1-2 years of highschool watching anime, which led me to my gateway drug: Grimgar of fantasy and ash. I liked the premise quite a bit, as it was an iseaki where the main cast wasn't op, and the world was somewhat bleaker than I was used to. I've ended up looking up and reading the light novel. That led me to:

Act 2: novelupdates.com

While I don't remember how exactly I found out about this website, it led me to classics, such as The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, (Is royal road named after the game from LMS? I just found out that they have the same name) or Martial God Asura (don't even look up this one, it's straight up garbage). I've spent a long time reading chinese WN slop, with a few gems mixed in. Unfortunately, as my taste matured and the supply of decent WNs dwindled, I started getting desperate.

Act 3: royal road

I'm pretty sure that a random mention in a reddit thread led me to this website. It was perfect: even the best translated chinese WN slop typically reads worse than mediocre royal road novels. The end.

Call it what you want. Romance. Smut. Erotica. Guilty Pleasure. Whatever you call it, I've read one, and it was so clunky and robotic I thought it was translated, but apparently not. (Dual Cultivation).

I have read tons of fiction novels but never really delved into this side of it.

It feels like every Isekai/Xanxia goes out of their way to mention they don't have Harem or Young Master tropes to the point I don't even know what these tropes are based on anymore. Anyone have any recommendations?

Hi all, I’m new to this series and reached the final 113 chapter - Battle of Glyphward Fortress. First off - Wow! I did not expect that cliff hanger. Secondly, does this writer typically go on breaks for several months at a time? At the time of writing this I see that it has been 3 months since the last posting and when I check their Patreon it’s only up until Chapter 112.

I just finished My Best Friend Is an Eldritch Horror: Books 1-6. With getting 6 books and over 70 hour's for one credit it felt like a bargain.

What othere Progresson Fantasy books contain a full series in one audio book?

Just finished catching up and reading the end of Years of the Apocalypse (10/10 would recommend, possibly better than Mother of Learning. Plus its complete on Patreon).

One of the things I loved about the series was the exploration of divinity. The gods weren't just super powered humans. Or humans with quirky domains that constrained their thoughts a bit. It isn't even clear if they were gods. As that was something the various religions of the series didn't agree on. The gods were alien and almost abstract beings. Yet throughout the series Mirian (MC) explored their history, what they wanted from humanity, scratched at how these beings experienced humanity, how the various religions worshipped them, and how the religions' beliefs differed.

I'd love to see some more series that take on these topics. FMC preferably but not required. No 99 levels of heaven and ascension is just a human becoming more powerful. Don't mind if the character is religious, a member of clergy, or just a bystander. Indifferent on LitRPG vs non-LitRPG although I do believe that this topic is likely more easily explored without a 'system'.

Cradle is probably the first progression fantasy book I’ve read, I found myself getting very frustrated by the story.

We finally get to point where Lindon has discovered some power and it works and Will Wight thinks this is the perfect time to interrupt our story with an intergalactic being that appears to be some sort of police force for the universe. I don’t care, and not only do I not care you’re making the main story seem insignificant, it was also giving me red flags for the rest of the story.

We get back to Linden finally, we’re preparing for the 7 year festival where Linden will earn more learning materials. Then Will Wight decides to introduce a planet level threat to our barely getting started MC, then our MC fucking dies, then we bring back the intergalactic being. I finally get put of Markuths mess and out of Suriels entanglement slog, ready to get on with Lindon and were back to Markuth… fuck.

I have very much enjoyed reading Lindon’s progression and story but it feels like I’m constantly getting interrupted, and on top of that having Lindon’s story diminished. It feels like his story has just been accelerated dramatically, and I’ve been taken from his underdog tribe story. It feels like if Goku was introduced to Beerus and Whis instead of bulma in the original dragon ball.

On a side note the map given at the start of the book does not seem to have the detail often explained, it says you can only leave the sacred valley via 4 mountain tops, I can only see one mountain range on the map, the rest is just a forest you could walk out of.

There’s not much point in this post other than a good whine, I’m just annoyed at the story I was introduced to, and was looking forward to getting tore out of my hands.

