What are you reading?

[Anastasia]

Ring Maker updated with what was the mid-story climax. The story finally lost me for good, I don't even want to skim it anymore to see what good ideas he uses.

[spoiler]

It was essentially a Taylor and Sophia confrontation and pivoted 100% on it. As this is by far the weakest part of the story, I felt it dragged down what was a possibly rewarding scene. Moreover, it felt like everyone but Sophia on the anti Annatar group was window dressing for Sophia and Taylor interaction after that chapter. That made the entire build up there feel far less rewarding than it was before. It feels like the story is now nothing but a vessel for Taylor and Sophia's interactions at the core of it, so I'm out.

Taylor choosing to turn aside and cast aside Sauron's blindness should have been powerful stuff. It really should have, but the great problem this fic has and still has is Sophia in general. I just can't accept it as a freebie or as a handwave, nor was the setup for it believable. It's been a giant fault line in the story since that story arc began way back in arc 2.

[Dracos]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stone-worm-puella-magi-madoka-magica.635890 - This is kind of a neat Worm/Puella fic.  It's relatively snappy with its flow, and I suspect will be finishing in a few chapters.

Taylor is granted a wish in the locker, by Kyuuby.  It is set in a post-madoka world, so they don't know of witches, but instead wraiths and the Law of Cycles is the explanation for why magical girls vanish at some point (by the girls themselves).  Magical girls are known as Cape 32s, which even as far as some of cauldron do not believe exist.  Taylor's helped out by Amanda, who is basically a super stranger magical girl.

The story completely skips street level and even endbringer level.  Kyuubey flat out acknowledges Scion as the source of most powers on the world.  So far he's been the visible end story, with personal failings being the general obstacles of note.

Taylor's power is to run away.  Teleportation from pretty much anything, including

Spoiler: ShowHide

being shot in the gem

[Jason_Miao]

https://koreanovels.com/2017/09/01/level-1-skeleton/

(almost forgot the description
Pretty much as expected - guy reincarnates into a low level creature in an RPG world, and has some power that lets him become powerful.

One aspect that I found different than expected was that most Korean novels tend to focus on tedious grind, and the main character tends to complain about the tedium like a badge of honor.  This story doesn't fall into that pattern nearly as much.

[thepanda]

The Bathroom Goddess

I liked it. A woman finds that the window in her bathroom opens up to another world. At twenty chapters the story is short and tight. The lead isn't annoying. The ending is set up pretty well, too. I recommend it zero reservations.

[Jason_Miao]

Was on that site after having worked through available Reika, and saw your post.  Good stuff.

Also, https://psychobarcodetranslations.wordpress.com/flamering/

[thepanda]

Lack of Talent

The story is simple and well told. Ignore where it is posted from. >_>

[Jason_Miao]

https://negaraizu.wordpress.com/glutton-berserker/

One of those "gets the skills of the defeated enemy" stories.  Doesn't fall fall into the trap of thinking that numbers will carry a story (although there is still plenty of "appraisal" going on.)

[Dracos]

But everyone loves Appraisal-san.  It's a character that clearly is in dozens of series.

[Dracos]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/snuggles-the-symbiote-worm-marvel-rewrite.618970/ this is kind of cute.  Lots of marvel clones dumped into Worm world.  But following Snuggles the Symbiote having helped out Skitter.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/all-things-devoured-worm-deadspace.489340/ - update, but kinda just Taylor joshing.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/transposition-or-ship-happens-worm-aoki-hagane-no-arpeggio-arpeggio-of-blue-steel.32456/ - Lisa undergoes seriously invasive surgery.

[Jason_Miao]

Sevens

Fantasy.  As in, actually fantasy, and not another rehashed wish-fulfilled RPG otaku transported spending multiple chapters looking for authentic Japanese rice and screaming how he's an antihero while not killing anyone while carrying around a sword.

Also, harem.

[Jason_Miao]

http://skythewood.blogspot.com/p/altina-sword-princess.html

LN type characters.  I would probably enjoy this more had I not started reading it right after Sevens.  Still decent.

[Merc]

I wish there were less harem novels and more general adventure or slice of life fantasy novels. The few I find that aren't harems almost always seem to have unlikeable main characters for some reason. Oh well.

[Jason_Miao]

https://inconnuesite.wordpress.com/table-of-content-for-shoujo-grand-summoning/

Multi-cross SI with RPG powers, where the main character's power is to summon girls from different anime.

I wish there were less harem novels and more general adventure or slice of life fantasy novels. The few I find that aren't harems almost always seem to have unlikeable main characters for some reason. Oh well.

I've been reading http://skythewood.blogspot.com/p/altina-sword-princess.html which isn't harem, but the characters are pretty generic archtypes.

[Jason_Miao]

https://creativenovels.com/a-monster-who-levels-up/

Korean LN w/RPG-reality. 

Two notable points:
Kinda-sorta harem, but the protagonist picks a girl midway through and sticks with her.
Doesn't fall into the trap of being a grindfest+failure to have a climactic ending like most Korean LNs.

Author's first work, and translator's first translation, so the downside is incessant translator comments and the author changing people's names part-way through.

https://inconnuesite.wordpress.com/table-of-content-for-shoujo-grand-summoning/

Guy has power to summon anime girls.

Long setup, and it's like a multicross SI fanfic that was originally written in Chinese.

[Anastasia]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dont-do-brains-worm-panacea-a-u.661542/

Amy breaks her no brains rule mid canon. Things rapidly go horribly, horribly wrong.

A good read if you go with it and don't nitpick, but it has a few weak points you can jab at if you want.