Really enjoying it so far. The worldbuilding is immaculate and the characters are incredibly engaging. I'm about to start book 3 after devouring the first two over a week (no spoil pls)

edit: turns out the author is a mormon lmao

  • Eris235 [undecided]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I really like his worldbuilding, which was enough to carry me through most of his books, and I have read about 90% of the books he's written at this point (got into them in college)

    HOWEVER, I kinda fell out of love with his writing over time.

    He's a very rigid and formulaic writer, so while there's a lot going on, with pretty original settings and ideas, the actual plot and character feel pretty stale and tropey to me a lot of the time. Very marvel-movie-eque.

    Add in the weird YA tones and Mormon themes, and in hindsight, while his books are gripping in a way, and 10/10 in a few narrow aspects, they fall flat for me on most other criteria.

    Lastly, while I was already tepid on his works at this point, saw a master post about his Mormonism, and how he still defends and tithes to the church, and ehhh, I think I'm done with his works for now. See here for said masterpost, didn't realize it was this bad tbh: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/w9o5hw/as_a_gay_man_im_a_little_tired_of_people_here/

    • Eris235 [undecided]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Honestly, for a similar worldbuilding-feel, but with better vibes and themes, I've really like the webserials A Practical Guide to Evil, and really just all of Wildbow's works, his most famous being the superhero story Worm, but honestly, its got rough edges as his first, and I think his current work Pale is his best, followed by Twig.

      Masterpost I linked has some other good suggestions too, and while I haven't read all of them, I can second Robin Hobb's books, and The Broken Earth Series by N.K. Jemisin is good, and also both are not by white dudes

      • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Wildbow’s works, his most famous being the superhero story Worm, but honestly, its got rough edges as his first, and I think his current work Pale is his best, followed by Twig.

        I really liked Pact, but I know it's a little to much concentrated "more bad stuff and trauma happens to the protagonist every page" than most people want.

        • Eris235 [undecided]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I agree, I like pact a lot. But also, I think its a difficult piece to recommend, because it is so fraught and tense