No matter how powerful you become, it’s hard to let go of the fear that grows in you when you’re weak. It grows along with you.
Arthur Leywin may have survived the Relictombs, but he immediately finds himself embroiled in something far more complex and dangerous: Alacryan politics. Accused of crimes he didn’t commit, Arthur is forced to defend himself without drawing the attention of his most powerful enemies. He quickly discovers that the best place to hide may be in plain sight as he continues his quest for the power to control Fate itself. It is a race against time, however, as the greatest threat of the war so far closes in on Arthur’s loved ones in Dicathen. Without him, they are defenseless, but if he returns too soon, hope is lost for all of them.
Tae Ha Lee, writing under the pen name TurtleMe, is a fantasy novelist and webcomic author. Blending elements of Western and Eastern literature, TurtleMe creates a unique and compelling reading experience that resonates with global audiences. His award-winning series, The Beginning After the End, has been translated into over ten languages and has captivated readers worldwide.
Tae Ha, a proud UC Berkeley graduate, currently resides in Seattle with his beloved wife and dog. To find out more, follow @turtleme93 on Instagram.
Auther TurtleMe, Let me just say, this was a phenomenal roller coster. I know you want your readers to leave reviews after evey book... but I gotta say.. I couldn't. Why? Well I was actually too excited to just start the next installment... I'll have you know, I binge read all 9 installments back-to-back-to-back. I commend you on these. This was truly brilliant. I would jump up and shot and cheer; other times I would be flabbergasted. I can't say how many times whilst reading I would yell curses at you, about what was revealed while simultaneously in the same sentence saying "wow what a great author this is." What a Rollercoaster. When I first started reading this series within the first book I was surprised, I thought that you may have been a slightly amateur writer, do to the fact of all the jumping around and explaining what you where doing. Seemed like alot of repetition. I am not sure if it was by design or not... but the flow at the beginning seemed "immature" as in maybe you didn't know where your story was gunna go. However it dawned on me as I kept reading that more or less it showed a veary detailed visual of the depth of your story as your characters "learned and gowing in relation to life's experience." As if we where actually growing and gaining experience along with your characters. Like I said I don't know if that was by design or not, but it grabbed me so strongly I binge read the entire collection; literally with obsession. I'm also surprised even with the Avidness of my reading it has taken almost 2 weeks or so to read from start to finish. The early books where a read time of 6-8 hours. And the last book collectively my expected read time projection was 21hours. I dont consider myself a slow reader by any means but boy-oh-boy, that was intense. I hope that readers whom see this series or end up reading this review are prepared for a while ride. If you havnt finished or even started this collection... well it's gunna take some time and determination to read it all. Don't let the length deture you.. go for the read. It is an engrossing story. The depth of our characters and our main main character are truly thought out. However this is not necessarily for the faint-of-hear-reader... due to its length.. Auther TurtleMe; please please make haste with the next installment I want it already.. can't imagine the complexity of what it takes, to write these installments. For even an 8 hour read. The editing and all that must be tedious. But all the same. Much thanks to you from me. A new reader of your art. Regards, Matthew Higer
Wow. I think this may be my favorite volume so far, and I think that says something. I mean... Arthur literally loses his mana core and somehow I am able to accept his transition to aether. But I do love me a good training arc and this whole book was basically full of character development on the strength side of things. But then there it is again, an uncertain feeling. How is TurtleMe going to tie this together in vol 10?
(This review was posted the day after the last chapter of volume 9 was released. I will update this review for is re-reability, and likely edit it in the future to not contain spoilers)
Let's talk about what I love about this volume so much. I love Arthur's developments as a psuedo-djinn. I love Regis' personality and how he kind of evens out Arthur in a different way from Sylvie. I love how Arthur is trying to gain the strength to bring Sylvie back, always keeping an emotional touch. I love a good mentor character, and so I love Alaric, but he also has a crazy personality and mysterious tragic past. Truly, I think this is a work of brilliance in all of the aspects it uses to keep the reader intrigued, but of course I know some of you that have read it as well will disagree with me on a few points.
Apart from that, I think this is tied with volume 7 for my favorite one. I'll be honest, I still think I love volume 7 more, but I'll have to re-read volume 9.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Before you start wondering why I put five stars when this will be a review bashing the book take a moment to read any author's complaints about Amazon. I really, truly, honestly dislike this book but not enough to help lower the author's sales with less than a five star review on paper.
