Web Serials

Gask · Feb 14, 2023

edit: I take it back, there is no story, merely a dull scenario that loops endlessly.

Violent Solutions | Royal Road

"Go to the pyramid and fix it. You'll do fine, I'm sure of it." A discarded intelligent weapon is thrust into a strange world with little more than a body. The only people he finds shouldn't even be alive. They've been extinct for centuries, killed by their own warlike creations. Yet here they...

www.royalroad.com

TJT · May 25, 2023

Carl Book 6 just concluded. Looking forward to book 7.

Ukerric · May 25, 2023

TJT said:
Carl Book 6 just concluded. Looking forward to book 7.

Book lands on Amazon on July 2nd.

I dropped a few series who were petering out/had lost their lustre. I'm probably going to drop All the Skills, as it losts its way (and the dragon isn't enough to save it).

Right now, I'm following mainly:

Return of the Runebound Professor | Royal Road

[STUBBING MEANS BOOK 1 (up to ch90) IS GOING TO AMAZON, NOT ENDING]. ALL OTHER CHAPTERS WILL REMAIN ON ROYAL ROAD UNTIL SUBSEQUENT BOOKS RELEASE. THAT MEANS YOU CAN CONTINUE READING AFTER CH90 UNTIL THE NEXT BOOK COMES OUT! Book 1 is available on Amazon here. Lives are a currency, and Noah...

www.royalroad.com

(by Actus, who has a few series under his wing already. Former teacher was supposed to reincarnate normally, but a few gods fought at that moment and he ends up in the body of an incompetent magic teacher with his memories intact, and a strong wish not to stand in line for reincarnation ever again - yes there is a wait line for judgement and reincarnation)

The Fusionist | Royal Road

A young man and his axe, along with a magical life he never asked for… Larek Holsten is different from most people, living in the Kingdom of Androthe where his 7-foot-tall frame is looked at with suspicion and anger from its shorter residents; but as long as it helps him become the best Logger...

www.royalroad.com

(by Jonathan Brooks, who, for once, is not writing a Dungeon Core story. Young lumberjack whose best - not, scratch that, only - friend is his axe is hated by everyone, and gets framed for a crime. Since he seems to have magical abilities, he's hoisted off to the inevitable Magical Academy. Unfortunately, he should have been a Martial, not a Mage, even though he wants to be a Fusionist - basically, an enchanter - to be able to keep his friend in shape. The MC is very, very obviously OP, we - the reader - know why, but no one suspects)

Vae Victis [Progression LitRPG Apocalypse] | Royal Road

Take what they leave behind. Sold to a cartel led by a vampire at a young age, Marianna’s life didn’t have the best start. She was turned so that she could be of greater use and served the cartel, all until a moment of anger led to a mistake. Sentenced to death by the cartel, her life was to end...

www.royalroad.com

(by Ivan Kal, of The Infinite Realm fame. System Apocalypse, but the System runs a preliminary test and abducts a representative sample of Earth people for testing first. That means it needs our main character, which is a vampire, to make sure it covers all the cases. Slow development, slow publication since M. Kal is finishing The Infinite Realm series - yes, he's wrapping it up apparently)

TJT · May 25, 2023

The Hedge Wizard one rustled me. Started out fantastic as a struggling wizard for hire just trying to survive in DND world. But quickly devolved into stupid ass buddy dragon nonsense so I stopped reading.

Mudcrush Durtfeet · May 25, 2023

You have to sign up to Patreon to see it but Dungeon Crawler Carl finished the 8th floor. On to Faction Wars. Good shit.

"Carl, you're scaring Mongo!"

Lenardo · May 25, 2023

beware of chicken

chaotic craftsman worships the cube

jackal among snakes

saintess summons skeletons

spiteful healer

shipcore

practical guide to sorcery

ave xia rem y

the path of ascension

the last orellan

i'm not the hero

velk · May 26, 2023

'All the Dust that Falls' has been surprisingly consistent fun given the nonsensical premise. ( Bunch of wizards attempting to summon an arch-demon accidentally fuck it up and summon a roomba instead - when it rolls through their most powerful anti-demon wards like they aren't even there, and then proceeds to 'eat' their anti-demon powder and containment circles, they all flee in panic, convinced they have summoned an all-powerful demon lord. )

I figured it'd be a parody, but it's actually played surprisingly straight and has stayed a consistent quality through the release of the first book and into the second.

velk · Jun 12, 2023

I'll also give a recommendation on 'Super Supportive' - after an interesting beginning it has kind of reversed the usual trajectory by just becoming better as it goes.

I think I value this one mostly for an intriguing and very unpredictable plot. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the rest of it - well drawn characters, good prose, top marks for editing. It also has fascinating and original world building.

