Cobal

Ever escalating tunnel vision(spoilers)

Revisado: 03-11-25

Love the book, funny and has amazing concepts and very interesting characters, but it’s scattered through multiple bobs and only on a few bobs at that. What we get is multiple story arcs scattered around loosely connected to one another and every other character regardless of interest are npcs of the moment. A bob could take decades to react to any other character and there is no fat of character reactions nor viewpoints or their own counter moves. It’s something happens and the bobverse discusses it with themselves. The ai only has a mask, the evil religion is a background opponent dealt with by lawyers. Assasination attempts are once again flashy escapes. Bob dodges responsibility and consequences by avoiding the people and leaving them active threats dealt with the softest way possible and the shortest way possible.

I wish we got more in depth character development and world building, more consequences than the bobs moved on. But still love the series

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Not every enemy need be an arrogant cowardly idiot

Revisado: 05-18-24

Everyone our mc meets that he doesn’t like is the most shortsighted, delusional, stick up their ass moron. Everyone. Anyone who’s above him that hasn’t seen combat is in that category. All unbloodied brass somehow are cut from the same cloth and no one has a brain cell between them. “He stayed in his quarters claiming illness and had the XO bring him food” would be funny if not every single conflict these three books fell into the same category. And you can’t tell me they didn’t think throwing rocks at ships wouldn’t work. That’s one of the first things we would try. And then go bigger. And bigger. Oh no, our nukes didn’t work, guess we’re going to spend the next five years letting them kill us. Was that really all they got? Also, the cast not finding their little hidden elite fleet and not instantly saying “the brass is running” was a huge waste of time. What are they doing with hiding a fleet from the home planet? Oh, they defiantly telling the civilians. They surely ain’t gonna run like they always do. Just say it and move on! Some scenes dragged as they made constant new correlations to the same actions in the same scenes and we could have skipped a lot of the chatter that lead nowhere. End of the world and people are threatening with jail time while our guys are coasting along, our mc is a tagalong for most of these books that just so happened to be places contributing little for much of the scenes he’s in. It’s bigger than him, yes, but that doesn’t mean he has to be apart of everything when he shouldn’t be. Still enjoyed, but jeez, get more material for your antagonists. Than can be more than sniveling weasels and be against you.

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Summarize, reference, and assume we have memory

Revisado: 03-29-24

Things got very repetitive when there was a recap on anything. Every time had to be in great detail despite having been there the first time. And It felt like they were saying it the same way each time. This is one book, you could say “that food eating test” and we won’t be thinking “I wonder which one they’re talking about” it would be “Right” because there was only one overall test. Instead, they once again went through the entire thing. Lists don’t need to be explained every time, just give the new data points, or skip if there is no new data points and refer to her one list. I don’t need the details on what a timer does, especially when it gives a definition and the character discusses said timer ability, I don’t need to be told the timer tells time in the same way as before. Specifics the first time were fine, but highlight anything of relevance if there is. Otherwise just say you used the timer skill! The character would discuss stuff by themselves and then discuss it with other characters with little deviation for them to go “I see” and with that time was wasted rehashing information we just got earlier. If you’re going to repeat stuff, at least do it in a different way each time. I felt sometimes I was sent back a couple of chapters because i was hearing the same thing again and had to check I hadn’t somehow bookmarked the spot somehow and then shifted back to it. Keep the data sheet of info dumps to one per book per subject, please. We could use a refresher between books but not when listening to the one audio book and it’s after the chapter it was introduced.

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I don’t want interactions, I want to be in the hell realm

Revisado: 03-23-24

Too much is spent on the specifics of the hell realm and the soul realm. Everyone else is so underdeveloped they’re more side characters than anything. Interactions are usually one note and going off a cliche with little meat, meanwhile most time is spent in spirit realm, hell realm, or repeating stuff to himself or saying the punchline is coming for the punchline to come. It’s very repetitive and most of it could have been glossed over in a time lapse. The sect doesn’t even really start in this whole book, they just got a building and a bunch of people holding onto cores while they ponder if they should use them as the main character goes on centuries long isolation training arcs. In the outside world, I wouldn’t be surprised if all these two books happened within a week from the start with how little the outside seemed to matter. The whole mind hijacking thing is resolved after two books which he only recently started noticing and broken because his sister came to him at a bad time and he didn’t want to deal with it so he snapped it off and had his ONLY one on one in depth talk with her for the entire series so far. Otherwise she’s shivering somewhere scared or pondering the cores instead of using them.

Please, in the next book, give him someone to constantly bounce off of. Loving his green haired friend, please more of that please. Him doing nothing but banging his head against timeless situations he’s mostly making himself go through to get stronger is mostly empty calories and we need to lean off the junk food and get some real story meat. I want the world he occupies that has stakes to actually matter to him. He can be OP but he should care more that the real world exists more than to be a resource. Give the world a reason to be the setting. The hell world is not the story, it’s the training area. The hyperbolic time chamber. Make him a protagonist, not the only reactive mad hermit.

