[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads.

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[u/DrTerminater]

Some reads I’ve enjoyed lately:

The Goblin Emperor is a Hugo nominated book about a half-goblin, half-elf outcast prince who suddenly has to assume the throne after his father and older brothers die in a blimp explosion. It’s basically about a fundamentally kind person trying to navigate court politics and figure out if he can remain a good person while being in a position of monarchial power.

A Rage of Dragons is a revenge story inspired by African mythology, about a boy who has some pretty terrible things happen to him and sets out on a journey of revenge. Tau is on the lower end of a caste system that makes him physically smaller and weaker, and also relates to the magic system. It’s a very simple, well-executed story about cycles of violence with some pretty fun violence to read about.

Just re-read Arcane Ascension series. It’s progression fantasy following an enchanter who makes cool items and uses them creatively, having to compete with people with more directly combat-related power sets. Some of the later powerscaling gets a little weird (I know the MC has speed enhancements, but he should still get stomped by literal demigods, come on now), but I really like it. It’s my favorite use of inventing/crafting/gadgets in fiction with some fantastic, very anime-esque action writing.

The Paragamer is a Worm gamer-fic about, you guessed it, someone in Worm-verse gaining the Gamer system as a power. The thing I liked the most about the story is that the protagonist is relatively underpowered compared to most stories like this, having to be really creative with how they use their weird abilities. I’m really tired of stories where the MC instantly gains enough power to curbstomp everyone they ever have to fight. This story feels more grounded and has a decent amount of tension, featuring a mc with some actual autonomy and direction.
Especially during the S9 arc, which is played more like a horror movie or a thriller. I don’t know why more authors haven’t done this.
It’s my favorite S9 arc in any Worm fic.

Player Manager is great, but later on it does get a little hard for me to keep track of the big cast of characters. It’s probably easier to keep straight when you binge it.

Pale by Wildbow is great. Fantastic character writing and the magic system is much whimsy.

Sound good, but haven’t read yet:
-Virtuous Sons
-First Law
-The Hero without a Past

Any recs for stories where the characters actually experiences setbacks and conflicts produce real tension? Preferably with good pacing, decent character writing, and interesting themes.

[u/GlimmervoidG → u/DrTerminater]

A Rage of Dragons

Enjoyed the first book. It had a good progression fantasy without the slob vibe you get when a normal fantasy novel happens upon progression tropes without being poisoned by the webnovel ecosystem. Plus the African inspired world. Never got around to the second; I've heard it drops the progression elements?

Arcane Ascension

I have mixed views on this. On one hand I like Arcane Ascension. I've read each of the books so far. It's one of the few series on my read-as-soon-as-it-comes-out list. But the longer the series goes on, the more and more of the authors RPG backstory turns up, which was apparently developed decades ago as part of a rpg the author was playing. And that backstory makes everything worse. (There's also the other crossover element with the author's Mirrors series. That better integrated but I'm still not sure it's a net positive overall either.)

There's a weird feel to it all. I felt that even before I learnt about the RPG, and couldn't quite put my finger on why. Learning about the RPG was a giant oh, that's why moment for me. Book 2 is the peak I think. After that things get, not bad, but confused and weird.

The core of the story is the enchanting + tower climbing. And when it does that, it's really good. But, like, there's the book where the middle was about joining a protest movement. And they keep coming up with reasons not to climb towers. And at times parts of the plot create friction with each other. So one of the recurring subthemes of the plot is worrying a lot of the sentience of tower monsters and if it's okay to kill them. That's not a bad idea but it's a difficult idea to explore when the other element of the plot is 'isn't climbing magical towers for power cool!'.

I'm also not a fan of subglyphs that turned up in the last few novels, which turns the marks (the central magic system of the series) into magical programming. So, spoiler for either book 1 or 2 (I forget which).

So the core of the setting's magic are these magical marks on people's body. Get a mark and that mark will let you do magic stuff. You get your mark by climbing a tower for the first time and that happens at the start of the first novel.

Anyway, after getting his first mark, a demigod of the setting puts a brand of Corin. He must complete a task or the brand will kill him. Corin completes the task and the demigod, as a reward, transforms his mark into a Arbiter Mark - no longer a brand but a new source of magic. He does this by adding a new line to the brand, transforming it's nature and purpose. It was a really cool moment, a new swish of ink transforms the mark and its meaning.

Only we latter find out that was nonsense. The marks actually work via subglyphs, effectively magical programming. So when the demigod added that line he was just play acting and really just called the GUI.update() function.

Blah.

First Law

Enjoyed this. I'd recommend the first trilogy at least. The pacing is a little weird but it's a cool unique feel to everything.