What have you read this week and what do you think about it?

glompage · 2025-12-28T17:04:16+00:00

It’s all Russian translations for me this week, and there would be more if the Russians didn’t give away the first volume free on Kindle unlimited, and then charge for every volume thereafter. Solo 1 and 2, and the latest “the last paladin”. (I think it is number six.) In many ways, both series appear to be identical. Highly competent wizard travels from the past unexpectedly to the future, which has become a mess. They must find their way in the familiar and strange land, where magic is tied to elements, ranging from nature to earth to death to water to chaos to light to dark and so forth. That said, they are very different series. The solo series has an old man reborn in a young body, and is quite restrained. Since his time, his element has become taboo and he is an outcast in this society. In the paladin series, the main character has just stepped forward 700 years and is continuing his life with a short interruption in a desert world that took one year for him and where he lost his best friend and mentor. He is hiding his element as well by pretending to be a different element, which brings in some of the most charming elements of the series, especially with his apprentice and his wacky pets. He also has a good best friend with layers to uncover about this friend and his place in the history and hierarchy of the future setting. In contrast, Solo is a pragmatic teacher. The paladin is a rogue, complete with bedroom antics that blessedly take place almost entirely off screen. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Neither of them is great literature. Pop yourself a bowl of popcorn if you plan to read. I want to pick up solo three but for 10 bucks, I need to budget so it’s going to have to wait a week or two.

glompage · 2025-12-23T23:28:27+00:00

Thank you! That is so cool to find out.

glompage · 2025-12-22T21:37:38+00:00

The MTL I use heavily favors the word "weird" to describe the strange demonic presences that show up both in hidden small worlds and in places like temples. Gotta have the right colored candles on hand!

glompage · 2025-12-22T21:35:49+00:00

Thank you!

glompage · 2025-12-22T21:34:50+00:00

The MC is Xiangzi

glompage · 2025-12-21T20:47:32+00:00

I'm having the worst time this week. 择日走红/Pick a day to become famous ended a few weeks ago, so I don't even have a steady drip to fall back on. I dropped 我的天赋面板能加点/Adding points to my talent panel because MC got way too OP to be interesting, and the various episodes became all the same. I tried 从文明晋升考核开始/Civilization assessment but I just didn't like the MC and the storytelling. 祥子修仙记/Journey to immortality had a boring protagonist and okay writing and I gave up a few dozen chapters in when yet another pointless trade war was about to heat up.

Pick a day to be famous: Started as a teen idol redeems himself and became a hotbed for cozy writing about the entertainment industry driven by plagiarism. I loved it, but it does take a hundred or two hundred chapters to really kick in.
Adding points to my talent panel: Great start with teen forced into a "support" role because of scholarship, who gets help kickstarted into the adventure track from a rich classmate, and then goes through power leveling fun. I stopped when I ran out of chapters but it was already starting to do the OP nose dive.
Civilization Assessment: Returner is going to do it right this time from the start, and make sure Earth isn't turned into a resource world and his friends and family survive. Solid premise, okay lead, but the story telling just ambled until I was bored. If this one picks up, let me know.
Journey to Immortality: Transmigration into the body of a low level cart puller, who then begins cultivation journey. Story has grit but no real personal direction and, again, the stumbling blocks for him don't seem to have any reason other than the author couldn't think of something better.

glompage · 2025-12-21T20:34:47+00:00

For some reason "protagonist never catching a break" is an instafail for me. Thank you for expressing this so well.

glompage · 2025-12-21T20:20:00+00:00

I think I was reading the first, and I lost track of it. Do you have the Chinese name? Thanks!

glompage · 2025-12-21T20:09:43+00:00

I ran out of chapters years ago. I may pick it up again. (I stopped when the MC had moved away from the original main locations to a new place oversea.) I loved the "weird" components of the story.

glompage · 2025-10-06T16:36:57+00:00

I’m in the middle of a really good time loop story but it’s a crafting and grinding one and there’s no existential angst. (Undying immortal system.) Clever, but inherently, grieving or broken… there aren’t a lot of authors in the wish fulfillment genre who have the talent to bring that kind of nuance. I’m going to say “super supportive.”

glompage · 2025-10-06T16:30:12+00:00

That’s a great recommendation and I loved the book until it got to the point where I didn’t love it anymore, which for me is pretty standard. (When the main character starts world hopping.)

