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Interesting but why

Revisado: 01-30-25

the story is interesting enough to keep listeners engaged but wtf is going on with the narrator changing the voice of the MC from normal to sounding like Steve Urkel halfway through the novel? I hate that underlying whining in his voice now. seriously, who wants to listen to a whining MC for an entire novel series?
why why why did they change it?!!!!!!!
that voice has driven me to read the rest of the series instead of listening to it.

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whiny MC

Revisado: 01-17-21

the main character whines A LOT. she also fly's off the handle repeatedly with no warning, it's like she's permanently suffering from PMS. her emotions are so up and down that I have whiplash trying to keep up. I was annoyed by chapter 2 and done with her by chapter 3, when I gave up. I just couldn't relate to her and kind of wanted someone to wack her upside the back of the head and tell her to stop acting like a spoiled little kid.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

teenage boy wish fulfillment story

Revisado: 12-16-20

this MC was whiny, inconsistent, and his personality was down right irritating. this novel also focused way too much on the very quick, shallow, and badly written romance instead of focusing on the game, the worlds, or anything like character growth. I didn't like the girl much though she was tolerable on her own, but it got so bad that I started skipping any time the two were together and eventually, I just gave up, which is a first for me with an Anderle novel. his novels are pulp fiction rather than serious lit but they are usually fun and quite readable. not sure what happened here.
if I was a fifteen year old boy I might have liked it better.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Xianxia fanfiction

Revisado: 12-16-20

reads like a cultivation type story written by a teenager from a non-Asian culture who has learned everything they know about Xianxia from translated internet novels and has a very superficial knowledge of the actual culture it comes from. the writing and plot are all over the place and the author doesn't seem to have had much experience in actual relationships.

the description of the interaction between the scarred and manly-chested king and his properly dependent and beautiful queen whom he loves but doesn't bother to see for years at a time made me roll my eyes so hard I think I sprained them. what makes it worse is knowing that it wasn't satire but entirely serious on the part of the authors (or possibly the translators, but I think it's likely both). the dialogue is stilted and this could use a good proofreader and editor.

it doesn't get any better and I stopped at chapter 4. It' been a long time since a novel was so bad I stopped listening before chapter ten. if this was on a site like RR I might read it but as it is, it's not worth the money spent.

on another note, the narrator does a decent job with what he has to work with (I kind of feel sorry for him).

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

this contains SPOILERS

Revisado: 12-16-20

the story is surprisingly well written and very imaginative take on the coming of age type novel about a boy on the periphery of larger things he doesn't understand. so why did I give a well written and imaginative story a 3? because while I appreciate good writing and imagination and even liked all the philosophy, the story triggered my depression.

the start is fairly standard and even fluffy at times but it's not long before the bleakness starts seeping in. it's not Game of Thrones bleak (at least the main character lives) but it's certainly not a happy novel. I did find the various themes the author explored to be interesting and think I was supposed to be left with a sense of hope at the end, but all I felt was the endless futility of it all.

also, don't bother getting attached to any side characters because other than the best friend and the gardener, they will more than likely be dead by the end of the story. it was the last death that really tipped it for me and I finished the story feeling depressed as hell for days.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

a strong new series

Revisado: 08-11-20

this is one of the strongest new series I've seen in a while, and in a market oversaturated with weak and very messy (not to mention very badly edited) self-published novels, this one shines. it has a solid and well laid out plot, great characterization, and even the side characters have a strong presence of their own. there's no instant gratification in this one, which will put off those people looking for junk pulp fiction that's all action and no plot, but you can't please everyone.

the only thing I didn't like was that there are way too many POVs (which seems to be the trend atm). it's within a tolerable range for now and I've been able to skip the few I had zero interest in without problems. though I've never listened to her before, the narrator is quite decent, which is an added blessing.

I was sad when book 1 came to an end, reluctant to part with these new friends, and that is the best compliment a reader can give. I hope the author keeps up this quality and level of writing in future installments.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

not so great

Revisado: 08-10-20

ok, I'm going to assume most readers are at least familiar with Xianxia and Xianhaun webnovel translations and have read a few.
first off, this is not Xianxia or Wuxia. this series started out closest to a westernized version of a hybrid Xianhaun novel and while it hits a lot of surface cliches found in all three genres, it misses many of the underlying tropes and deeper issues inherent in the genre. it also had some fairly big grammar problems and repetitive wording, ("quickly do things very quickly" and other redundant sentence structure). the cultivation systems are vague and depend a lot of the readers' prior knowledge from other cultivation novels and systems, leaving out some of the basics.

