Dave Stone > Recent Status Updates

Ack! This book. It's up and then back down. It keeps getting good, but then not staying good.
My most consistent problem with this thing is the MC. Sometimes he's written as a lovable grouch, other times he's just a legitimate A-hole.
Right now there is an uncomfortable moral dilemma that isn't that funny.

Slowly inching my way through this sucker. I like where it's going. Seems to be over it's rough patch.

getting good again

Don't know what happened, but I've lost interest in this book. It doesn't seem any different, but the joy of reading it fell off.

Book hit a rough patch with the baby dragon. I'm not gonna write it off yet. -but I am taking a break

It works / I like this so far.
LitRPG / NPC awakening / Non-Human MC / Light comedy

This update is for the audiobook narrated by Johnathan McClain.
(Not John McLain who is also a narrator who does a lot of westerns)
-I like this. I can see how others could find this annoying, but I like NPC to hero stories. Also the humor is mild without too many puns. The world is neither too dark nor too cutesy-poo.

FYI - Bog Standard Isekai Book 5
is now complete and available on Royal Road. It's really good, and no waiting for the next chapter to be written.

Medium Good
This is a series of vignettes. Not even short stories, because those would have a feeling of completion. This is all about a guy with severe PTSD living in a wrecked city and getting grief.
Fun times

Funny thing is,...
that I'm less inclined to rush out and get Twelve Months after reading Battle Ground again (halfway)
I remember the premise of 12 months, but not all the terms & conditions that Mab and Laura set up, or the little things that alienated Ramirez ect. So, I decide to do a refresher read and realized I'm not as impressed with Harry and I was as a younger man.
Might wait for the audiobook

On page one,
this book tells you that the MC is having a dream. More like a nightmare. Everyone is crying and the son the MC hasn't had yet is keeps saying how sorry he is and he wants to die.
-I'm just NOT in the mood for this shit. DNF in under 30 seconds. Maybe one day I'll try it again, but not anytime soon.
You get 1 chance to make a first impression. Waste it at your peril.

I've been reading Dresden for 15 years and A LOT has changed since then. This was just rollicking action fun, and even back then I knew the writing was shlocky but that just made it even more fun.
Now Harry seems more like a petulant A-hole. His tough talk stinks of insecurity, and his claims that he hates bullies is self deception.
Yes, he's a flawed good man, but Aye yai yai! when is this man child gonna grow up?

Why do I do this to myself?
Knowledge may be power, but knowing the truth doesn't always bring happiness.
I like Stan Lee. I've actually seen Stan speak at a ComicCon. Yeah I knew he too more credit than he'd earned, but I saw him as a co-creator who took full credit, not as a guy who had contributed nothing and took full credit.
Maybe don't read this if you don't want to see Stan as a schmuck.

haven't read a page of this all week.
Seems unlikely I'll ever finish.

The humor is similar to Magic Murder Cube Marine,
but just doesn't grab me the same way. The story / plot is better but it's not as much fun.

Might get back to it later. I got so sick of the "I'm not worthy" and the "I'm just a dirty peasant" and even the "I defile this place with my presents"
I get that the author is setting up to contrast with the future, but there won't bee no future if everyone quits in disgust.
A little goes a LONG way, and you laid it on way too thick.

10%, unlikely to finish, the self loathing of the MC is hard to stomach.
Yes, as a peasant he was conditioned by the state sponsored religion to view himself as unworthy but Jesus Christ does Icalos rub it in over and over.
Secondly, this is not cozy. There are serious stakes, like the end of the world serious. There are massacres, tragedies, despair, and violent death. -How the hell is that cozy?

It pains me to say it, but I'm struggling with this book. I went back and read Goblins & Greatcoats (the prequel/intro short story), that helped some but I just can't seem to warm up to this and I wonder why Travis Baldree wrote such a bummer story.
The words themselves aren't individually sad, but all of them together fill me with nameless dread.

It's better, but...
There are still a lot of amateurish writing tricks, an over reliance on 'tension', and the padding out of some thin ideas.
Overall, I like the larger story arc -but I'm not enamored with the details.

This Magical Academy book is borrowing heavily from Chamber of Secrets. But then while he's at it, why not borrow from all the other HP books too?
So he did. -also, it's boring me to tears. caring less and less about each character.

The first two books in this series are moody and atmospheric, but at they have comfort, hope, and descriptions of good food smells.
-Therefore: Cozy.
This one went right past moody & atmospheric and into gloomy & sad.
From comfort, hope, and good food -to- lost in the wood, despair/regret, and bad food.
...and it's just more sad than I want to deal with on top of autumn where the sun sets at 4:25pm.

I'll be back after a short break.
Just can't seem to engage with this one. It's classic Fred right enough, but I'm finding it irksome reading.

This really isn't working for me.
I'll finish it, but it seems off like bad milk.

I'm at 90% and I've lost almost all interest in this book.
I don't care how it ends and I'm just reading it for it to be over.

After all the clechés this book had at 20%...
The MC meets a pandaren on "Brewery" highway, quotes LotR with "pandarens are wasted on marathons, were natural sprinters", and then a wizard literally drops down from the sky and turns this into a Magical Academy book where the mean teacher is called Professor Worm.

I'm at 20% and I've almost quit this book 4 or 5 times.
Cliches, lazy tropes, Lines stolen from sitcoms, bizarre escalations, and scenes so out of place I was sure they were a dream sequence.
I can tell this guy watches a lot of TV

Change of Status
Good news / Bad news kinda' thing
As of Friday Oct 17 I will no longer have the truck driving job that allowed me to listen to audio books all day. This is going to seriously cut into the number of book I can read/ review going forward.

I still read in my spare time and every chance I get, but it wont be at work on the bosses dime anymore. To think this had to happen to me.

This guy is cynical crossing occasionally into nihilistic,
...but man can he write.
You will come across a phrase or passage that makes you catch your breath and want to run across the apartment and read it to your partner.

After reading volume 2 I realized I couldn't remember half of volume1, so I went back. I especially want to reread the story of the super villain as a fantasy world hero.

This is a book of short stories, almost novellas. The first one is giving me trouble. The premise is SO contrived that it just couldn't happen. And then the reactions of the NPCs is so unlikely that adds another layer. What could be an interesting character study / homecoming story is just author forced horseshit. The suspension of my disbelief is severely taxed.