I've recently gotten into reading. I realised how much I love fiction, and a couple of tropes. So I'm here asking maybe some of you know any books that have them.
I love it when the story focuses more on world building rather than character. The theory crafting I can do in my head, or just before I sleep, is priceless.
Here I'll contradict myself by saying a character development related point, but the more important one. I'd like to read more works that show some mysterious big-bad first as a rivalry, later as a friend. They soften up with the MC and we they become friends or allies or whatever. We get to see a BBEG of sorts's friendly and weak side. I get that it's a bit childish, but I lost my mind of how cool of a character they made the first time I read it. Now, it was in a manga, so I'd love to read an example that made this best or first.
Thank you in advance, even if you just name some genres or authors.
I thought dark tower was okay, but it was a bit too surreal for me towards the end.
Might I recommend the Mortal Engines quartet? They’re kinda YA, especially the first one, but the setting is as far as I know completely unique, and beyond amazing. I really don’t want to spoil the first few moments of realization, so I’m just going to put the first two passages below.
Also, many of the BBEGs are cool af and (spoiler for the later books) as least one matches your request exactly, while others match it pretty well.
Honestly I love the characters, they work so well. Especially Tom, he’s the most normal everyday lead I’ve ever read in a fantasy/sci-fi book, and yet all his actions are totally believable.
My only complaint is that book 2 is kind of frustrating in places.
First two passages:
I thirst for befriending "bad" guys, so you sold me. Rest of the text was wasted /j. I won't even read reviews, I trust you stranger.
Please get back to me with your impressions, especially on the “befriending bad guys” side. I’d love to know (even if you end up disliking it)!
Well, just finished reading the first book. I took my sweet time lol. If I have to give a one sentance review I'd say that "I'd like to like it". The ending was very good, and I'm looking forward for their andventures. However all of part one and the first half of part two were spiteful.
The main characters survived everything with plot armor, they all should have died. >!When they got thrown off a multi story moving city, soft ground is a bullshit excuse, there weren't even injured. Later Kate asked the antagonist about his secret evil plans, and were just sent away, Tom got "killed". You could argue they just got lucky or "you wouldn't be reading about them if nothing extraordinary happened". But you can't even argue that a terminator just shut down, it's batteries emptied, JUST when it was about to kill Hester. And Tom was praised, he got bitch slapped, and almost died!!< I also feel like the charscter development was a little bumpy, but it's talking about scenarios that I never faced before or ever thought about, so instead of criticising it maybe I should learn from it? Still, at the end characters started dropping like flies, it was supposed to be emotinal, but because of the above mentioned reasons it didn't feel impactful. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. The writer wrapped things up so well, that I'm looking forward of the next piece.
Long wall of text over. I was expecting some high fantasy sort, with the bbeg criteria, but I didn't know that a post-post-apocalyptic world goes this hard. While none of my negatives have any weight if you factor in the fact that this is probably a kid's book.
Shaw reminds me of Silksong...
Hey, thank you so much for the wall of text!
Yes, most of what you mentioned is what I was vaguely including with the term “YA.” I’ve read a lot of it so I’m very inured to the silly tropes and unlikely and dramatic deus ex machinas. It’s great to hear your negatives because I’m seeing my own blind spots!
I think your criticism is valid. I don’t think it’d be correct to call any impression-based criticism invalid. Doesn’t mean one can’t also learn from it. Additionally, the negatives might make sense in context of it being YA, but that doesn’t make them weightless imo.
I liked the second book the least by far, but maybe it’ll be different for you. I’m sorry the BBEG wasn’t up to snuff, I was absolutely convinced. Maybe books 3/4 will do it but it’s mostly in the same vein. I’m glad you still enjoyed it!
I’m not familiar with Hollow Knight, but if you say there’s similarity maybe I should be…
Lol, my last line was a joke. A shot in the dark hoping you might get it. In the game Hollow Knight, there is a character called Hornet. She's getting a whole game, called Silksong. Anyways, the game only has sounds as voiceacting and Hornet says "Shaw" a lot. (You can try searching "Hornet Shaw" on Youtube if you're curious, but I warn you of the brainrot, the community is insane)
I already started with book#2. Was just planning on reading it a bit when I noticed your reply. It's written way to well for me to just drop it. I'll (try to) drop by when I'm done.