despite all its faults, the early part of the series was entertaining, though it's lacking depth and the author doesn't seem to understand the underlying issues regarding hierarchy, face and the 'death before dishonor' attitude prevalent in the culture, nor the true importance family (a child would never ignore a summons from his father like that, especially not the eldest son). on top of that, the MC is way too nice and gullible, even this many books into the story he's so easy to fool, and he acts more like a shounen hero with the power of friendship rather than a cultivator. on top of that, the underlying political propaganda is kind of nauseating. a cultivator has to sever his worldly ties, not serve his country (he wasn't even from that country to begin with, it took him a year to get there at the start of the story).

in the last few books, the focus stopped being about immortal cultivation/going against heaven and has been partly about crafting, which is a little boring but ok, but mostly its been about mortal politics and court intrigue, and the series has devolved into a mortal martial art story with a few fantasy elements. everyone's cultivation is very low and the only people we've seen above core formation are "transcendent beings" and we have no idea what realm they are in.

in this last book, the MC barely cultivated at all, is still only at the initial/early foundation stage, and has yet to go into any kind of long term closed cultivation (a few months to a year does not count as long term in a cultivation novel, where experts can be in closed-door cultivation for decades, or even centuries). the MC goes from calm and methodical to impulsive and whiny, which is annoying.

there are also way too many POVs. I don't care about the bad guys or the other random people who show up only to die three chapters later. I certainly don't want to read all this detailed political crap, (I thought it was a cultivation novel and I hate political intrigue so you can imagine how not thrilled I've been in the past couple of books). the few times the pov was on the MC in this book he was acting like a moody teenager with anger issues rather than an actual grown-up, who should be mentally in his 40's about now if you count both lives. he spends a good deal of time feeling sorry for himself and then had yet another power downgrade, which was, quite frankly, irritating as hell and made me want to throw the book across the room.

at this rate, he will take another five books just to get to core formation and then five more before he might (might) transcend to the next realm. of course, we don't even know how many higher realms there are yet, so this series could drag on forever. I have the patience for maybe one more book, then I'm probably done with this series.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

not my favorite

Revisado: 08-02-20

I will openly admit that I didn't really care about Dina's sister enough to want to read an entire spin-off with her as the mc in the first place, but everyone said it was good so I gave it a try despite the fact that I don't like politics or large, scheming families and the vampire world is full of both. after listening all I can say is "to each their own." political machinations are not something I'm particularly interested in and my opinion of Maud didn't change after finishing. I like her swordplay and her intelligence in some things, but her husband hadn't even been dead a year (8 mo) and she fell for the new vampire in a week or two (most of book 3 takes place in December, before and just after Christmas), so my opinion of her is mixed and I'm still more than half-convinced it was the Suspension Bridge Effect that tipped her over the edge rather than real love. otherwise, she would seem very emotionally shallow and fickle, to be able to get over the death of a loved one so quickly, even if he was a jerk by the end.

I ended up skipping several chapters of this novel just to get to the end already. I hope the next one focuses back on Dina.

as for the new narrator, I think she needs some work on her range. she made Dina sound like a frumpy middle-aged housewife rather than the younger sister, and she also seems to have a few problems with accents. like everyone else, I really missed Renee's voice.

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Ugh

Revisado: 07-20-20

I was enjoying this series, despite being disappointed in its current path and pacing, until the MC started spouting BS like "I need to keep my woman in line, after all, I AM the man here." Seriously, is he from the 19th century or what?! it was already bad enough with Max having his "must protect the little woman" syndrome despite her proving more than once that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. and yes, Roman was a playa and a bit of a jerk around women to begin with, but this new development made the MC very unlikable for me and many of the author's other female readers (though I admit we are probably in the minority with this genre and I doubt many of the male readers even noticed the attitude).

I had some other issues with the MC's recent changes and the plotline, but the MCs condescension towards women in general and his "wife" in particular was the last straw for me. my journey reading this series will end here and I probably won't bother with picking up any of the authors' other books. it's too bad, I wanted to see if Roman would overcome his demonic nature or let the bad guy win by destroying his own humanity and better nature for the sake of hatred and revenge.

speaking of straws, I usually like the narrator but I still can't get over the fact he keeps mispronouncing one of the most famous names from one of the more famous long-running manga+anime series that is very beloved and famous in many countries worldwide. the correct pronunciation is all over the internet; takes 2 seconds to look up so I don't get the continued mispronunciation.

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needs some editing

Revisado: 07-10-20

the story would flow much better if it was streamlined and the repetitive parts edited out.
you can tell this author has been reading online wuxia translations. the problem is, those authors repeat the same thing six different ways because they get paid by the word, and it's not really something that should be repeated in an actual published novel; it's annoying for the reader and tedious to listen to.
on the plus side, the world-building is detailed, the story is interesting, and the narrator is decent.

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esto le resultó útil a 13 personas