site banner

Friday Fun Thread for May 10, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I always see these reading threads and think y'all read such heavy stuff. I read for fun. Not a serious book in sight.

I just caught up in Markets and Multiverses. A young lady dies. Her soul gets pulled along in a big soul ocean to a galaxy sized ship floating in the soul ocean. The ship is called "the market". Its a place for re-incarnators to stop by and buy powers between reincarnations. But the ship has been taken over and all the reincarnators seem to have been killed, and the enemies are still lurking around. She meets some new people from different worlds who also just got reincarnated. Together they Reincarnate and try to build up their powers.

I'm currently subscribed to patreons for some stories I enjoy. Like Millennial Mage (A Slice of Life, Progression Fantasy) and The Path of Ascension. I recently got to read the end of Ar'Kendrithyst which is one of the longest completed stories ever at 4.39 million words. I'm also caught up on The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop which is the perfect level of trashy dumb progression fantasy for me. I'm waiting for Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube and Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel to build up more of a chapter backlog for me to start reading them again.

I like action, powerful main characters that kick ass, and fantasy worlds that mostly don't resemble our world at all. I prefer stories with low levels of moral ambiguity. Made up fantasy systems and rules are fun. Betrayal is not fun. Horrors of war are not fun. Politics is boring.

I always see these reading threads and think y'all read such heavy stuff. I read for fun. Not a serious book in sight.

Not to be too cynical, and I'm sure people here do routinely read some dense texts, but there's definitely an incentive here to selectively post about things that make you look smart. I'm sure the majority of people read their pulpy scifi and trashy fantasy alongside The Rise and Fall but just don't discuss it.

The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop

Based and—dare I say it?—Perfect Lionheart–pilled.

the perfect level of trashy dumb progression fantasy

I'll recommend Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power. It thoroughly earns its 3.5 star rating with its characterization, plot, and prose, but man was it fun.


A few underappreciated positives of stories I'm reading (that wouldn't generally make it into other reviews):

The Calamitous Bob: The world and everything in it is as serious as reality, which makes it an excellent straight man. For example, the first group the main character runs into doesn't have a "V" phoneme in their language, so she becomes known as "Bob". Also, you know the the trope where you can tame a cute animal by acting nonthreatening and giving it food? And animal-like people (eg. cat-people, lizard-people, bird-people)? Well, some platypus-people tried to tame the main character with dumplings.

Markets and Multiverses: Death isn't final, so the stakes are higher. If the protagonists got into an unwinnable fight in any other story, I'd know they would survive (because otherwise the story ends). However, the worst-case scenario of having to reincarnate doesn't end the story, so it's a possibility: they lost plot-armor in exact proportion to their immortality.

Player Manager: It's set very much in present day London. In-story, it's mid-April 2024, and the earlier chapters included the Queen's death and its effects on English sports. It lends a certain amount of grounding to the story.

Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power sounds like my cup of tea.

Calamitous Bob has been sitting in my follow list for a while. I read it a long time ago up to about chapter 100. It has an amazing army fight scene.

Thank you, I agree. Lately I've been listening to books while I work in the yard. Black berries and blue bells won't pull themselves out.

My favorites are animal-based children's stories. Hank the Cowdog is a classic, as those books on tape are about 2-3 hours, just long enough to get some good progress going. Right now I'm working through Mattimeo, which is holds some interest now that I have children, rather than being the child when I first read it.

I like action, powerful main characters that kick ass, and fantasy worlds that mostly don't resemble our world at all.

I would suggest Undying Mercenaries by BV Larson. Not really fantasy, more like sci-fi, but James McGill does little else but kick ass and die violently (see, undying).

I remember reading steel world a few years ago. It was a fun book. I ended up not reading any more of the series, can't remember why.