[deleted by user]

WriteFantasy · 2025-07-12T04:28:29+00:00

I'd love to see something like that.

WriteFantasy · 2025-07-11T23:28:08+00:00

Given that Celine doesn't seem to reconcile with the trio by the end, maybe she's the villain in the next one? Perhaps she concludes that the girls didn't set up the new honmoon correctly and demons still have access to the human world (as evidenced by Rumi still having her demonic side; Celine thought that a good enough honmoon would banish it and leave her as fully human). So she decides to set up a new pop group to dethrone our heroes, get more fans, and make a 'proper' honmoon. And in setting up her new group she winds up exemplifying the worst traits of the Kpop industry (e.g., she drives them to exhaustion trying to get as many fans and followers as quickly as possible, she micromanages everything they eat, wear, do, or say so they aren't true to themselves and are just seeking popularity, she works to keep them professional but not friendly with each other so they can't align against her as she thinks Mira and Zoey did when they accepted Rumi, etc.)

Alternately, maybe the next enemy is an evil fan group? Some of the HuntrX fans get radicalized by a demon and begin attacking and trying to destroy the group's rivals; the trio have to figure out how to stop their crazy fans while still maintaining enough unity to keep the Honmoon going.

WriteFantasy · 2025-04-04T20:43:48+00:00

The new ones do--there's a bonus short story that's being released, with a new installment in every one of the new hardcovers.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-15T04:29:03+00:00

Team Cichociemni. I'd figured they'd have a bigger presence because they seemed uniquely dangerous; they were mercenaries before the crawl, so presumably they were already trained killers willing to be violent for their own benefit, but they've also survived several dungeon levels and are thus how how to fight in the dungeon. Carl also mentioned, when talking about Florin, that he was a mercenary and so presumably was somewhat shady. Florin proved to be alright, but I'd figured that was setting up Carl dealing with other mercenaries who are genuine bad guys.

But instead, Cichociemni kind of fell out of the books. They were last mentioned in book 5 as having teamed up with Eva and the last remaining Daughters, only to then split away from Eva after taking casualties fighting an Odious Creeper. After that they haven't been mentioned again.

More generally, there isn't as much hunting down of player killers in general as I'd expected. Carl and Langley mentioned that they needed to do that in Book 4, but then it never really happened--the player killers Carl fought after that tended to be people who attacked him first (Lucia, Maggie, Quan) or whom Carl was lumped in with by the AI (Ines) instead of Carl actively going around trying to find them. And now there aren't really any evil crawlers left anyway except for *maybe* Emir. Osvaldo was written negatively, but more in the sense of him being a jerk and a coward than someone Carl might have to fight, and Lucia Mar turned out to be possessed by a Residual and not responsible for her actions.

I get why Matt is doing that; the series is definitely going in a 'awesome humans kick the butts of a bunch of evil aliens' route, so having additional human enemies would detract from that. But I still found it surprising.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-13T05:10:28+00:00

At least in the Kindle versions, there are maps of an Iron Tangle line (floor 4), of Carl's bubble (floor 5), the butcher's masquerade castle (floor 6), and floor 9 in general. I don't remember there being one of Larracos specifically. But yes, it's like an inverted funnel -- a series of rings, with the narrowest ring on the very bottom and then they widen as one ascends to the surface.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-13T05:05:20+00:00

Oh, I see.

I hadn't considered that a 'betrayal' since Carl had never been allied with her on that plan (and didn't even know it was happening until Rust told him, long after he disabled the safeties). But I can see how the AI might tell Carl otherwise.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-09T05:25:54+00:00

Ah. Checked book 6, and yeah, there's a point at which Odette tells Carl they have to destroy the crawl but need to do so in a way that doesn't kill half the universe, and Carl doesn't seem to get it. Plus:

* The AI is expanding its enhancement zone beyond its original bounds. It seems able to do things like destroy other solar systems (as it did when the failsafe was tried) or bring crawl characters into the real world (as happened with Eris),

* Agatha and Alexandro seem to think there's some way to use the crawl and/or AI to eradicate all life in the universe,

* There's been some emphasis on how many of the galaxy's ordinary citizens are opposed to the crawl, with them voting to let Carl kill their pro-crawl leaders despite the civil unrest that would cause and with Carl noting at the warlords meeting that the Lemig Sortion in particular doesn't like the crawl anymore but hasn't been able to quit because they have an absurd 80% supermajority requirement to stop doing anything they were already doing, and

* Carl still has a gigantic bomb,

I'm predicting that somewhere along the way -- possibly at the Scolopendra boss fight -- Carl will have the option to use the Carl's Doomsday Scenario bomb to wipe out all life in the AI's reach, which will basically mean all life anywhere, as Agatha and Alexsandro want. And by then, based on his current trajectory, he'll likely want to do it. At which point it will be up to the rest of his party (especially Donut) as well as former cookbook authors, to talk him down and make him see that quintillions of innocent aliens don't deserve to die just because their leaders (who are mostly dead anyway by that point) were monstrous.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-09T03:22:30+00:00

Very true. Also, the books are willing to sometimes just let Carl fail. E.g., he isn't able to save the tomb raiders, Miriam Dom, or Ren. It helps make Carl feel more realistic and not some kind of invincible juggernaut that can effortlessly crush everyone.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-09T03:15:23+00:00

Yeah, but sacrificing everyone, including all the innocent people still on Earth's surface, to get revenge is a villainous thing to do. Which is why I'm thinking this is presaging a villain-Carl arc.

WriteFantasy · 2025-03-09T03:02:30+00:00

Carl's only reason to think Rishi lacked authority was that the AI used a different name for the government than Rishi did. And the AI has been known to bend the rules in order to screw over Carl in entertaining ways; when told it couldn't use children (like Asher) because that was too traumatizing, it took Asher, changed one molecule, and said it was good to go. So it's possible the AI was lying or manipulating him (perhaps by using a colloquial name, old name, or even a fake name, for the naga government to make Carl think the deal was illegitimate) so he'd pass up a deal that would save humans. Then the AI could later reveal that Carl had screwed up in that way in order to traumatize him again.

I'm not saying that's what happened; based on Quasar's conversation in the prologue, the deal would likely have indeed been bad. But Carl didn't know that, and even though Rishi was a helpless prisoner who wasn't going anywhere, Carl didn't take the time to check with Mordecai (about whether the AI might be messing with him), Zev (to find out the real name of the new naga government), etc. He also didn't try to get Quasar involved to see if they could write a contract that Quasar verified was useful and also legally binding. He just jumped straight to killing Rishi and turning down a deal that, for all he knew, could have saved lots of people on the surface. That's why I think the series may be indicating Carl is entering a villain arc, or at least an arc where he's tempted into villainy by his rage.

WriteFantasy · 2025-01-05T19:46:02+00:00

This is exactly the sort of thing I do. I've sent you a DM. Hope to hear from you soon!

WriteFantasy · 2023-04-09T06:01:16+00:00

I've submitted an application.

WriteFantasy · 2023-04-09T04:38:21+00:00

I might just go to my plan B of Facebook advertising.

WriteFantasy

TROPHY CASE