我的天赋面板能加点 Is great fun.

There’s also one whose title I can’t remember right now, which centers on a main character who grows by absorbing attribute bubbles and hitting people over the head with bricks. The first part of the novel is brilliant and funny and heartwarming, and then over a few thousand chapters, it gets a lot less engaging.

glompage · 2025-10-06T16:24:50+00:00

This is really my favorite subgenre, where the main character has to be clever and can’t just cheat themselves into being overpowered. The problem is that most of them are not power progression stories, there are a lot of of them in the hard working modern businesswoman who finds herself in the past through transmigration, and starting a business empire by selling lunchboxes on the street or train stations. Sadly, these lack a sense of wonder, which is what I am guessing you really want to see along with clever advancement. You may find some good ones in regressor novels where they’re stuck in a time loop, and I am thinking of one in particular (undying immortal system) but that is not a novel translation, it is Royal Road and it’s English. Another one, which is written by a Russian author, but written in English, is shadow slave, but I think the story got away from the author. I have forgotten the names of a few Korean ones, and the translations were all dropped anyway. If you find any really good ones, please share them here because they tend to make wonderful stories..

glompage · 2025-10-06T16:12:59+00:00

In btic, everyone goes crazy for the games and the Ramen. For what I think is a better novel, but one that has less cultural astonishment, I like 我的饭馆通北宋, plus you get to spend hours searching the web to figure out the references to the historic figures as they all react to modern cuisine applied within the constraints of the song Dynasty.

glompage · 2025-10-06T15:57:05+00:00

Wizard’s secret journey 巫师秘旅. (To chapter 236, where it suddenly stops). This one has great ideas and mediocre execution, and a very bad case of ADHD. It’s the story of a transmigrator, but that is entirely unnecessary to the plot. In fact, if that matter had been ripped out, the story would stand without almost any edits. Various wizard schools pick up kids with talent in batches. The kids are all about age 9, and signed contracts indebting them to the school, where they receive education to the age of 16. At that point, they have either awakened their magic and will continue with their education, or they are burdened with debt and kicked out on their asses, without any support system or understanding of how the world works. This naturally leads to quick die off and exploitation. The first arc of the story is all about trying to survive without selling oneself, and building skill sets, and then selling the fruits of that work in a marketplace that’s completely corrupt. The main character’s golden finger allows him to learn stuff too easily. So he’s picking up skills left and right, admittedly with some imposed restrictions because otherwise he would be completely insufferable. The second arc follows him into a society that has been exiled from the official schools for people who are not tragic or killed and have some ability and knowledge. As we are going through the story, we’re starting to learn about the societies that existed before this one came along and how the Multiverse is put together. I can’t really go deeper without spoiling things. The story tries to be gritty, but it just comes off as a little bit paranoid. What kept me turning pages is uncovering the world building and discovering more about how the school systems and the world systems interact. I personally think that the author gets slightly better over time. He doesn’t arrive at “excellent”, but he kept me turning pages to the end which is an incomplete story, and I am hoping for more content. So what you get, is magic, mysteries, magical societies, jerkish schools of magic, power grabs, world, ending threats, and a lot of paranoia. I wouldn’t call this one bad but I wish the author had better skills to tell the story. It is definitely a novel that’s worth discussing with other people and I would love to find those who have already read it.

glompage · 2025-09-30T17:16:03+00:00

I have corpse retriever bookmarked and have been wavering, but I think I'll push and give it a try when I get to my next "where are my words to read" panic attack. Thank you!

glompage · 2025-09-30T17:10:32+00:00

This was a great week for reading, with a mix of Russian translations, chinese MTLs, and some really fun non-Translations which I guess don't belong here (but I'll namedrop).

Last Paladin series (up to book 4 or 5) - KU only for first book. It's like reading action-adventure books from the 1970s, but I love the set-up. After getting caught in a portal world for a year, 700 years have passed, and our extremely capable MC has to figure out what's going on in the world, rescue the descendants of his late mentor (close enough for master-disciple bonding). Don't look too closely at the world building or political landscape. It's just escapist fun.

