ussri.substack.com
Well, this is just about exactly what it says on the tin. I've finally mustered up the energy to write a full-length review of what's a plausible contender for my Favourite Novel Ever, Reverend Insanity. I'd reproduce it here too, but it's a better reading experience on Substack (let's ignore the shameless self-promotion, and the fact that I can't be arsed to re-do the markdown tags)
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Notes -
I assume the "Gu" in the setting refers to this staple chuuni (pardon me, zhong er) trope? Between this, the trope, and random "eating your enemies' liver" lore that occasionally gets immanentized under extreme circumstances, it really seems like the Highlander worldview has been in the Chinese memetic water supply for a long time. Is this story actually unique in having such an outlook, or do you just figure it's the best example of a larger genre?
I had learned later that "Gu" apparently represents various forbidden and reprehensible techniques in many xianxia novels. Given that, it makes sense that the author of RI basically wrote "Murderfuck Setting". It's as if a Western fantasy book had its main magic system be referred to as "Satanism" by everyone in-universe.
That's what the One Ring is (and to a lesser extent the other rings are) in "The Lord of the Rings". It's not the One Weird Trick you think will bring you power and victory, it will hollow you out because in the end it only has one true master. This guy is trying to be Sauron, and even if he gets what he wants, it may not be how he thinks it will be - the greatest deception is self-deception, 'I got everything I wanted without having to pay the price' (ignore the mountain of skulls, ignore that I have lost my fair form and can never go back). Ring-making is a dangerous art and will exact the highest price.
...is it though? The elven rings seem to be simply useful; there's no risk there.
And Gandalf seems to have let Bilbo run around with what he thought was a simple "magic ring" for about a hundred years, before he got suspicious that it was actually the One Ring.
The elven rings were not corrupted by Sauron, but their own risk was the tendency of the Elves to want to hold back time so they could recreate the immortal conditions of Valinor in Middle-earth (to have their cake and eat it, as it were). They did comparatively little damage because they were mostly around under war conditions, so first hidden and not used openly until Sauron's first defeat, and then used defensively against him. But if they had been used from the start as Celebrimbor hoped, the Elves would have fallen into that trap of trying to be little gods in their own realm.
Gandalf didn't think much of Bilbo's ring, although he was somewhat suspicious of it, because it didn't seem to affect Bilbo badly and he never imagined that this was or could be the One Ring that everyone had been searching for since Isildur's death. There were a lot of lesser 'magic rings', apparently, because everyone including mortals tried their hand at creating magical items, but how much power any of them could have would have been limited.
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