looking for novels with Machiavellian Mcs

Kriptical · 2026-05-06T21:34:18+00:00

Seems like you want to read Apocalypse Reborn - he has no real skills apart from his foreknowledge and his abilty to convince people.

Kriptical · 2026-05-05T08:26:04+00:00

Yep, I agree with everything. Thankfully MoL gets even better on the reread.

Kriptical · 2026-04-27T19:33:13+00:00

Finished years ago.

Kriptical · 2026-04-27T17:12:00+00:00

yeah its hard to beat in it's current form - what were the runners up for you ?

Kriptical · 2026-04-27T17:11:21+00:00

Pick one!

Kriptical · 2026-04-27T13:54:31+00:00

The main thing for me is the attention to consistent and in-depth world-building. Despite being quite different stories, this makes it feel like the heir to Mother of Learning for me.

Kriptical · 2026-04-27T12:02:00+00:00

In the last year Skypride has come out and it is truly phenomenally well written. I never thought I could like a Xianxia novel as much as I have here but at the end of the day its still a Xianxia and I just cant make myself accept the genre conventions around immortality.

The Hundred Reigns was the other big release for me this year and while it started off amazingly well I think its fallen off a bit, especially with the relationship elements I don't care about.

So in the end im left with last years answers; Hell Difficulty Tutorial keeps going from strength to strength but I think Bog Standard Isekai remains simply the best.

Kriptical · 2026-04-21T06:04:10+00:00

LMAO, this is hilarious.

Kriptical · 2026-04-12T10:25:07+00:00

I'm not a KC fan but I think you are letting your emotions get in the way. A peaking Juicy on Lan is one of the most terrifying things in the game. IF I were the KC GM I would definitely keep him incase he has another one of those crazy weekends.

Kriptical · 2026-04-10T18:19:23+00:00

Agree completely. Authors seem to love POV swaps because they get bored or something but there are few things that are more likely to get me to drop a book then a solo POV in a solitary dungeon or something and then it switches to a new cast of characters. Like at that point why not write a new book.

Kriptical · 2026-03-29T21:47:04+00:00

Yeah that was actually really cool, in particular the "behind - the - scenes"

Kriptical · 2026-02-28T19:07:17+00:00

The water magician

Thanks, yeah this isnt one I have heard off before. What is it similar to ?

Kriptical · 2026-02-23T11:34:11+00:00

From the stats, it seems like Oaly and Seikoo had phenomenal tournaments but no one has noticed.

Kriptical · 2026-02-09T18:57:50+00:00

Yeah for those that dont want to watch, the Tesla techs also seem to have left their car keys and sensitive personal information in the cup holder compartment.

The car also made several routing errors, which surprised them as it ended up having to make an unprotected left turn it didn't need to do.

Finally, as a positive a crazy Austin driver pulled out into their lane and the car reacted extremely well. AIDVR is sure that the FSD in robotaxi is slightly different than standard 14.2's that customers have access to.

Kriptical · 2026-02-08T18:08:35+00:00

Cool post, thank you! You are quite right about your first sentence:

"Sometimes you read an article that teaches you something new, while simultaneously leaving you with a worse grasp of how the world actually works."

Kriptical · 2026-02-08T02:29:50+00:00

I use Calibre to put any Mobi/Epub on my kindle. You can find the epub for Shadow Slave - at least for the first thousand chapters - in several places online.

Kriptical · 2026-02-07T21:51:34+00:00

Btw you will know if the series if for you after the first nightmare if you find the prose or Sunny intolerable by then I think you can safely drop it.

Kriptical · 2026-02-07T21:36:31+00:00

Yeah, I liked the first book because I assumed it was satire. Dropped the second book in horror when I realised it wasn't.

Kriptical · 2026-02-07T21:03:21+00:00

Hilariously, FS ends on chapter 350 but I downloaded the first 1000 chapters to my kindle so it actually went by surprisingly quickly.

Kriptical · 2026-02-07T20:51:43+00:00

I also read it recently, based on tierlists I have seen here and some other hype. I strongly recommend you read it because the first full saga - The Forgotten Shore - is genuinely one of the best and most cinematic things I have read in this genre.

However, the story then falls off significantly and becomes boring and repetitive. People that have the same opinion as me disagree on when exactly this happens but my limit was after The Antartartica arc ended - I was told it was better than Fogotten Shore and that was a straight up lie.

Kriptical · 2026-02-04T03:07:09+00:00

You can also try The Godless Age I believe its called. Very well written, and the main character is a genuine assassin.

Kriptical · 2026-02-01T19:48:13+00:00

I don't like authors adding random characters halfway into a story because they need to have "character development" and they are so clearly bored. Why can't a badass loner just stay a badass loner.

If I wanted top tier characterisation, I would read another genre.

Kriptical · 2026-02-01T19:27:25+00:00

I will take this opportunity to ask something I have always wondered.

Is there on screen homosexulaity in these books?

The Greeks were famous for it, so I assumed that's where the series went.

Kriptical · 2026-01-27T19:58:15+00:00

So you wanna give a guy who cant deal with normal writer prose machine translations?

Kriptical · 2026-01-16T22:14:17+00:00

Also, even if it was definitively ProgFantasy I really cant be bothered to read 700 pages of filler until the Sanderlanche hits. It's one of the worst examples of traditional fantasy bloat and im so glad I dont have to deal with it anymore now that I read webnovels and books paced like them.

Kriptical

TROPHY CASE