Hello, it's me again. With a book club-like update. Just finished the 2nd book, Predator's Gold. However I'll just say it straight on, it was bad. The plot armor driven plot didn't subside. I remember you saying that you liked the 2nd least, so I guess.. same. I honestly don't feel like reading the next two.
I don't think I'll over-analyze this one, but I'll just say that it was so uninteresting and boring that I've put off the last chapters for days, read them one by one. And the big drop at the end, the climax, was, again, complete nonsense. >!Tom survived getting shot point blank in the chest. The stalker 2.0 got autobalanced (tf2 reference) in the middle of killing the MCs. Hester did something so unreasonable that it is in no way justifiable as a tantrum. One of the most feared predator cities just killed themselves. And the drop of Hester being pregnant is irritating, very "book end" of it, but also let's think about it. For the 2nd half of the book they weren't even close to each other, except for when They came back from the "prison" and when Tom was dying. So there are two options: Hester had intercourse with a dying(unconscious) guy (peak fiction?), or they tried for baby when they were speeding back to the city, when it was clearly uncomfortable for the both of them. I won't read back, but IIRC they were both filled with guilt and barely talked. Or did they have fun in the early chapters? In that case, good to know a city can move half a world's length within a couple of months (before pregnancy is noticeable or a hindrance)! !<
I'll think this is the end of my journey with this one, overall it wasn't bad, I'm just disappointed a bit. And definitely not interested enough to continue. However, if you say that the next two books are good (AKA way better), I can imagine myself reading them and writing up the first two as setup.
Hello, thank you for the update!
Oh boy I didn’t even notice the pregnancy plot hole you pointed out. I read the second book once as a kid and never again.
I’m really sorry to have put you through that D=
The third and fourth books are indeed completely different, but I hesitate to suggest reading them because of your experience so far. My personal ranking is 4 > 1 > 3 > 2. I do think they go interesting places as they have more traditional fantasy scope and characters, so the world is fleshed out a lot. But it is still more of the same…
Anyway, thank you so much for the time taken to review them. I liked your analysis. Do you have a favorite book to recommend?
haha, don't be :D I'm happy that I met this world. It's just not that good.
I don't have a favorite book. I'm very new to reading books. 21st century childhood got to me as well. But I'm enjoying it so far. Might even me a better form of media than series. While I'm also not native, and for whatever reason I don't read in my mother tongue, but english. For that reason I struggle with vocabulary. One good thing I can definitely say about Mortal Engines is that the language is simple, I barely had to look stuff up.
I can tell you manga or smth tho.
I'm not much of a manga reader, but I never say no to recommendations.
I'm amazed you're getting into reading the way you are. Props to you.
Well, I'd give a 99% that you're going to find it cringe, but I made this post about The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon. It had that absolutely amazing character 180° plot twist, and even if everything else is very poorly written, that singular character is awesome.
The way I actually got into reading is a bit embarassing, only two of my friends know of it. But the watered down version is that after years of everyone around me watching anime I also caved in, tried it, and I very much enjoyed one. Because it was (and still is) unfinished I decided to read the light novels about it and realised how awesome reading is. My familiy nagged me about reading, and I did some back in the day, can't even remember how old I was (single digit for sure), however school started and I was forced to read some of the worst pieces of word combinations that ever hit my ear, long and boring too. I'm not kidding when I say one of these mandatory reads made me hate women for a while. Thankfully I forgot all of it, like a trauma, all I remember is that it was hell reading that (actually couldn't even read it, I listened to it.) Anyways, even if it's cringy and a bit wierd, I'm still happy about it. I get to enjoy this hidden gem of media, and I'm loving it. So I'm searching for new experiences. This post backlogged me for a year at least.
I'm writing this omw home on a bus, if there are typos; sry :p
Alright I'm reading Skeleton Soldier. I like it. It is a little silly, a little shallow, but it's fun and varied and damn if it doesn't pull off some emotional whiplash. Like when the female knight in the tournament tripped while everybody was booing her? My stomach dropped through the floor.
Yoo, Skeleton Soldier is just time loop LitRPG in manga form. Absolutely cringe and I am absolutely here for it. That used to be one of my favorite genres/tropes to read! Yeah, those types of stories are rarely finished, and usually pretty shallow. Kinda like fast food for reading. I'll give it the manga a shot. Thank you!
I really wonder wth happened with your school lol. I hated mandatory reading too, but it wasn't nearly that bad, just tedious.
