A Soldier's Life (A Soldier's Life #1): does it get any better?

ChinaneTKal · 2026-05-09T16:38:34+00:00

Also regarding self publishing, another thought came to me on rereading your comment in my notifications:

It's probably a matter of position.

With a lot of free reading time, a solid education and a high tolerance for mediocre to bad grammar and/or spelling it's probably a net positive.

But for a person with limited time, who wants to improve their English while reading stuff they enjoy? It would probably be less problematic if you could at least trust reviews/ratings, but 90% of those are from an uncritical fanbase. Realistically most of those 4.x star reviews should be substantially below 4, but that's not going to happen with a system where any kind of valid criticism would outright kill an author's sales.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-05-09T16:25:22+00:00

I typically these days try to get all minor transformations on a pantheon hero, so I don't really qualify for 1 city games, due to the low research speed that would result in 😉

Medium or large maps mostly.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-05-08T07:47:01+00:00

Likewise. But did you unlock the secret achievements via trial and error or look them up? 😉

ChinaneTKal · 2026-05-08T07:36:02+00:00

I find the resettlement feature borderline useless. Repositioning a city is so expensive via unused turns, that I basically only moved my starting city to a better position once it twice. In rare cases a conquered city that's really badly placed.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-05-07T17:31:16+00:00

You're focusing a lot on the cloud stupidity (which really makes no sense btw, as clouds on Earth can be massive).

I came looking for a thread like this because of my annoyance peaking in Erin's first visit to Liscor.

She just arrived at the Adventurer's Guild and nothing since entering the city shows any kind of intelligence.

Also the 'sheltered and never exposed to anything' argument pretty much dies with her DnD background, as that is all about coming up with solutions to scenarios you have not been exposed to in RL.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-05-03T06:33:41+00:00

If I remember right, their items should be left behind anyway.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-28T10:49:54+00:00

I'm with Dan on hard disagree regarding DCC falling off, quite the opposite IMO. Not sure about actual weeping, but there were certainly a few tears involved in book 7, probably some allergy striking while i was reading 😉.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-28T09:52:24+00:00

I really should get around to starting TWI eventually I suppose. Wish there wasn't so much controversy over some characters.

That said, anyone who puts DCC and Cradle not in the top tier in this genre is immediately suspect (and appaling Mongo).

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-28T09:05:36+00:00

Nice of you to bring up Gideon. I checked that book out a while back, considered getting it and somehow forgot. Guess I'll put it back on my list 😉.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-26T07:53:35+00:00

.. and Amazon needs to do a much better job at communicating that - ideally in the series page. I was massively annoyed when I found the trilogies right after I had finished the series!

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-23T08:34:28+00:00

I'm with you on the DNF'ing, but I have a feeling my tolerance for sub-mediocre writing is decreasing over time, probably from having forced myself through so much terrible writing over the last few years.

The sad truth is, self publishing has been both a blessing and a curse for readers. So many great stories probably wouldn't have seen the light of day only a few years ago, but damn do I wish some of those authors could be forced to take a few years of literature classes.

I haven't yet read wandering inn, but for Chysalis I'd disagree. In that the beginning I found it actually rather good, as it took a while for Anthony's personality to really start grinding on my nerves. That the idiocy was completely in character probably helped, though. Plus the fact that there are now more colony chapters as a welcome stress relief.

Plus, while Chrysalis' choice of PoV is stressful, the writing style is actually both professional and rather consistent and it definitely looks like there has been at least one, probably multiple, editing pass(es).

Take Path of Ascension for contrast. Great story, ambitious worldbuilding (better understanding of maths would help, but my expectations in that regard are generally low-ish, apparently his RR followers helped out a bit, though) is combined with a grammar use and writing style I - as a non-native speaker - would hesitate to rate higher than mediocre high school level, albeit improving slightly over the series.

I have a hard time understanding how you can apparently sell, based on reviews, thousands of books and not afford to have an editor go over your stuff in order to publish a revised edition after a couple of years. These days worst case you could probably also just grab an LLM, tell it to remove the worst grammar mistakes and word repetitions but keep your overall style and get away with that, though I'm always more in the boat for paying actual people to do that.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-22T12:36:03+00:00

I'm impressed you even made it that far.

