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Randin

Randin

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The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. This is a title that I've seen pop up fairly regularly on the internet, so I decided to finally pick it up. It's the story of child pickpocket-turned-master conman Locke Lamora and his crew working cons against the nobility of fantasy Venice, while a war for the local criminal empire is going on in the shadows. A really fun read; if you're looking for a rogue-focused fantasy story, pick this up.
 
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TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Just read through The Land series. While its decent I really dislike the author's tendency to not understand timelines at all. He also goes on tangents where he starts some super duper important quest then immediately forgets about it and it's never brought up again. Oh we need to go talk to the Dwarf kingdom and shit to help us with X.... never brought up again lol.

He has some encounter that creates a countdown timer then immediately forgets about it until another character forces him to deal with it. I expect the Kobold thing will be the same way. Just strikes me of poor design when all these insane things happen in less than 90 days. Also where are the other humans in this place? LitRPG is pretty enjoyable though so I will hit up that Veridian online one next.

Overall the Richter Character is a hardcore min/maxer nerd who seems to live on pop culture references. Which is kind of funny.
 
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Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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TJT said:
Just read through The Land series. While its decent I really dislike the author's tendency to not understand timelines at all.
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As an aside, Aleron Kong has a pretty bad reputation among litrpg fans for some shenanigans (including mod abuse on reddit). His current scheme seems to be trying to copyright the term "litrpg", which is why he tries to establish his reputation of "The Father of American LitRPG".

That said, he writes well enough, which means better than 2/3rd of the LitRPG authors.
 
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wormie

Asshat wormie

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Just finished first book in powder mage trilogy that was recommended to me here earlier. The plot progression is a bit rough around the edges and the vocabulary is pedestrian at best but I will be reading the next two books. Thanks whoever said to read it.
 
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V

velk

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TJT said:
Just read through The Land series. While its decent I really dislike the author's tendency to not understand timelines at all. He also goes on tangents where he starts some super duper important quest then immediately forgets about it and it's never brought up again. Oh we need to go talk to the Dwarf kingdom and shit to help us with X.... never brought up again lol.

He has some encounter that creates a countdown timer then immediately forgets about it until another character forces him to deal with it. I expect the Kobold thing will be the same way. Just strikes me of poor design when all these insane things happen in less than 90 days. Also where are the other humans in this place? LitRPG is pretty enjoyable though so I will hit up that Veridian online one next.
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Yeah, the main character is hopelessly unfocused, if his chamberlain wasn't superhumanly competent he'd be totally screwed ;p

The dwarf thing is consistent though - they are a long way away and not that much time elapses during the series.
 
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Ritley

Ritley

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wormie said:
Just finished first book in powder mage trilogy that was recommended to me here earlier. The plot progression is a bit rough around the edges and the vocabulary is pedestrian at best but I will be reading the next two books. Thanks whoever said to read it.
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Lol, pedestrian vocabulary.
 
TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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velk said:
Yeah, the main character is hopelessly unfocused, if his chamberlain wasn't superhumanly competent he'd be totally screwed ;p

The dwarf thing is consistent though - they are a long way away and not that much time elapses during the series.
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All things considered his books are quite well written. I commend Kong there for actually having the balls to kill off characters and creating lots of new situations though. I was surprised at how evil
Heman was. God damn lol. Didn't really expect THAT although I was sure the guy was up to something. Pretty inventive with the special powers the Chaos Seeds have as well as their applications. I hope he keeps it that way. I love wild ass powers that seem useless but can be extremely powerful if applied creatively.

Good series. I will definitely keep reading them.
 
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TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Started the Veridian Gate series. Finishing the first book I think I like The Land a bit more. Grim Jack is a little more try hard and significantly less funny/retarded than Richter. While Richter's jokes are stupid most of the time he at least has a tongue in cheek quality to him. No so much with Grim Jack but I will keep reading.

The setting is slightly more abstracted because all the people know they are in a virtual game and even the sentient NPC's understand they simply arrived here and are immortal compared to themselves. Rather then being in The Land, which is real simply using the game as a doorway. I do like the illuminati conspiracy so that's entertaining.
 
