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Notes -
Path of Ascension and Dungeon Crawler Carl: Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Spoilers for Path of Ascension below.
The former is pretty good, mid-tier litRPG. While some parts of it are predictably weak, it has enough going for it that I think the first three books at least are worth reading. Characters, dialogue, etc. are pretty weak, but everyone at least has their own motivations which are internally consistent. Also it's set in a galactic empire that is quite competently run, which is very refreshing. However, the galactic empire is so well run that it removes a lot of the tension from the story--the main characters are very rarely in serious danger, and basically always have godlike beings personally and directly watching over them 24/7 to prevent any serious injury. This is somewhat nice because the main characters are allowed to lose every once in a while, but it doesn't make up for the absence of any real stakes. The author almost goes out of his way to remove any stakes from the story--not only is nobody ever going to die, but even when wars happen, they are supervised by godlike beings and any permanent injury or death on either side is prevented. This makes sense narratively but I need stakes in my stories.
I really have low standards for these books; they never seem to be written all that well but are fun nonetheless. Even compared to the industry standard though, the pacing of these books really struggles, especially post chapter 130ish. Chapters are full of characters talking to each other in the same voice, explaining elements of the world around them, and discussing their recently gained abilities, while the plot grinds to a total halt. I've taken to skipping paragraphs after reading the first couple of words and don't seem to have missed much so far. So that's a big mark against it.
On the bright side the book does mix up common tropes in new, fun ways pretty frequently. For example, at one point the characters must choose whether to support the prince of a corrupt empire. The prince wants to reform the empire, but is quite ruthless and will do anything to make that reform happen, even if it means stealing from and killing innocent people. This on its own is a very well-trodden trope--do we support the principled villain or the ruthless hero?--but then we learn that the prince is also fairly incompetent and liable to waste whatever support he gets. I've never seen the trope twisted in such a way and I found reading through it to be pretty interesting, though the author didn't spend nearly as much time on that dilemma as I'd have liked.
Anyways I'd say it's a good timewaster but there are much better books out there.
Just started DCC so not much to say about it except that the previous books in the series have been very fun.
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