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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   3966 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 19, 2024

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So, what are you reading?

Still on Human Action and The Future Does Not Compute. Also finding my way back to the Bible, chiefly due to a growing interest in Ronald Reagan. As always, Ecclesiastes steals the show, though this time around Proverbs has resonated as well. It has been a very long time, and it’s apparent to me now that whatever the Bible lacks in technical quality, it makes up for in structure and direction. It is easy to forget its uniqueness.

Almost finished With the Old Breed. Vivid and chilling. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in war memoirs.

Thank God we don’t have to experience this. I don’t just mean American civilians—I suspect no one on the planet faces such a level of industrialized brutality. Two hundred thousand men crammed into 5 miles of front.

Just in case you didnt know, the tv show "the pacific" is vased chiefly on that book and is very, very good.

Reading David Copperfield. I believe this is my fifth Dickens novel.

Every time I go back to him, I am surprised at how easy it is to read, and how funny he can be. Also with this one, in Dickens's preface he describes how much he's going to miss the characters now that he's done writing the book. A very modern-feeling touch.

I'm reading the Aeneid, Roman poet Virgil's epic poem/Homer fanfiction. It feels a tad rushed at times, and divine intervention is used in a way that can feel a bit cheap. However it's still well written and reasonably entertaining. Chapter 6 where our hero ventures into the underworld is particularly reminiscent of the Hades games - I've enjoyed playing Hades 2 lately.

I'm back to reading The Runesmith after taking a half year break to let chapters build up.

I also recently read a new story by Arcs the author of Ar'Kendrythryst. The story is only available on their patreon right now, so no link. The author being ridiculously prolific released what they called "part one of book one" and it was 130,000 words long, which is nearly twice the length of a standard book.

What's your opinion on the Runesmith? The reviews seem mediocre. Is it the kind of story that's good if you're ok with skimming superfluous exposition but people who aren't, get pissed at the glacial pacing? Or are there bigger issues?

I'm having trouble parsing ratings and reviews at Royal road, with some of the higher rated stuff being complete garbage and some lower rated stuff being pretty decent. Is score manipulation (positive and negative) a big problem or am I just out of step with the audience?

Its one of those stories where the flaws don't bother me too much or they are actually kind of a positive.

I'd consider Runesmith kinda mediocre, but its also held my attention much longer than other stories.

I think the author is very good at creating interesting worlds/settings, decent at desperate and action packed combat scenes, and good at a steady sense of progression for the main character.

The grammar and word choice and editing leave a great deal to be desired. I think the author uses voice to text, because there are sometimes words that sort of sound correct if you are speaking out loud, but are totally the wrong word choice. If you are an editing stickler this story is a hard pass. I am mostly not a stickler for tight editing. As long as I can mostly understand it then I'm fine. Though repeated bad explanations like in translated novels will wear me down into frustration eventually.

The dialogue and social scenes sometimes annoy me. The author likes to create "anime scenes". Where the main character and side characters are doing silly and embarrassing things. The side characters are filled with beautiful women. Its not Harem, but it falls into a side genre that I'm gonna call "Harem Eyes". The MC isn't sleeping with a bunch of people, but the author is definitely undressing all of them with his writing. There are lots of beautiful big breasted women around. Its almost like being set in a harem setting, without the actual harem showing up.

The main character is also mostly rational in their long term approach to problems. They will sometimes make emotional hero-like decisions in the moment. Generally I am not getting frustrated with the main character for being an idiot to drive the plot forward.

Without the MC holding an idiot ball the author seems to have some trouble advancing the plot sometimes. So instead the MC just seems fantastically unlucky. Also because the author often describes mundane events and interesting events with the same amount of leading details you never really know when a bout of bad luck is about to strike the MC. I kinda like that surprise.

Ok, thanks for the info! I might check it out and see if its for me but that wasn't really a ringing endorsement ;)

Not meant to be a ringing endorsement, just an honest assessment.

If you want a ringing endorsement from me check out Ar'kendrithyst or Mother of Learning.

I got that :)

I've already read MoL but Ar'k is new to me and I'll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

Seconding Mother of Learning, it's truly is a rare gem from RoyalRoad AND it's still available fully on the website, despite the books on kindle. After looking through tens of works on RR that don't seem to have any hint of coherent ending around this decade I bought the books just as a "thank you" for the author. One curious "error" from writing continuously is still present though - at the end of book 1 (spiders death) a vampire is introduced and never spoken about again

Otherwise a lot of works on RR starts to blend together with each other in my mind, oh berserking skill + healing, daring aren't we?

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