It's about a teenager, driven by personal tragedy, that wants to become a professional hero sidekick, but pretty much everything you would expect from that is incorrect ;p

I haven't seen a protagonist's plans go this far off the rails since Skitter tried to become a neighborhood vigilante in Worm.

Ukerric · Jul 6, 2023

Nobody103, the author of Mother of Learning, has started a new serial:

Zenith of Sorcery | Royal Road

A new fantasy story from the author of Mother of Learning. After years of exile, Marcus is coming back home. A powerful mage with few equals, Marcus lives in a world full of monsters and powerful adepts, many of which have bad histories with him. But he has not come back to pursue vengeance or...

www.royalroad.com

velk · Aug 4, 2023

I'll give a nod to

Bog Standard Isekai: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy | Royal Road

Sometimes dying isn’t even the worst part of your day Mark has been reincarnated into a dead town in a bog, one that has been recently destroyed and occupied by ravenous undead. They disappear every day and return again at night, mindless and hungry, hunting for any survivors. He’ll need to use...

www.royalroad.com

It has a few things working against it:
- It's a terrible name
- The name is a pun
- It's a terrible pun
- The pun doesn't even make any sense unless you have already read the story

On the upside, it's well-written and engaging with interesting characters.

On other random stuff - Super Supportive continues to exceed my expectations, this is my favorite serial at the moment I think.

Macronomicon just finished a month of 1 per day updates for Industrial Strength Magic, which continues to be good fun

Void Herald's two new series, Commerce Emperor and Blood and Fur have been going for a bit now - Commerce Emperor I kind of like, but Blood and Fur just seems a slog.

Paranoid Mage finished up the series with a pretty satisfying conclusion. I'm, intrigued to see what he does next.

Actus' most recent, Return of the Runebound Professor is pretty entertaining, although the pace seems completely unsustainable, I predict he is going to burn out, hard.

Ukerric · Aug 4, 2023

velk said:
Actus' most recent, Return of the Runebound Professor is pretty entertaining, although the pace seems completely unsustainable, I predict he is going to burn out, hard.

He's apparently still 50 chapters ahead on Patreon (I checked, he just posted 180), with 1 chapter a day going on... except on the day of the week where he does 2.

Gask · Aug 12, 2023

In case anyone else was wondering, Royal Road has removed the vote numbers from reviews and now lists the order in which reviews are displayed randomly for each user. They say they did this because of brigading and collusion between authors to game the system, but while that might be true those are just things you have to live with on the internet if you want a public rating system. But the people that run that place like to play nanny so here we are.

velk · Aug 12, 2023

Gask said:
In case anyone else was wondering, Royal Road has removed the vote numbers from reviews and now lists the order in which reviews are displayed randomly for each user. They say they did this because of brigading and collusion between authors to game the system, but while that might be true those are just things you have to live with on the internet if you want a public rating system. But the people that run that place like to play nanny so here we are.

There's been a lot of complaints from established authors that people who really like a story never go to the fiction page and thus never see any positive or negative reviews, so don't up/down vote them. This leads to negative reviews being a lot more visible than expected, because the only people to see them are:
1) new people to the story, who obviously can't disagree with them at that point.
2) people who are going to the fiction page to drop it, for whatever reason, who are more likely to agree with negative reviews

On the other hand, the author asking people to upvote positive reviews also tilts the natural balance in a significant way. After all - people are not going to like stuff, sometimes even for reasons you disagree with. That doesn't mean their opinions are invalid, or that they couldn't be helpful to other people with the same quirks.

Random order is at least unbiased, although I'm not a fan of a five page dissertation on the strengths and weaknesses of the story being treated the same as 'gaaaaaaay! 0.5 stars' though.

I suppose if I could come up with a better solution that didn't involve a outrageously large team of human moderators I would be very wealthy by now.

Gask · Aug 12, 2023

velk said:
There's been a lot of complaints from established authors that people who really like a story never go to the fiction page and thus never see any positive or negative reviews, so don't up/down vote them. This leads to negative reviews being a lot more visible than expected, because the only people to see them are:
1) new people to the story, who obviously can't disagree with them at that point.
2) people who are going to the fiction page to drop it, for whatever reason, who are more likely to agree with negative reviews

On the other hand, the author asking people to upvote positive reviews also tilts the natural balance in a significant way. After all - people are not going to like stuff, sometimes even for reasons you disagree with. That doesn't mean their opinions are invalid, or that they couldn't be helpful to other people with the same quirks.

Random order is at least unbiased, although I'm not a fan of a five page dissertation on the strengths and weaknesses of the story being treated the same as 'gaaaaaaay! 0.5 stars' though.

