With the genre being in its infancy in the west, there are so many duds. Littered with cheesy foreshadowing, unimaginative uses of tropes, and amateur writing. The one that takes the cake for me though is Unsouled. I’m convinced that most who started consuming this genre with stories from Japan will find it difficult not to cringe multiple times per chapter. What were your guys’s biggest duds? Why?
Book from this genre you enjoyed the least? What didn’t work for you?
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He who fights with Monsters- Honestly not because of the MC but more because of the general pacing and plot structure. Way too much talking and not enough plot(at least in the first 2 books)
The Weirkey Chronicles- The only thing interesting about this series to me was the magic system and the initial premise. The magic usage itself is boring, the worldbuilding is weirdly stale even though it has a cool concept and the action scenes are way too simplistic and anticlimactic
I can definitely see what you mean with Weirkey Chronicles, but the non traditional protagonists who aren't constantly running around fight-to-fight is actually what I like most about it. Overall to me it feels like there are much more nuanced interactions with all the different parties, as the problems aren't able to be solved with just "MORE POWER!!!!" I personally have come to like that but I understand how it could feel simplistic and anticlimactic when the fights aren't the main point of the story.
It's also one of the only series I've started to really feel like there are 3 true protagonists, rather than one protagonist with intermittent side character POVs. I actually now enjoy all 3 views, as the cultural lenses of the characters are all so specific and differentiated.
The continued central focus on the progression of the soulhomes, past present and future is my favorite part. But the overall tone is definitely quieter and more steady-state.
I agree with both of these except I made it to book 6 on HWFWM. The first three books were great with the third one really hammering home the idea that Jason not the answer and everyone around him had a part. This totally falls apart in book 5-6. Especially as the author decided to remove most of the stat screens. I would have loved to get some stats for Vampires or at least a Jason's Family abilities. And then no matter who else was introduced the only person that mattered was Jason. I put it down for a break at that point even though book 7 had just come out and I haven't felt the desire to go back. It is sad cause despite its flaws at the higher levels I loved the essence magician system.
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While you may be correct this didn't change until book 4. I was accustomed to more technical details and honesty the best parts of the first three books was people getting essences and new powers to explore. That aspect also ended with all the other characters abilities being a secret despite the fact that Jason knows them.
I’ll keep continuing with Weirkey Chronicles, but my quibble with it is that the team goes to do one thing then veers off and does something else entirely.
Which obviously can happen in life, but feels random in a book series.
My issue there is that the thing the veer off to do, is often a lot more boring than the the thing they were going to do.
A lot of the time it's kind of cringe too because Weirkey Chronicles is almost lampshading the genre tropes it's trying to subvert, from arrogant young master arcs, to tournament arcs, etc, but then the thing the story does instead of the standard formula is a lot more boring than the standard formula would have been.
EDIT: Just to call it out, Bondsfungi is just the worst. After Chasmfall finally seemed to be setting the plot into motion after way to much drudgery, and the characters seem to be getting drawn into something other than constantly building their houses and stuff finally finally get exciting, just no. No, we're going to spend the rest of the book not doing any of that here's something entirely different and I hope you appreciate how different it is even though it's all just so boring when Tithes isn't on screen.
Ultimately it ends up with far too much of the characters building houses, which is an admittedly cool magic system, and then doing nothing particularly interesting with them. It was telling to me that the story was most enjoyable for me when it wasn't trying to cleverly avoid doing the most obvious thing because it repeatedly tries to dodge the obvious plot points and instead does something that's just dull instead.
If you want to subvert genre expectations, I applaud you, but it would be ideal that you subvert them by finding something else interesting to do. Not just replacing predictable with boring.
HWFWM was amazing to me for like 5 books. And then Jason started getting on my nerves a TON and his rants got frequent enough and off topic enough even that I completely lost all interest. Felt like a huge slogg, which broke my heart because I had really liked it for a while. I agree with you. However, I also believe strongly that this is my small isolated experience and if people like it, I want to encourage them to continue enjoying what makes them happy and engaged. It's still top notch stuff, just wasn't clicking with me anymore. I was hoping he'd grow a bit quicker in lots of ways.
I was less bothered by the rants and more by how much the books hyped him up. It's one thing to have a character whose thing is ranting and being opinionated. It's another entirely for that character to always be right (at least whenever it's not an entirely subjective question) and for everyone around him to always be extremely impressed with him. I was following on RR so idk where exactly it was, but somewhere around books 7-9 he starts spouting the cringiest dramatic edgelord stuff and everyone just takes it completely seriously.
That book 6 was a horrible slog. He was alone most of it doing things that feels so disconnected and inconsequential.
There are plenty of flaws with the main character and the authors tendency to ramble like a person who just read his first philosophy book. As well as the tendency to have 1,000 passages like “Jason was a tough badass, but today, he was EVEN TOUGHER AND MORE BADASS than ever!”
Those flaws were ok though when the story and world building were decent. Those parts just went away for all of book 6 though. That was a slog.
To me that's the best part of hwfwm I love the back and forth and character interaction and slice of life but still with combat and progression
Yea I’m not a character reader and I hate anything close to slice of life. Its just not for me
Makes since why you don't like hwfwm then because that book is full of it, you prob don't like the wondering inn either?
I’ve never tried the wandering inn because everything I’ve ever heard about it sounds like something I wouldn’t like.
From what you said I'd agree I don't think you'd like it, long and fairly slow books with lots of character interaction and slice of life, but the system it has for levels and the characters are awesome
Weirkey is such a disappointment since it has arguably the best/more original magic systems I've ever read. On paper it should be my favorite series, but holy crap are the characters and plot terrible.
Exactly!