Re: Looking Back: RI 2024

In article <vl6cgn$3cr8f$1@dont-email.me>,
Ahasuerus  <ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:

On 1/1/2025 10:33 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

In article <vl4voc$2urqr$1@dont-email.me>,
Ahasuerus  <ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:

On 12/31/2024 10:05 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
[snip-snip]

Aside from specific reviews, I continued down the harem adventure

rabbit-hole

during 2024.  Some of it, predictably, pretty bad, but I continue to enjoy
Sara Hawke's harem & hot-adventure tales.  She writes both fantasy & space
opera books that would be above average without the sex.

>
Back in 2018, right around the time "harem" and LitRPG novels began to
take off, I tried William D. Arand's _Super Sales on Super Heroes_
series and his _Otherlife/ Selfless Hero_ trilogy, which explored
elements taken from both sub-genres. There were a few interesting
moments, but the execution was sub-professional at best and barely
coherent at worst, so I set each series aside after the first two volumes.
>
Occasionally I come across online reviews that praise certain "harem"
authors, including Michael-Scott Earle, Robert Harper, K. D. Robertson,
Tamryn Tamer and Mike Truk. Unfortunately, almost all of my attempts to
read their works have failed spectacularly, typically because their
protagonists tend to be poor excuses for human beings.
>

 
I would say that in particular Truk's hero in Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum
is a good person and each of his companions is well drawn and has
her own compelling arc.  Unfortunately we may never get the last book.

>
I am afraid my take on him was different. My notes read, in part:
>

he is lecherous, cowardly, dishonorable, immature and has no

self-esteem to speak of.
>
I dropped the first volume after Chapter 2 or 6% in. I suppose it's
possible that he changed later on.

I would say so.  The series is about his growth to a good extent.
There is an extended sequence where he revisits his old life and
we see how far he has come.  Truk says sales were bad, which led
to this comment on Reddit which I pretty much agree with:

PnuttyCrunch
Cake icon
3y ago

I think his problem is that he writes normal fantasy where
the protagonist has a harem. Harem fantasy buyers don't
like the MC having setbacks and weaknesses. Normal fantasy
readers ignore anything with a harem.

Still, some of the best books in the genre.

One "harem" series that I forgot to mention yesterday was E. William
Brown's _Daniel Black_. It's a fairly straightforward portal fantasy
about a 36-year-old computer programmer whose life falls apart, which is
why he agrees to go to a fantasy world as a glorified bodyguard. Once he
gets there, things quickly escalate.
>
The beginning wasn't promising, e.g. my notes read:
>

The notion that the MC's aptitude for combat had come from his 20

years of playing RPGs was cringe-worthy.
>
Luckily, once things got off the ground, there was enough fighting,
magic-based engineering, politics, kingdom building, end-of-the-world
unpleasantness, etc, to keep things at least somewhat entertaining.
>

Hmm, thanks I may check it out.
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