Moving on. While, the story has progressed, I can really do without all the shifting perspectives. I don't particularly like Ellie, she's a good character but I don't need to hear her inner thoughts. I don't care about many of the people who perspectives were given chapters but I'm not the author. That is problem one. Problem two I had was that these perspective chapters that didn't belong to Arthur took up a large portion of the book, or so it felt. Three, Nico and Agron. Just why? Why did that crap have to happen the way it did. There was a potential for a better more interesting outcome with- spoilers so I'll shut up on details and names- towards the end. I get that this is episodic and written over a year but come on, take a read from pirateaba and learn how to make an weekly web serial into a novel with a proper ending and hook. The ending always feel rushed and incomplete probably due to burn out. Which is understandable but come on, focus on quality over pumping out an ending.
As for what was right... well the dialogue was well done. The humor was dark and witty. The grammar was excellent. The characters still stand on their own and are well developed.
I guess it was alright. Was I happy with it? (insert shaky so-so hand motion here) MEH. That's all I got. It felt inconsistent, a tad rambling in places, and rushed towards the end. That's still better than book one but less than books three to five. Book 8 was just weird and this is aan extension of that weirdness in my mind. I understand the cukt following this series has but this was not a great addition overall, at least in my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt if you will but this book is average at best and way below when it's at its worst. So yeah my honest opinion is this is a 3/5. Here's to book 9, I'm going dark on this series until I can read book 10 is complete and published.
I enjoyed this one. Still has a lot of grit and the story is developing. The MC is more tolerable than in previous installments. The dragons are needlessly evil, not sure why most have no deapth beyond just being mean and stuck up. The side characters were expounded upon. I don't like all of these perspectives. It doesn't seem like to me that the different characters have a fleshed out enough personality to warrant their own POV. You get just a little bit of background and then get slapped into the perspective of a character. You just don't get a good feel for the chapter when the character is an unknown. The whole Aether vs Mana thing wasn't really explained yet, still a bit of a mystery. The dragons are still basically invincible. The other humans are a lot more relatable after reading this book and it gave them deapth. Anyway it wasn't bad.
There is so much going on i don't even know where to begin. In summary it was a really good build up to what is hopefully going to be an epic conclusion. Arthur's development has been beautifully done and all the various characters compel you to keep going. I am immediately starting the next book!
Atp if another person die I’m rioting. Like is TurtleMe and Gege Akutami friends? Like wtf bro. I’m sobbing but also in joy. This book is so amazing it hurts. Everything that went down is actually so unhinged. This book. Wow, turtleMe just WOW.
With this book TurtleMe has come a long way. The book still feels like the author's power fantasy, but it is no longer cringe worty. With the story in this one we have a little bit of repetition of some older arcs and we can finally see Arthur dabble in some behind the scenes machinations and political games. The story no longer feels so childish as before and the existence of so many characters that have their own motives and goals is a breath of fresh air. This book also includes a "tournament arc" although it is relatively small part of the story, but the fight are on another level. Definitely one of the better entries in the series, if not the best.
I think the optional language taking up space is a clear sign that the author is running out of ideas. And the inconsistency in combat scene of making poor decisions just to create tension has little rationale behind it. And lastly the entire book set him up with the school, the students, and the girl, just to take it all away with almost no side character development. And with the slow pace of release I think it's gonna die before we get to read the ending.
With the conclusion of Reckoning, I'm now completely caught up with the series.
There are some problems with the book. I'm not sure I find the the Asuras all that consistent with how they were portrayed before. Yes, there was a big escalation at the end of the last book. Yes, we are supposed to question just how good they are. But, now the lord of the Asuras appears to be making a lot of unforced errors. Sure, we can say that this is just the arrogance of an Asura, but it leaves a somewhat bitter aftertaste. The Lord purposefully sent an assassin after Arthur's remaining friends and family, and even sent someone to eliminate the uninformed lances. Both acts are almost unpardonably stupid, especially since he had mentioned he intended to still use Arthur and Windsom wasn't clear that Sylvie was dead. Foolish. Even Agrona didn't make those types of mistakes. There's plenty to be concerned about with the Alacrya plotline, but while it seemed like my earlier fears would be supported, the book took a decent enough turn with the Victoriad that I don't think I need to worry about that anymore.