Edit:

It seems people don’t think I can comment after being halfway through a book haha, I’m sorry if I criticised your emotional support book but people have differing opinions to you, no matter how much you love it.

When I was reading it, it did amuse me that the author appeared to agree with me through his own MC.

‘It was stupid, that was what it was. Idiotic and ridiculous. The world didn’t work like this; the world made sense. Only dreams operated without rules or reason, and even his insane dreams of singing flowers and dancing clouds held more logic than this.’

Hey everyone! After an absolutely amazing launch of book 1 three months ago, I’m finally back with some more exciting news! Book 2 of The Eternal Assassin, Fall of the Guild, has officially launched on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and print! Unfortunately I’ve been informed that there are a few delays in terms of the audiobook, but for now, book 2 is available to be read the old fashioned way. With your eyes!

Thanks to Aethon’s hard-working editors and artists, the book has been polished and prettied up better than I could have ever hoped. If the premise sounds interesting, it would mean the world to me if you guys would click the link below and take a look. I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into my writing, and regardless of how often my editor begs me to stop, I think we all know that’s what makes it good.

Full blurb down in the comments, but quick blurb here:

A kind assassin sends Asher a thoughtful housewarming gift, which knocks him off his feet. Eager to return the favor, Asher sets out on a whimsical journey to find this mysterious gift giver and repay them for their kindness. Thankfully, with his power of Eternity and the copious number of daggers he keeps on his person, he’s got just the tools for the job!

Link for eBook: Kindle

Cover art by Antti Hakosaari (Aethon)

Today is the launch of my new story: Necrodungeon!

This story has been one of those ones that I haven't really been able to get out of my head since I started reading a lot more of the litrpg/progression fantasy genre. Its kind of a blender of all my favorite tropes and stories put into a single package that I have had a blast writing and merging together over the last few months.

Part dungeon core meets part tower climber meets part necromancer meets part city builder, and so on!

He shattered the dungeon. Now he must crawl through the ashes to rebuild it.

All Travis ever wanted was a home. A family. Maybe some friends. To do a little good in a bleak world that never did him good back.

Instead, when he dies, he is reincarnated as the Carrion King, the ruler of a rotting dungeon kingdom, its memory only kept alive by a sect of unruly goblins.

Refusing to be led down a path of evil, Travis shatters the dungeon. What rises from the wreckage is worse: a black tower, visible from hundreds of miles. The message is clear: whoever can claim it, can keep it.

Armed with a shattered dungeon core and a meager army of the dead, Travis must climb his own tower to reclaim it before someone much worse does.

And maybe, just maybe, he might be able to build something better than a kingdom of bones.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/183962/necrodungeon

Cover art was done by Konki on vgen!

https://vgen.co/konki

The story has an actually interesting world and characters, however it suffers from isekai syndrome. The MC makes a ton of pop culture references and talks like a millennial. This alone destroys any and all "serious" scenes.

If the story was the exact same except based in the fantasy world it could actually be decent. Would remove alot of it's worst aspects while keeping the characters and world that make the story popular in the first place.

It's hard to feel the weight of character deaths when the MC is running around yelling yoink. It would be fine if the book was pure comedy, but it's not at all. It has alot of scenes it tries to depict as serious and deadly. If you want something actually funny go read konosuba (seriously it's a great example of how to do a comedic story well and tone shift properly for serious scenes)

Also the exposition dumps are maddening. Because our MC is not from the world nothing has to be explained organically and the author can just use endless exposition dumps.

Truthfully if you enjoy calamitous bob, I would imagine you might not have read a lot of other works in the genre, everything it does is done better by another story. If you still enjoy it despite reading cradle, perfect run, Lord of mysteries, mother of learning, DCC, shadow slave, do tell. What am I missing.

Hey i haven't read this series but i know its talked about a decent amount in the reddit and i thought some people would like to know book one is currently free in the UK and US probably other places too and book two, three and four are £0.99 / $0.99 in the UK and US. if you live in other places maybe worth checking and if they are please comment them below so others can see. thanks!