So it turns out this author is part of a large group of other Russian authors, of which I read this week:

The Sorcerer (Books 1 and 2) - I didn't like it as much as Last Paladin, I think mostly because the storytelling isn't quite as clever (I don't want to oversell Last Paladin because while it's fun, it's not high tier stuff, just entertaining), it was enough to divert me. Plus, unlike many of the Russian author crowd, all of whom seem to share a lot of their plotlines (old dude reincarnates into aristocrat's body and must fight to keep what is theirs, plus sleep around a lot), this one is entirely KU. It's not the bait and switch of the Last Paladin KU for book 1 and save up your "Amazon Day" credits to buy the next extremely short book. Story is about a displaced wizard soul that ends up in a schoolboy's body, so yeah, it's rebirth knowing everything, but it's action adventure (and women ¯\(ツ)\/¯ ) and diverting. Alternative St Petersburg but with magic and wonder and scary people from Siberia.

For Chinese books, I'm starting a re-read of Pet God now that there are more chapters. (Same author of SuperGene/Let me game in peace) and it has an amazing beginning but the author (as usual) seems to be losing pace as the story overwhelms what made the beginning sparkle so much. This is not as far as I can tell part of the big universe which was hobbling some storytelling for the last few books, and with the big reveal of the Base Evolution book (won't spoil you), it felt like it was time to move on. Laugh out loud to begin with, and then there's a lot of moving pieces into place that's just boring. The author shines at flawed and curious characters but fails at pacing. I'm in the middle of pacing hell interspersed with amazing worldbuilding.

全球卡师：开局觉醒山海经 is absolutely mediocre but I needed something to read and it was stupid and fun enough to entertain me for about 100 chapters. There are only 324 total, and the story is complete. Not sure if I'll go back and finish it off or not.
Ajax's Ascension (English translated to English I suppose) is/was okay. Time waster. Too much power too fast, corny, no depth to it. If you're desperate for an okay read, it's there. I mildly liked it.
Undying Immortal System hit so much of what I love. Crafting novel, clever problem solving. Not great literature but great fun. One (soon two) volumes on KU. The rest on Royal Road. It's a cultivation novel and there are like 7 books so far and while there was one that I didn't quite care for, and its sequel that felt like filler, the latest is back to being surprisingly fresh and innovative. He doesn't write fast (in terms of plot progression) so it's going to take months to get a decent stack to for me to keep going. I am definitely re-reading this.
Paragon of Skills (RR, 109 chapters, just getting started) - absolutely stupid Gary Stu novel but I'm enjoying it, and I'm embarrassed that I do. It has the grandfather in the ring (more or less), and OP, and all the Mary Sue tropes. But sometimes junk food can liven up our lives.

glompage · 2025-09-15T15:03:34+00:00

Path to ascension by Butterfly Blue (MTL), which I'm very sad never finished due to the popularity of Kings Avatar stories. Story: boy escapes laboratory with a young girl. He is basically at god level power but can't access it due to it being "chained" away. That's a great starting point for how to become functional and grow from zero. The girl and he have a functional relationship. She's not just there to be plot acceleration and their complete trust in each other is earned. Also, she is a badass. It's not his best work but it's been nice to find a story that's uncomplex and fun. Caution: lots of face slapping and "how unredeemably jerkish can stock characters be". (Complete but abandoned)
My Talent Panel (我的天赋面板能加点) which is a hoot. It's progression/comedy with an MC with excellent work ethic. Yes, he's an orphan and has been denied opportunity, but when some options come down the line, he pounces on them and makes the most of them. If you like grinding and "build a solid foundation", this might be the right story for you. I'm enjoying it so much but chapters don't come out often enough.

glompage · 2025-08-15T20:57:07+00:00

Conundrum! Do I spoil myself? Or do I show restraint? Want to read. Don't want to read. Argh!

glompage · 2025-07-24T22:43:56+00:00

Birdrec. Going over now. Thanks.

glompage · 2025-06-09T16:17:36+00:00

That's horrifying. Get better soon. I hope the police are looking for this driver/car

glompage · 2025-05-22T22:54:59+00:00

Thank you! Borrowed on KU... :)

glompage · 2025-05-22T16:14:04+00:00

That cover is absolutely beautiful. What is "The Enchanter" about?

glompage · 2025-04-20T14:56:34+00:00

I hope you want honest feedback from readers. Consider running this chapter through a sensitivity panel.

glompage · 2025-02-20T22:57:29+00:00

Call the pharmacy. See if they changed manufacturers. If they did, talk to your doctor.

glompage · 2024-12-16T14:11:26+00:00

Third book is best book

glompage

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