Rogosh

Rogosh

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Just finished Awaken Online another litrpg series. I would put it in the same quality category as viridian gate online and the land. Very fun read the main character is a necromancer and is the "villain" in the game.

Has anyone read Paul Bellow? was looking at getting his series next as I am totally into the whole Litrpg scene now and crave more and more books to read.
 
TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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About halfway through the VGO series now. I think that he missed a big opportunity here. The idea of crafty neckbeards exploiting the inherent metagame to beat a bunch of rich old people who bought their way into immortality and luxury virtual life is amusing. But that's not the case. Books are shorter so that's cool and all but the characters are just whatever. It certainly has it's strengths but The Land is built a lot better in that way.

Land is the best one I've hit so far so when I get to Awaken Online I'll have to compare it with the rest of them. The Land being massive and ancient high fantasy nonsense just lets Richter run into shit constantly. Even if it does create problems for the series. Eldgard in VGO feels MUCH smaller even just in a story sense.
 
Campbell1oo4

Campbell1oo4

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The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell (1995)

Although it started slow this book really picked up by the end. One of the most enjoyable things about it is the aura of fantasy that it carries, without having any fantasy at all. There are certainly druids, spells, rituals and enchanted items - but they only have power because people believe they have power. And I thought the weaving of this sense of fantasy in the real world was well executed.

This is not a story that can be described as "tight" or "focused." Vaguely reminiscent of Ivanhoe, the story wanders over a period that could be between 5 or 10 years, with the main character growing from a teenager into a man. Along the way he visits several different locations - the most striking of which is the island city off the coast of the France, which had me thinking of the White City of Minis Tirith, and picturing the Frankish invaders as orcs.

At the end of the day, if you like fantasy and historical fiction I think you should pick this up. It is a very well planned and well executed blending of both of those genres. I would give it a 7/10.
 
Srathor

Srathor

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No damn clue. I paid for my copy. Still need to read it though.

Dude is a good gamer bud, but I have no idea yet if the book is good or not.
 
TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Okay so I read The Land, Veridian Gate and this Awaken Online LitRPG series. I actually quite like this genre.

The Land is still the best one I've come across. Awaken Online's angle of using outside of the game life to do stuff is more interesting than VGO.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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TJT said:
Okay so I read The Land, Veridian Gate and this Awaken Online LitRPG series. I actually quite like this genre.
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LitRPG is a russian invention (hence the "odd" ordering of lit and rpg), but the russian production is weird for western tastes. Nowadays, since the western scene has grown up, you can find good stuff.

For the uninitiated, there's in order of generality:
- LitRPG where the main character(s) are people playing/stuck in a RPG (numeric stats, classes, levels, the whole shebang as a way of being)
- Gamelit is all novels where the world takes game-like characteristics without being an outright RPG (the Land straddles gamelit/litrpg by having both aspects)
- Progression Fantasy are novels where you have character power progression without being an outright RPG/game. If you see wuxia/xanxia, that's what it is (the genre is still mostly dominated by eastern asia or inspiration from it, just like litrpg used to be with russians)

The "litrpg" label is the most catchy name and is often used for things that aren't outright litrpg.

As I said, I tend to be very critic of outright "hard" LitRPG since there's always horribly complicated contortions used to justify why the stakes in, basically, VR-WoW do matter. Good ideas like the World Tree Online make me very happy.

Quick summary: Like most LitRPG, you have the all-powerful AI, the VR MMO, etc. It's all very classic setup, MC gets into the game, loves it since he used to be a gamer... but the big idea is that the game has a patch, which requires 30mn to install... during which time is sped up in game at 1 subjective year per 5s, and you can no longer log out due to neural incompatibility between sped-up consciousness and normal brain. So everyone faces having to spend 360 years stuck in a RPG, without being able to leave at all. This is the recipe to bring the best or the worst in anyone. Book 3 should be out this fall.
 
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