I know it’s hella problematic, but the web novel reverend insanity/master of gu introduced me to the genre a long time ago, and I’d love a tv show/movie with that style of magic system. Anything vaguely similar would be dope if you know what I’m talking about.

Grandmaster of demonic cultivation is the closest I’ve found.

Edit: Thank you everybody :mission-accomplished-1: :mission-accomplished-2: I now have enough content to make the void of capitalist realism feel less empty. I really appreciate all the recs.

  • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I don't have any TV show recs, but Cradle was mentioned earlier (anyone who hasn't read Cradle owes it to themselves to change that, btw), and in that vein, I can recommend some books:

    General Progression Fantasy (basically a broader category that includes wuxia/xianxia and other forms of fantasy whose plots focus on character power progression in particular):

    • Bastion by Phil Tucker is an excellent book. Unfortunately, it's the beginning of a series, and no other books have yet been published.
    • The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, and its sequel The Fires of Vengeance, are both excellent as well. The fantasy setting is inspired, not by medieval Europe as so many others are, but instead by Bronze Age Africa. I think these are also the beginning of a series, though I haven't heard anything about another one in a while. (Recent quote from his twitter, which I checked to make sure he's still alive: "Billionaires shouldn't exist")
    • Mage Errant by John Bierce is a bit more YA than the above two, and many Cradle fans don't like it (it's certainly not as good as Cradle, admittedly), but it's got a fun kind of atmosphere, similar to Cradle's, and the author is at least a radlib if not an actual leftist (he spent the pandemic in Vietnam, and is very outspoken about his belief in anti-imperialism both online and in the books, and he even once dunked on Ben Shapiro in the Cradle subreddit). There are 6 of 7 books in the series out so far; last one expected sometime this year. Audiobook is fine, but the narrator likes somewhat long pauses, which some people don't like.
    • Stormweaver: Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor and Luke Chmilenko is a sci-fi book about a future in which the sporting world is entirely focused on what are called SCTs (simulated combat tournaments) in which Users of power combat-assistance devices (CADs) engage in (simulated) gladiatorial combat. It's also YA-ish, and the author and story are definitely lib, and it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief (you have to accept that people can survive blows that would in truth be 100% fatal and get back up again), but it's also one of the few books that captures some form of the Cradle progression-fantasy magic, so I'm throwing it in here anyway. The second book is mostly finished being written (it's being posted on Patreon chapter by chapter currently, and also, delayed, in the Stormweaver subreddit), but is not out yet. The audiobook is not done by Travis Baldree, and as a result it's less good than it would be if it had been, but not bad.

    Wuxia/Xianxia specifically:

    • A Thousand Li by Tao Wong is a more traditional Chinese xianxia series, which in its text includes many footnotes explaining bits of Chinese culture. The audiobooks are, like Cradle's, narrated by Travis Baldree. This series is somewhat slower-paced than Cradle, though, and it's also unfinished.
    • Beware of Chicken by Casualfarmer is a fun read; it's a largely satirical xianxia isekai story in which the main character, upon arriving from Earth into the body of a young cultivator who has just been killed by a fellow sect disciple, then decides to abandon cultivation to start farming instead. It sounds kinda odd, I know, but it's a really fun read. It started as a webnovel on Royal Road, and volumes after 1 can still be read there, but here's a link where you can read volume 1 without paying Jeff Bezos for it: https://www.webnovelpub.com/novel/beware-of-chicken-09111244/chapters (note, though, that Beware of Chicken, too, has its audiobook narrated by Travis Baldree, so there is some reason to pay for the Kindle version, since that gets you a massive discount on the Audible version). Word of warning: this series is very taken with a pastoral, patriarchal vision of "the simple life" and occasionally exposes less-than-great politics in minor ways (there's an unfortunate transphobic joke during one of the final scenes of Volume 1, though it's one of a form that most cis people probably wouldn't even recognize as transphobic). The story really shines in particular when the main character and his friends interact with cultivators and others who are familiar with cultivation. The title is on account of the fact that the rooster starts cultivating, with many comic results.
    • RATMachinespirit [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Those all sound worth checking out, thank you for the effort put into collating such a strong list.

      I really enjoy the idea of being isekai'd and just fucking off to a farm. Such a novel idea. I love it.

      :meow-hug: thanks for recommending stuff

    • NoYouLogOff [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Baldree is good folks. Gonna check out your recs.

      Painting the Mists is also a solid xianxia that is further along than A Thousand Li and is a bit more fantastical (though still unfinished at least with audiobooks). Guy expresses some liberalism and makes some really bad campy references. The second book made me cringe from how the female characters were written about, but that smoothed out over time. I've been making my way through it for a while now, and it's been a pretty solid driving and work audiobook that I don't have to focus on too much.

      Forge of Destiny and Fates Parallel are two different YA xianxia series about a girl (a thief) stumbling into a cultivation sect and learning to cultivate. Forge of Destiny is kind of the og, while Fates Parallel feels kind of like a response in that it's gayer and it'll get out of the sect setting much faster. FoD holds a soft spot in my heart as it was the first xianxia webnovel I started reading, western or Chinese.

      He Who Fights with Monsters is progression fantasy about a wisecracking Australian guy who gets isekai-ed into a magic world, and the author makes it work. The wisecracks aren't really about "funny reference" but it feels more like "funny reference and also the protag coping with his ridiculous circumstances in probably unhealthy ways." The narrator is really good, which may contribute heavily, and the emotional state of the protag is pretty juicy drama. Author is a massive radlib who thinks authoritarian is an aesthetic and despite being critical of American foreign policy, still hates all of its enemies. When real world locations and politics aren't relevant, it's pretty good. Also unfinished, but that may be a bit of a theme with western written webnovels in the genre.

      • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Everyone seems to describe HWFWM as litRPG, but you don't describe it as such. I generally avoid anything with that label because I prefer real stakes; would you say that's a mistake wrt HWFWM?

        Forge of Destiny is among those on my to-read list that I keep forgetting about; I'll give that a shot soon. I plan to save (as in "Save page as...") this whole thread once it dies down, in fact, but I appreciate this comment especially, and not least because you didn't name a single thing I've already read :)

        • NoYouLogOff [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Ehh, tbh the label litRPG doesn't really mean anything to me, probably due to me not actually being into fantasy until I really got into cultivation fantasy. It just seems to be a tool to develop a framework for helping write and tell a story, and give structure to the power system. HWFWM literally has litrpg in its tagline, but other than it's propensity to read "System text" for 5 minutes straight I can't really tell. FoD likely has more of a litRPG feel with a large cast of characters who just kind of fade in and out and basically no stakes, though I am not versed enough in the genre and its tropes to say much there.