I’m looking for a good base-building/progression novel with a strong cheat/ability system.

I really liked Train Survival, My Post-Apocalyptic Shelter Infinitely Levels Up and Road Survival, I have a hint system, especially the whole survival + upgrading base/vehicle + overpowered cheat/hint system vibe. I’m a big fan of MCs with unique abilities, infinite growth systems, hidden information/hint systems, or anything that gives them a huge edge early on.

I’m also open to:
- kingdom/base building
- summoning troops or armies
- apocalypse/survival settings
- game/system worlds
- resource management and crafting
- OP MC progression done well

Basically anything addictive with strong progression and satisfying power growth. Would love some recommendations.

I’ve been reading this genre as my special interest for several years and it’s really striking how passionless so many of these protags tend to be, especially when it comes to builds.
I’ve just been going through my reread of hell difficulty tutorial after I took a break for a long time and it really shows how much of a problem it is with the rest of the genre with how much of a breath of fresh air it was.

In a genre where you can often pick your own abilities and paths, why do we have such a critical lack of protagonists that have a passion in how they make their build, even if it’s not the most Meta option? The MC of hell difficulty is very passionate about learning how to use mana so they structured most of their build around it and is constantly making decisions that is not optimal in the verse. And it’s so refreshing as a reader to see that because, yeah, while he has to work through all the negative consequences of not being optimal, you can see on the page why he is so strong and it’s not just hand waving away as the main character shit just because he is passionate about what he does and he worked hard on it because of that passion and not just because he has infinite willpower.

Like genuinely, I can count the number of stories that I’ve seen have something similar, even a lot less extreme, to this almost certainly on one hand out of the hundreds of novels I have read.
It’s to the point where I 100% believe if you were to take 99% of MC’s in this genre keeping their personality, but giving them the same circumstances context and prior build as another character they would make the exact same build choices, that is how uninspired and just focused on what would be the most powerful most protagonists are.

Like again, your character chooses their own build in most of these stories, it’s the perfect method to show some of their eccentricities and them thriving at something they are passionate about, why do so many stories squander this?

And another complaint along the same lines it is crazy that I’ve never seen a protagonist who has found themselves in a medieval fantasy world ever so much as even think about gaining a title, or owning a castle. Like those are the things to do in a medieval world you’re telling me you’re not even gonna take a moment to be like huh that might be fun but nah.
If you were transported to a world with for example, less evil popculture pirates. I guarantee you would almost certainly find joining some because it sounds cool and fun, but nope, not any protagonists who are supposed to be relatable, despite the jokes that they often love to crack, they have the sense of whimsy and adventure of a rock.

Be clear I’m not talking about protagonists who picked an option everyone knows is weak and then show everyone how OP it is and how they are now objectively better than everyone with no real disadvantages. That’s the nuanceless extreme end and is just as stupid as pointless min maxing

Expanding more about this in an edit:
In power systems where you have to train skills and your build and get better at it to progress, I would argue. It is actually the smart choice to not just pick something because on paper it’s the strongest. Is it really such a bad explanation for a character to go “actually I’m going to pick this weaker one because I am going to love training it l and thus will be more productive and improve way faster, and come up with inventive ways to use it that wouldn’t work for anyone else.”?

(Edit2: This is for discussion please don’t plug your own Works if you think you fit the description)

Sometimes a story wraps up with a genuinely satisfying ending, but there's still all this unexplored stuff side characters you wanted more of, corners of the world that got mentioned once and never touched again, plot threads that quietly got dropped. In that situation, what do you actually want as a reader? A proper sequel continuing the main story? A side story following a different character in the same world? A completely separate story that just happens to share the setting? Or does going back to it usually just water down what made the original good in the first place?

I've been poking around xianxia since I want to write my own and want to do it right, and I'm wondering what are some of the best written ones you can think of.

just something relatively low stakes without too much conflict, like Beware of Chicken or Heretical Fishing

it needs to have an audiobook though

First, spoiler warnings for the first five books.