Overall, the series remains very good. There were even some attempts to walk back some prior potential inconsistencies, such as the Asuras keeping the lances separated from the survivors, or Agrona manipulating the memories of the reincarnates. I am a little concerned about how small the numbers are, for the surviving refugees and even for Agrona's armies. At one point it seemed like there were thousands or at least hundreds of mixed blood servants, but it seems like there are far fewer. Maybe they will pretend like people like the High Bloods count, but that wouldn't make any sense given the power scaling involved.
As an aside, it seems a bit like TurtleMe is setting up Grey to become the final ruler once all this is over. He is now technically something like a halfbreed, but a very particular kind. His body is composed of the grandchild of the lord of the Asuras and the child of the lord of the Vritra. He has the support of the remaining royalty of Dicathan, and will likely have the support of some high bloods and at least one scythe, not withstanding all the popular support he'll have gained given his defeat of two other scythes. In the land of the Asuras, he earned the respect and notice of a number of some of the most influential of them, including the wife of the lord of the asuras.
Stepped out of the app for a sec and my review got deleted... I don't want to rewrite everything, but basically, we still had too many POVs. Including ones from minor villains who are about to die. This needs to stop 😅 But the most frustrating was from when we had the fight between Nico & Grey. Almost 2 books of building for this rematch, and not only did it last less than 5min, but it was from an onlooker's perspective. A bland, soulless fight which should have been the most emotional one. I wonder if the author chickened out because he didn't have the skills or the time to write a deeply emotional rematch from either Art or Nico's perspective.
The fight that followed was equally unmoving. 9 books. The author had 9 books to build upon this fight and delve better into Cadell's character. He did not. Their fight felt like Cadell was just another random villain who got his ass handed over by Art. Very boring.
Actually, during most of the fights I was extremely bored. I desperately wanted to skip them, but it was hard to do so with the audiobook. Same with the Relictombs. I'm glad we got less of them during this book, but every time Art went in them, it felt like a chore to read. I would have preferred him to spend more time with his students instead. The Relictombs were just a side quest tbh.
Also, even if it was foreshadowed Art would become a professor again, I wished the author hadn't gone down that road. He did it once, that was enough. Doing it again was simply a repetition of Xyrus. It did have higher stakes and Art was less inclined to share his knowledge, but that's all.
But hey. Despite its flaws, I did went through +22h of listening in around a week. So there's that.
PS: after the disappointing fights I mentioned above, I was glad to find Bairon again. I missed him.
This series has been a bit of a roller coaster for me. The series starts off strong, meanders a bit, dips, then starts to get better when he finally gets separated from his responsibilities.
This story was very well done, and Arthur/Grey's story is a 5-star story for sure. He isn't perfect, but has come a long way as a character.
The only negative part about this story I'd say is Cecilia's story is a bit stagnant. She just gets further and further brainwashed which is disappointing. I was hoping there would be more push back from Tessia inside of her, but it barely is even a factor in the story. It looks like she'll be a puppet for many more books.
I look forward to the next book as this series has gotten better and better over the past few books. I just hope he doesn't get forced back into a Leadership position where he can't train or get stronger because he is constantly having to protect everybody.
I know it won't happen, but I kind of like Caria more than Tessia and wouldn't mind if that happened. She hasn't had to be saved 20 times already throughout the story unlike Tessia who seems to purposefully get herself caught over and over due to childishly running away.
I was reading the web comic and the novel side by side, and now that only the novel remains I'm speeding up with reading the story, hoping to catch up when the comic is going to come out. Truth be told, I'm beginning to think that the novel is actually better than the comic! I have to say that I wasn't expecting much by this series, and I thought that it was almost like a screenplay of the web comic that made me discover these novels. However that's not true: maybe the translation is not perfect, but this series is really a great fantasy series, good characters, amazing world building and it is really well written, with multiple POV that really let you know more of each character. In this volume we follow Art (or maybe Gray!) while in Alacrya and we prepare for the final book. Well done, TurtleMe Already started reading the final installment.