I suppose if I could come up with a better solution that didn't involve a outrageously large team of human moderators I would be very wealthy by now.

Authors on RR were able to preemptively ban people from rating who've never interacted with them to guard their scores. Now, after the reform you have to leave a comment on their story before they're empowered to arbitrarily ban you from rating them. They're also able to get negative reviews pulled with relative ease, I had a review killed for "spam" for quoting a few lines of a chapter to demonstrate how awful it was lol.

I think this change is simply an extension of the above trends.

TJT · Sep 2, 2023

Paranoid Mage author started a new one. Looks really promising. The guy does great work. Happy to support him via Patreon for a month or two a year.

Chasing Sunlight | Royal Road

Book now available on Amazon! In a world of lightless skies and endless secrets, humanity is a vigil of light against the eternal darkness. Under the imprimatur of the Illuminated King and the nefarious endorsement of the Reflected Council, a veteran explorer assembles an expedition to the far...

www.royalroad.com

TJT · Sep 2, 2023

velk said:
There's been a lot of complaints from established authors that people who really like a story never go to the fiction page and thus never see any positive or negative reviews, so don't up/down vote them. This leads to negative reviews being a lot more visible than expected, because the only people to see them are:
1) new people to the story, who obviously can't disagree with them at that point.
2) people who are going to the fiction page to drop it, for whatever reason, who are more likely to agree with negative reviews

On the other hand, the author asking people to upvote positive reviews also tilts the natural balance in a significant way. After all - people are not going to like stuff, sometimes even for reasons you disagree with. That doesn't mean their opinions are invalid, or that they couldn't be helpful to other people with the same quirks.

Random order is at least unbiased, although I'm not a fan of a five page dissertation on the strengths and weaknesses of the story being treated the same as 'gaaaaaaay! 0.5 stars' though.

I suppose if I could come up with a better solution that didn't involve a outrageously large team of human moderators I would be very wealthy by now.

As a rule just never read a review from someone who didn't read at least like 40 chapters of something.

Ritley · Sep 2, 2023

Been reading Godclads and really liking it so far. Cyberpunk dystopia, really well written. Only complaint I really have is author leans too far into throwing out random shit without explanation and waiting too long to actually explain some of the concepts.

In the gutters of New Vultun, the greatest megacity in the world, Avo finds himself resurrected from the clutches of death and tasked with a mission by a father he long thought dead. Now, he must rise to stop the usurpation of reality by the Eight Great Guilds that rule his world. Only by learning from his deaths and grafting newer and greater eldritch gods onto his being can he reach apotheosis and avert certain damnation.

Yet, as he ascends to claim the mantle of divinity, a question lingers... what kind of god will he become?

Ritley · Sep 2, 2023

TJT said:
Paranoid Mage author started a new one. Looks really promising. The guy does great work. Happy to support him via Patreon for a month or two a year.

Chasing Sunlight | Royal Road

Book now available on Amazon! In a world of lightless skies and endless secrets, humanity is a vigil of light against the eternal darkness. Under the imprimatur of the Illuminated King and the nefarious endorsement of the Reflected Council, a veteran explorer assembles an expedition to the far...

www.royalroad.com

Paranoid Mage was great, glad the author realized that it was a story that needed an actual ending rather than make it never ending like some stories. It was right about the right length, it seemed like it was already losing steam heading into the final book.

Ukerric · Sep 3, 2023

TJT said:
Paranoid Mage author started a new one. Looks really promising. The guy does great work. Happy to support him via Patreon for a month or two a year.

Chasing Sunlight | Royal Road

Book now available on Amazon! In a world of lightless skies and endless secrets, humanity is a vigil of light against the eternal darkness. Under the imprimatur of the Illuminated King and the nefarious endorsement of the Reflected Council, a veteran explorer assembles an expedition to the far...

www.royalroad.com

Also people have started noticing he's "problematic". He's an obvious right-winger who believes in conspiracy theories (like the fact that the most fair election of recent times might not have been fair, or stuff about COVID that falls under disinformation and so on).

I patreon at least a month per book.

Ukerric · Sep 6, 2023

TJT said:
Paranoid Mage author started a new one. Looks really promising. The guy does great work. Happy to support him via Patreon for a month or two a year.

Chasing Sunlight | Royal Road

Book now available on Amazon! In a world of lightless skies and endless secrets, humanity is a vigil of light against the eternal darkness. Under the imprimatur of the Illuminated King and the nefarious endorsement of the Reflected Council, a veteran explorer assembles an expedition to the far...

www.royalroad.com

Also, for those who aren't on full Patreon, spoiler warning: It goes to full-on Lovecraftian relatively soon. If that's not your thing, beware.

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