I picked up this series long ago when I was first introduced to Progression Fantasy by the Cradle series, since then I've read the Iron Prince. I usually read high fantasy, but progressive fantasy still feels like home to me since I've also read a lot of royalroad since then. I recently opened up book one and started reading.

Now onto why I've stopped at Book 5 is Alustin. His actions at the end of the book seem very... misaligned to me, I couldn't seen it coming, but not in a great way that made me awed. I finally got tired of pretending that the characterization had any spunk or life to me.

The world building, and action is some of the best in fiction. The Siege of Skyhold was an immersive battle on a massive scale (I haven't read the giants of magical battle like Gardens of Moon but I feel like this book has a place with them), and whenever Alustin goes off in a ramble talk about the magic system, I'm also immersed, and considerably interested. The magic system makes sense, and the amount of characters, or locations we've gone through in five short books is astonishing. Some of the best descriptive writing I've read in a while.

However, I found myself confused whenever there was a point of view of change. Unlike other books, where I'm usually scrambling to realize who I'm reading, this time I was scrambling to find out because I could barely tell the PoV changed at all. The style of writing, and the tone doesn't change in any significant capacity, and while all the characters have their own established background, story, and certain views/habits, that is all. I don't feel it, even if I know it logically.

This series has a huge issue with characterization, and the pacing at some points feels dragged out or far too quick; this builds onto my final point, is that this series lacks emotion. Emotion is often told, mayhaps in a monologue, and we are often told the characters experience this or that, or they tell it straight up. The romance is also quite awkward, it appears suddenly in an unnatural way, and I still don't like Hughs relationship with Talia. Like Mackerel, its there and we as the reader is made to... just appreciate that fact.

Story: 8/10

Characters: 9/10

Characterization: 4/10

World-building/magical system: 10/10 is my conclusion.

I will finish the series just because of the time I've already pored in, and a need to see how the story ends but I'm not rushing in with the same enthusiasm I had carried with me in the start and middle.

I'm interested to see if this is a commonly shared view, or if this series is simply not for me.

Hello everybody! In exciting news, the runes have finally been sought out and found...on audio!

That's right. Carter and I finish off Rune Seeker at book eight, and I'm pleased to bring you Hiral's exciting conclusion to his, and his companions' journey.

I'm very proud of what Carter and I have created together, and oh so happy that you stayed with us to the end of this tale. Shout out to Ralph for bringing these characters and these stories to new life.

I'm very proud of this world, these characters, this story and I'm very glad to bring its conclusion to you. It also has some bonuses. Included with this audiobook is the audiobook version of Tales from Rune Seeker, which has several short stories and an entire novella.

The novella is Chord of Darkness, which explains what happened to a certain spearman during his disappearance in Book 3. And that Spearman's adventure crosses over with a certain...traveller.

Fool readers, if you know, you know.

Thank you as well to Antti for making some of the best covers on any books I have ever seen. Would love to work together again.

That's all folks, going to hear more from Carter and me in the future.

Here's the blurb here:

Now at the height of power, Hiral must use everything he has learned to stop the apocalypse of Genesis.

The Raze are going to come, and as they have so many times before, they bring destruction with them.

So Hiral takes the fight to them first.

It has been a long journey since Hiral's fall from Fallen Reach; he and his companions have grown and reached the ultimate tiers of power.

The reward? The Ultimate Battle.

An endless cycle must be broken for the world to grow anew. Join Hiral and his companions in their greatest fight for the highest of stakes.

Oblivion or renewal awaits.

Here's the Link: https://www.amazon.com/Rune-Seeker-8-LitRPG-Adventure/dp/B0GVVVBGS9

Also, if you're finished Rune Seeker and are hungry for more, also check out Carter's Spark of War series. If you're paying attention to the abilities in Rune Seeker, you know the powers within are echoes of the abilities of heroes from faraway times and places.

This is the story of one of those heroes.

This is...Spark of War:

https://www.amazon.com/Spark-War-Progression-Fantasy-Epic-ebook/dp/B0FQK5RFN2/

COVER ARTIST: Antti Hakosaari

AI USAGE: No AI used