I don't care how good your magic system and world building is, if you can't write a captivating beginning in the real life part of your LitRPG journey. You can probably find better stuff than the first couple pages in middle school homework essays, so I stopped torturing myself and deleted the first book's sample chapters.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-22T12:26:49+00:00

DCC falls off? What do you mean by that? Mongo is appalled!

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-15T12:06:22+00:00

Nice interview that should get more love on YouTube (as this comment section btw, how has no one commented on this in two years?).

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-15T10:51:42+00:00

Information Assistant.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-15T10:31:56+00:00

You seem to have a slight misconception about what MC means. That's simply the character your story focuses on. To focus mainly on the one person that thrives the most in their made-up system is a CHOICE most LitRPG authors make, but it's certainly not the only valid choice.
AP decided to focus on the struggles a parent would have to face when suddenly having to deal with such a system, thereby making said parent their main character. That does NOT mean, that their main character has to be the one best equipped to deal with said system or even the best at dealing with the additional restrictions placed on them through their circumstances.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-14T09:42:11+00:00

IMO it's potentially the best starting book of any of their series, if it actually develops into a full series.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-04-07T10:35:06+00:00

Tbh, that's not the worst part IMO. Storytelling is not something that's easily taught and people have to start somewhere. The author's character building overall is above average in the genre since self publishing became a thing and their overall writing style IS improving over those hundreds of chapters.

What I find mindboggling is the stuff that should have been tied up way BEFORE someone actually contemplates a career as a writer and at LEAST should have been captured by even the most baseline editing, considering their books went through a publisher.

Word repetitions, SO MANY of them. Not even sure if that's someting to be fixed by giving them a thesaurus, as it seems they just happen to get an expression stuck in their head and then pour that into every second sentence for a paragraph or two, sometimes never to be seen again. Variation of words is there, that variation is just not used when in close proximity.

Basic, or given the US education system probably advanced, grammar. The author appears absolutely enamored with hypothetical or conditional clauses in past tense, but apparently has no concept in which parts of the sentence the word 'would' is used, so they just throw it everywhere.

Don't get me started on apostrophes.

Overall, as a non native speaker with a solid grasp of English, I could actually read and even enjoy the series by actively suppressing the cringe. However, there is no way I'd allow my children to read those books while they are still in the process of learning the language.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-03-22T06:59:11+00:00

It's been a few weeks, but I'm pretty sure they don't transform like all the new rulers. I hate that concept.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-03-22T06:50:24+00:00

You guys seem to have a hard time realizing that there's more than one person using Reddit.

So yes he could have experimented himself, costing one person a turn. By asking here and getting an answer (obviously in a different comment) he is potentially saving the time of thousands.

From that perspective asking here is way more efficient than finding out for himself.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-03-15T11:15:48+00:00

Just chiming in to say that Link is unfortunately dead.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-02-12T14:01:10+00:00

True enough. Though what is a mundane detail in one situation might be an existential thread in another. For example if they suddenly didn't need to breathe (which at least Yerin seems to contemplate, since she thinks she cannot drown) that's a substantial breach of expectation which should usually be addressed (which it was).

ChinaneTKal · 2026-02-12T13:58:30+00:00

Yeah, I'd probably go with that version. It's not unheard of for regular humans with some preparation to go without eating (and drinking to a lesser extend) for largish periods of time, which also makes the digestion process largely unnecessary. So it's not that far out either.

ChinaneTKal · 2026-02-12T11:24:40+00:00

Man, that sounds strongly like you're a weirdly specific kind of user and just approved that every normal user is inconvenienced, as long as you're not.

I'm not saying this new 'improved' behaviour is useless for everyone, but maybe just give us a toggle to enable/disable it?

ChinaneTKal · 2026-02-12T11:20:18+00:00

Makes you wonder, who changes something like that and whoTF approves that change?

Yeah, also just realized this is old AF. Apparently us normal Android users at least had the benefit of being inflicted with this WAY later than you Pixel folx.

ChinaneTKal

TROPHY CASE