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A man finds himself returned to his past: he and some others have been abducted to a magical world where they're forced to complete a series of monthly missions or else they'll be killed. The story mainly focuses on this character as he works to reclaim his former prowess in preparation of a looming threat that only he knows about. Simultaneously he finds himself saddled with a series of missions that don't conform with his expectations, not everything is as he remembers it.

It's reasonably entertaining and as it's written by a Russian it's different enough from the usual generic fantasy scenario to be novel at times. Each chapter is pretty long and there are a lot of them but they often suffer from some amount of filler and stilted language at times. But apart from that it's easy enough to enjoy for what it is if you're looking for a distraction. There are 4 volumes available and around two chapters are released each week.

Ritley said:

Finding this really hard to stick with, mostly due to the translation I’m guessing. Writing seems really bad, and I don’t mean grammatically.

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I agree that it's nothing amazing, you have to skim past much of the internal monologue filler that makes up a portion of each chapter if you want to enjoy it. But for RR it was novel enough and it didn't hiatus after barely beginning.

super supportive is great. one of the 4 patreons i do: super supportive, trinity of magic beware of chicken and spiteful healer

Lenardo said:

super supportive is great. one of the 4 patreons i do: super supportive, trinity of magic beware of chicken and spiteful healer

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I actually skipped spiteful healer when it first showed up because I assumed from the title and cover that it was going to be edgelord trash. I checked it out on your recommendation and it's actually kind of the opposite, the 'spiteful' is being used pretty ironically here. Starts a bit slow, but I enjoyed it a lot once they got off the first island.

It doesn't go into it at all, but that setting is secretly a horrifying dystopian nightmare. Think about it - that time dilation effect with virtual office environments ? Yeah boys, it's totally 40 hour days every day for office workers. The ultimate corporate executive dipshit answer to 'working from home'.

You know velk, I never thought of that, but, you are right, maybe, like you said the author does not gets into it, but it Could be like that. And I think the story is ending soon. At least the main premise "revenge/getting back at shitty dad" aspect. Does it have potential to go farther With the story, yep, but will he is the question.

The latest arc of super supportive has done a stellar job of making it very clear that the author is a woman, place any of her characters into a social situation and they all turn into girls.

Just finished up A Journey of Black and Red - started it ages ago, but it was slow going at first as the early chapters were kind of overwrought prose that reminded me of an Annie Rice knockoff. It got a lot better after that, with the author getting into more his own style and became pretty interesting - it's fully finished now, and the ending was pretty good.

Decent blend of action and comedy. It spans from 18th through 20th century, and I liked the way it put some thought into the way the existence of mages and vampires changed politics and world history during that time, rather than usual staple of them getting up to outrageous shit and it not actually causing any significant changes.

Some of the MC's drunken rampages made me laugh out loud.

Overall would recommend.

Some other stuff I have checked out over recent months - all of them have at least 1 'book' completed which makes a decent stopping point :

Elydes - this is an isekai/litrpg, although it is quite different from the usual fare there. It's pretty laid back, for example the number of enemies killed in glorious combat is, to date, zero. Sort of like a sports anime vibe ? It's not all feel-good, but is mostly upbeat. It's a lot of the MC's tropical island adventures while growing up, mixed in with the progression fantasy side of things, gaining stats and race levels etc.

I liked it quite a bit, if you are sick of 'OP MAN SMASH' style stories, might be worth a try.


Mage Tank - this is a pretty generic litrpg, although it's running a fine line between being serious and satire and really doesn't take itself very seriously. Well-written with interesting characters even if it doesn't bring much new to the table. Vaguely reminiscent of Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Not bad if you are explictly looking for a new litrpg to check out.


Thresholder - this is kind of a cross between Sliders and Highlander. The 'thresholders' being people who, for some reason, were offered portals to another world, where they have a chance to gather power of some sort unique to that world before ending up in a seemingly inevitable fight with another thresholder before being offered another portal.

It starts with the main character just entering his third world, with the previous two having been a futuristic USA and a medieval kingdom being invaded by an army of orcs. Armed with a AI-powered suit of power armor and a magic sword, he finds he is not anywhere as prepared as he hoped for the world he finds himself in. The power armor is a lot less of an 'I win' button than you might think - I kind of liked the treatment there where supply logistics being completely absent is actually a critical concern. For example, where are you getting replacement ultra-high spec ammunition from in low tech or magical worlds ? How useful is the AI when it is expecting readily available external data access and GPS navigation that simply doesn't exist where you are ? How do you repair damage to something made of nano-scale composite materials that you don't even understand how they can exist, let alone explain to someone how to reproduce them.

There's very rarely any direct answers to stuff - most of the 'rules' and what is going on are pretty much guess derived from past experience and talking to other thresholders that aren't immediately hostile. The MC is generally an OK guy, but there's a strong argument to be made that he is actually the bad guy in the first 'book'.

I though this one was interesting, highly inventive, well written and lots of fun. Overall great, and it is criminally underrated on RR.

Thresholder is really trying my patience, it's ok for some turn your brain off reading... the premise basically requires it but every now and then the author can't help but make sure you know just how insufferable he can be.

“She is upset about the differentiation between sexes, I believe,” said Luo Yanhua.

“Sex, apparently, is to correct for imbalances in the internal alchemy,” said Maya. “But it’s men and women, who have different energies, balancing between each other. Which is just … I mean, you get it, right?”

“Heteronormative,” said Perry.

“Yes,” said Maya. “Exactly.”

He just can't seem to stop inserting and regurgitating "his views" and it gets tiresome. But then again, what else does he have to say other than Perry smash! Because reasons...?

“We’re not soldiers,” said Perry. “And we’re not going to be commanded. But we will fight injustice where we see it, with as much force as we can muster.”

Gask said:

Thresholder is really trying my patience, it's ok for some turn your brain off reading... the premise basically requires it but every now and then the author can't help but make sure you know just how insufferable he can be.

“She is upset about the differentiation between sexes, I believe,” said Luo Yanhua.

“Sex, apparently, is to correct for imbalances in the internal alchemy,” said Maya. “But it’s men and women, who have different energies, balancing between each other. Which is just … I mean, you get it, right?”

“Heteronormative,” said Perry.

“Yes,” said Maya. “Exactly.”

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I know nothing about the author's views on anything, but the character Maya is a literal social justice warrior - and she is also fucking crazy. Not even in story characters take her seriously.

Well if you've read it you should have an idea by now, he isn't shy about sharing his justifications as for why his characters get to rampage around as they do. The very moment that Perry encounters a bunch of Nordic looking people the very first thought that comes up is Hitler ffs. Whenever a society with traditional values of any kind shows up it's noted and spit upon etcetera etcetera. That coupled with the whole "I'm from another world, please give me your secrets" schtick every arc wears pretty thin after awhile.

Apart from that it's a serial progression, power fantasy with all of the foreplay removed in favor of presenting a series of short stories with some new flavor of setting/power each arc.