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Let them go with a warning….(spoiler)

Revisado: 12-23-23

I just got to it. No. I don’t care they can’t be tried for a crime not in law. It’s The apocalypse and they tried to seize power. Worse, this has been festering for two books only addressed when they were in sight for this to happen and they tried to make the MC, the litteral demi god who let them into the dungeon, out to be a crook and a thief to be charged as they took power. And they harmed a pregnant woman because she was in the way.

No.

I haven’t gone further, but they discuss public shaming since they technically did something legal since it wasn’t illegal at the time.

No.

They would have killed everyone else that didn’t kiss the dirt they walked on and blamed everyone else while they made things worse. That’s the BEST case scenario.

No.

I don’t care, no, I’m not getting the next book, I love the setup if not the execution, but this is too far and I let a lot slide. You can’t let that happen and think you’re still in control. Because the fact is while a fraud election, they got away with it until the threat of not yet born children were involved. They got away with so much that endangered everyone with promises that would ensure death as defenses were weakened and gangs were to be allowed in for peaceful negotiations and they are allowed to live.

No. Death or death by banishment.

No.

No.

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Skipping the drama while pointing it out

Revisado: 11-11-23

She only delayed getting everything done to act like there wasn’t an obvious solution. All the time in the world and she didn’t max out like last time because reasons. The antagonists are given lip service, but no depth. They only do antagonist thing and nothing else, yet so much time is put in acknowledging they exist to do the bare bones with it. The time people are one note zealots, the evil cult woman who is a healer hints at developments but are never addressed, the one shot adventurers are only there to make a plot point move on and then be forgotten. Introducing so much and not doing anything with it is a sin. Yes, with time loops it’s fighting inevitability, but the solution shouldn’t already be at hand if you want to add drama. What stopped her from flooding them till they fell from exhaustion again? What stopped her from evolving to the best beasts? Absolutely nothing. To have stakes, there has to be a failure point that isn’t just resolved by more of the same they should have already implemented and tested to their limits with the time skips. Have the healer hire teams to raid the dungeon if they become too much of a theat, only to have her secrets spelled out. Tell us what motivates her other than power boosts and why she wants to hide/destroy everything. Give a villain that isn’t defeated because you reached level 100. Have people wonder why the raids to the dungeon stopped, so they go out exploring, find the danger is gone, and that makes deplorable groups begin scrounging for riches unimpeded. Do something other than “we won eventually because I used the tools I already had/were just given and only didn’t use to see what happens.” That’s not drama, that’s drawing the conclusion out. Half speed? Well, good luck stopping all the volleys of arrows then. Give counters and surprises. If the third book is more of the same, I will probably drop the series. I’m enjoying it when it’s engaging, but man does this need some meat in the story department.

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Don’t say they are smart and make them dumb

Revisado: 10-10-23

I’m halfway through and I’ve got to stop to say this. It was made a plot point multiple times that she should be smart. Not only in personal growth, but in stats it states she should be smart in both intellect AND WISDOM. Yet, she misses the obvious. SO MUCH. Most of her problems in doing anything is somehow not using her brain while having them as her highest stats. Add the therapy and there’s no excuse. It doesn’t matter if it was your main field of study, your job should at least had you go through basics and an aptitude to catch these kind of things as a therapist so your patients could be given to specialized people. And to qualify you had to show competence!!! I get the plot must go on, but let go of the idiot ball! Let anyone else who all have less wisdom and intelligence than you make the stupid! Or skip it!

Minor spoiler:

Right at this part, you went into a dungeon. You found a special room titled with ownership. You didn’t see anyone, so assumed it was flavor text. Fine. But then, you decide to do detect minds and detect five. You can’t detect yourself. You have four companions. And your companion is about to do something that will have an impact on the room. Instead of stopping him, you MONOLOG on how strange it is, and then go step by step on how strange it is, all while he goes on to say he’s doing it, then eventually with no speed does it as you ask yourself “why is five wierd?” And you cause an event. You could have skipped all this. You could have made this the motivation on why you should use that spell more often, because you would have known you weren’t alone. But doing it and FAILING TO CONSIDER THE OBVIOUS is stupid!

And also, stop debating the same topic over and over, move on or do something about it, but once we’ve gone through it once, just skip us listening in on her thoughts. It gets rather whiny after a while when she decides to do what she always does and ignores it till it’s too painful to. Just…please stop. I don’t need a refresher on how your girlfriend hates you. I was there, I don’t need a recap, my advice is if you’re going to complain about it instead of doing something when you have the opportunity to, then you’re just complaining.