Sorry to heap more suggestions on to you, but if you're into stories like skeleton soldier you could take a look at RoyalRoad or similar web novel sites. There's literally tens of thousands of such stories uploaded for free by the authors. The vast majority of them are bad or worse, but with how many there are there's more than enough high quality stuff, some of which is novel or experimental in a way one doesn't find in published work. Just be ready to drop a story if it feels like it's going nowhere or is not fun to read.
You can color me surprised. I'm not really into this sort of progression because it's almost always lazy. But I feel like Skeleton Solder did an above average job. But I do have to admit, that most of the mangas that I like are like this. I have no idea why, I refuse to believe a leveling system is good writing.
I love you're comparison to fast food! Fits so well. As I said, for me reading a "normal" book takes energy and effort, I need to learn new words to even understand the scenery. Don't get me wrong, I do want to extend my vocabulary and I also enjoy it. But it is nice to immerse myself into something for hours easily, and for that I do need myself some fast food from time-to-time. Anyways I just said (in 3 lines) that don't feel bad for recommending (I enjoyed Mortal Engines as well, but not enough to finish it, and the characters actively annoyed me), I'll probably want to search for these sooner or later and now I don't need to find a site.
Reading your other comment: Oh I feel bad for you already. If Christina's fall got you idk how you'll l handle S3's ending. But I won't say a word more. Please update me on how heartbroken you are.. O-or because you knew what was going to happen because almost all of these stories are the same, and you said you've read them a bunch.
Other thing that interests me is, and I know this might be reaching, it's okay if you wouldn't want to answer, is how old are you? You said "used to be" does that mean I've struck some nostalgia in you?
Is there space for one more paragraph? Do you use ebook readers? I mean like a device with an eink screen. I'd like to buy one soon but I have no idea what to look for in them.
I'll make sure to get back to you when I get to S3, then. Gotta admit to being disappointed that Christina just disappeared, but the fact you remember her name suggests she'll be back. Woo! Before that, to the other points:
Leveling systems are generally terrible writing, agreed, but they can serve as excellent antagonists (something you'll see attempted often in RoyalRoad entries). I think they're a trend from Korea that stuck around because they appeal to gamers. I've never really looked into the topic, but the first I remember hearing of was called The Gamer and it released in... 2013. Hoo boy. Yeah, I'm almost 30 lol. It wasn't that long ago, but apparently long enough for nostalgia to set in. At the time it was super popular and spawned literally tens of thousands of spinoffs.
That's not as many as it sounds like, though. Eastern novels/writing seems to be iterative, with stories slightly mutated over and over in vast quantities until something is new enough and good enough to gain popularity and shift the genre again. There's less focus on brevity, novelty is central but narrow, and the novelty is often entirely described within the title. Western web fiction is similar in some ways, but much less homogeneous.
I do have an ebook reader. My main suggestion would be, if you've got one in mind, looking for problems with it online, like " stopped working" or "froze" or "won't turn on." A lot of them break in suspiciously predictable ways and are completely unrepairable. Second suggestion is to get one that isn't bound to a store, which you can freely upload epubs/pdfs to, preferably via USB cable. Everything else is pretty much subject to your use-case. Small size, backlighting, water/rain resistance and low weight are requirements for me personally.
My reader is a tablet style thing which I can use for work. However that leaves it too large to actually read much on while in bed or on the go, and I've ended up mostly using my (very small) phone to read epubs.
Sorry for the wall of text, but hopefully it's useful to you! As to web fiction: I do still suggest searching. There is no one website, it really is best to spread out. I often use TopWebFiction and RoyalRoad, but so many good stories are hidden in some weird forum or blog somewhere that I usually just look at story request threads for new stuff.
Best I could do was to bookmark your comment. If I remember I will, but for obv reasons I can't make promises.
No worries, I don't expect anyone to remember random internet stranger number seven thousand one hundred and eight. But, just in case =D
I do agree that it does get weaker towards the end, I think after King got hit by the car in real life the writing for this series went down hill. I enjoy the first 4 books the most, then it is a steady decline however it never reaches bad for me still and I have still read through it multiple times.
I also enjoy the majority of his books though and a lot of the ones that tie into this universe are amazing books in their own right but the fact they build into a bigger world than that which exists within the books themselves appeals to me a lot.
I will also look into your suggestion :p
Oh yes I’m a sucker for sprawling, disjointed worldbuilding. It’s what ended up pulling me into fan fiction. Maybe I should try dark tower again. I’ll put it back in the “maybe” pile.