The Beginning After The End is one of the only series I've read that manages to keep getting exponentially better. Ever since the time I first read it in 7th grade, I've been hooked. The insane amount of effort TurtleMe puts into creating the deep and thoughtful characters pays off. Don't even get me started on the world-building. The "new continent" trope has gotten annoying with series like Hunter x Hunter just slapping it onto the end of the Chimera ant arc. However, TBATE does it very well. Alacrya feels like it was always there in the shadows, yet we were too busy with Arthur's story to care about it. I love how TurtleMe reset Arthur, giving him an entirely new power system and completely changing everything we knew about the world. Somehow aether had me 10x more interested in the story than I was before. TBATE is an amazing story that I could write about for hours solely on worldbuilding. That should tell you enough about how amazing this series is.
The Beginning After the End: Reckoning does a fantastic job of keeping the reader engaged and interested throughout the book. Events in the book take place just after the fall and destruction of Dicathen, with King Grey and Regis continue exploration of the Relictombs and life in Alacrya. Turtleme makes the impact of such a catastrophic event felt throughout the book with each individual character. He keeps the relictombs just as diverse and unique as previous books. Overall this book is one of my favorites of the series if not my favorite I found myself enjoying almost every chapter. Each chapter was filled with fun banter between Regis and Grey as seen in previous books with constant action in Alacyra. The mystery and intrigue that the character Grey presents to the people of Alacrya was fun to see especially how they reacted to Grey’s actions throughout the book.
To me this feels like turtlemes magnum opus. It brought everything together that’s been foreshadowed for 8 volumes. The different point of views showing both sides of a war and how the people of each continent saw each other was simply great. Greys/Arthur’s character development was portrayed phenomenally and even though he’s the main character, his development wasn’t even the best. Alice and virion have been there since volume one and have continued to be to of the best written characters in the series, showing further how much of turtlemes heart and soul went into this book. The fights in the volume were easily the best so far and the writing was simply great. In my personal opinion this is turtlemes best work right beside volume 7 and even though it’s an “isekai” it can still hold its own in the non novel space. Overall would recommend 9/10
The last book I read in this series was years ago. I couldn't deal with the stupid elf princess. Someone convinced me to read back the series, but they love anime, and is hyped that this series is going to turn into an anime.... I really hope the book doesn't get worse to accommodate anime tropes.
Ugh. Years later, and the extra POVs are still pissing me off. I'm enjoying the book, but the POVs of other people is annoying. It wouldn't be a problem if it was just a quick glance, but these are chapter long POVs that make you yawn.
I guess I will pick up the sequel. I'm glad I don't have to deal with perfect elf princess anymore.
Arthur/Grey wants more godrunes and needs to continue Sylvia's instruction of finding answers in the Relictombs.
He found several relics and saw a bit of the present Dicathen to relieve his family heartache. He seeks to protect his identity by teaching at an academy again? So much for wanting quiet, anonymity, and keeping himself hidden. He always needs to stand out and make a statement. Exhilarating. Befriending the powerful and excelling.
Love his clever "Uncle" Alaric. Wouldn't have made it out without his assistance.
All the new world forming and new ideals with a good pacing. Enough to keep the tension building.
It is definitely better than the preceding volumes except for the initial ones but it also felt like a repetition. All the unnecessary details about the character's "so called lover's" family. Highblood.
This has been with previous volumes also. But the series which was on a darker, depressed hue, is getting lil' positive. I hope we'll soon see all the nice ideas and happy ending.
Once again, TurtleMe does the thing. This book is everything. At times it set my heart racing while at others, it was heart-wrenching. This is much a tragedy as a heroic story. The pace was relentless and I could not take my eyes off the pages once I started reading. I love Arthur Leywin and just about all the characters in this book. I loved the book but it also broke my heart.
No se que decir la verdad, nunca habia estado tan apegado a una historia como la que estuve leyendo en este libro, cada capitulo, cada frase, me llego de verdad, y espero que pueda continuar con estas enseñanzas ahora en adelante, en estos momentos en los que me siento completamente sobrecargado de emociones no me se explicar bien pero desde el fondo de mi corazon, les recomiendo esta historia y espero que le den una oportunidad.
This book was incredibly well done. This book balanced character development with story progression in a way meeting or exceeding the previous. I really enjoyed the final act, and the way it was introduced. I can guess this will receive some criticism but I feel it worked really well. Ready for the final book!
I was kind of discouraged by the length of time between book 8 and 9, but wow! This one was so satisfying. I think Reckoning is the best one in the series and can't wait for the next book. I won't ruin many of the plot, so get it and read it. I doubt you will be disappointed.