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Inevitable conclusion

Revisado: 07-31-23

This series is too one sided. Once the main character and his network is involved, everything else doesn’t matter. And same conclusion for when they are not the ones involved. People and organizations are introduced only to be obliterated. There is no breaking. There is no splinters or surprises. Main character is not only prepared, he’s so op that the op demon forces are defeated immediately upon his direct involvement. Body snatchers? Don’t worry, he has cure he just so happened to be preparing for in case this specific scenario happens.

The lake? The main boss is so weak that the moment they are introduced they are defeated. Dark Midas? Wiped from the Capitol completely. Dukedom? Wiped most off with demons then so screwed by the end events they are a non entity. He summoned an army of angels that could defeat the head demon of this invasion. He has body guards that destroy the kingdoms secret monsters with ease.

He’s at a third? Well, he’s now the sun god, apparently again, as well as king. He can one shot anything. His network can wipe things out completely

There’s no misdirection nor true complications. No survivors nor pushback. He knows everything. He’s all powerful. He has items and people to wipe out kingdoms. He has no weakness and the outcome of all who oppose him show it’s true. Why am I reading this? Might as well say: “he became super king of the world. All who opposed him died soon afterwords and everyone loved him. Not even his past life is a shackle now. What’s the bloody point?

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Mass effect all over again

Revisado: 02-26-23

Great novel as usual, but for the ending of the series it was a rushed deus ex skippy and barely any epilogue. It circled around the end point, getting hopes up only to dash them again and again. The entire presence of the first sentient life and their creations was resolved in the last hours of the book. Ais became a non entity. The sentinels became a non entity. And in the end even the elders were a non entity. Not because of clever planning, but because the obvious wasn’t obvious enough so they went around the obvious and did something random.

When the probability field thing came up, it was like rwby’s main antagonist and how obvious it was they needed to shift goals from killing to stopping. If you can’t do something, then you’ll have to do the other. You can’t kill the elders? Then you keep them out, that’s not killing them. Which means the field’s function would still be in effect. In fact, It could mean that the whole rebellion was started for this endpoint. It’s function was to ensure the elder’s survival. Therefore, skippy’s final act could have been explained as completing the field’s function by ensuring they could never be threatened again. And being an asshole about it by forcing the elders into permanent retirement without their permission or consideration. Got to love monkey’s paw. Instead, they never realize that and try to take out the ascension machine, ensuring that someone stupid will eventually poke the energy some day and dooming the elders. And going fuck it try it anyway. Instead, skippy pulls math out of his ass that even the elders didn’t know to…factory reset reality. With exploding star energy. Wtf, you came to the same conclusion in a convoluted way.

And then it ends, hinting at the field no longer functioning, that they can mess with portals without fear of elder intervention, and they got guardians. And it ends. No reaction of the other species to wtf is going on with hundreds of stars going supernova, no earth update on if they even caught the tendrils, was there a strike, how their fleet was doing, or even what the hell was going on. Not even a final update on what’s going on after the end of the end times. Just “hey, we won and we’re bringing up what may happen with the walls of the threat is gone. You asshole” end scene.

I get that things would continue to happen, but if this is the end, at least give an ending of what happened ever. I would have even taken a dumb wedding scene with the beer can forced to wear a tux in person for a silly send off if it at least told what was the aftermath of all this stuff that happened. Instead, it ends as always like there is another book coming. Which since there isn’t makes it frustrating.

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It’s like watching the League of Nations deal with hitler

Revisado: 10-13-22

I love these books, but by the gods does the main character pull teeth to make progress. The villain has already shown how far he’d go, how well he can do, made an army that all but kills the victims, and shows signs of world domination. And we watch her plan. And debate. And get distracted by things not connected and could wait. Delay. Delay delay. Wanting the perfect cage for a monster who would not stop. She does some stuff, but it’s mostly to annoy. To slap his wrist. To act superior even as he is not dealt with. Even when the poop decorates the wall, all resources either gone or in the air, instead of dealing with the problem, she wants respect and taunts him instead of really doing anything. She wants him to be the one to tuck his tail. He responds by what she should have been trying to do chapter one. Painful agonizing distraction followed by deadly and horrific intent to kill. And even then, when so many have died, her life ashes, sacrificing things she doesn’t want to sacrifice, she still finds ways of delaying what must be done. The world is going to hell, he’s still doing what he was doing before and she still won’t take care of the problem by going all out. Why they hesitate to keep throwing things at him is beyond me. Loved the book, but man was this merry go round getting annoying after the uptenth time she tries to reason why the mind flayer eating mental Brains shouldn’t die. Just do it already! Even if it doesn’t work, that just means do other things till it sticks! Just so he stops having chances to regrow! You have the power, resources, and entire worlds of tech! Use them!

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