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self_made_human  Grippy socks, grippy box  1mo ago (ussri.substack.com)   2541 thread views

Pokémon for Unrepentant Sociopaths: A Review of Reverend Insanity

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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I enjoyed your review, but it doesn't change my opinion. I think our tastes are pretty fundamentally different. I don't want a story that goes on and on forever. I want an arc, a climax, and a resolution. I also actually care about prose, and maybe it's because the translation is subpar, but I found reading Reverend Insanity to be painful. Like fanfic-level bad.

Your review, I admit, does certainly make it sound intriguing and if I hadn't already given it a shot I would definitely go try it out now. But the other problem is that while I don't need "sympathetic" or "relatable" protagonists, I probably wouldn't enjoy hundreds of pages of reading how an amoral asshole will fuck over the next person in his way.

I keep trying progression fantasies and Wuxia novels, and the bar just seems to be very low in general.

Have you enjoyed any progression fantasy or wuxia novels?

I really like the genre but I bounce off of some stories real hard. Reverend Insanity is one that I could see recommended a thousand times and on the thousand and first time I'd still say "Our tastes are just different and I won't like that novel." I'm not even willing to give it a shot and try reading it.

If I see we have any overlapping preferences I might be able to recommend stuff.

So far, nothing has really clicked with me I've tried Reverend Insanity, Cradle, Worth the Candle, and a few others.

None of those stories clicked with me either. Though usually cradle and worth the candle get people.

I'd second the Mother of Learning recommendation that wayfarer suggested. If you bounce off that as well then the genre just isn't something I think you'll enjoy.

But if you want tighter storytelling and more of the arc story completion then maybe The Perfect Run might be a better entry point.

Have you tried Mother of Learning?

No, I have heard it often recommended but haven't tried it yet.

Then I am recommending it :)

I have deep allergy to I think nearly all aspects of wuxia :) So for that I will not even ask for recs.

But do you have some recommendations for completed progression fantasy story with sympathetic protagonist? Or at least one that does not deserve immediate execution?

I liked MOL and I think it qualifies of progression fantasy.

Mother of Learning is usually my first recommendation, if someone doesn't like it then I just tell them the genre is not for them.

Sympathetic protagonist my favorite might be Ar'Kendrithyst. Its an incredibly long story, but it is complete! The protagonist and his daughter get pulled into another world with a system that has stats and skills and leveling up. The protagonist is a bleeding heart liberal in the best sense of that term. He is a kind man that cares about others and for a long time has reservations about even killing monsters (the monsters in the setting are generally totally unsympathetic, they are either straight up evil, or amoral killing machines). He genuinely wants to make the world a better place for everyone, and the story is about how he accomplishes that getting over increasingly large obstacles. Main reason it might not be for you (or anyone really) is that the protagonist is bisexual. No graphic sex scenes, and its not very shoved in the face, but its present.

Any other aspects of MOL you liked? I've read like 200-300 stories in this genre, and about 20-30 of them are ones i might recommend for various reasons. That hit rate sounds terrible I guess, but lots of mid stories that just have better versions of them out there.

Any other aspects of MOL you liked?

hmm, what I remember now, after reading it few years ago...

  • worldbuilding that was not aggressive stupid (I have a high bar here)
  • government etc as depicted in story was not bunch of incompetent clowns and story was written by someone not detached from reality
  • various nuggets like magicians overclassifying their spells for prestige regions making them unavailable for beginners
  • opponents that were not huffing idiot balls and were opponents not speed bumps. Unlike half of stories on RR ads where "OP protagonist" is mentioned like it would be a good thing
  • Kirielle, Kael and others - and that time loop actually resulted in building relation with at least some (especially with his sister and brother)
  • Xvim and Alanic were cool
  • progression, going for example from "Zach simply erected an aegis – a freaking aegis!" to "It was just a simple force aegis, nothing fancy"
  • time travel
  • ending was well done
  • nonevil church
  • the spiders

I felt that part when Silverlake was very prominent was dragging on and if I would be editor I would trim it. Some parts felt repetitive in uninteresting ways, especially multiple webs. I would also drop entirety of dungeon delving. Felt a bit of serial story disease (they had Patreon, right?).

But I would love to read more a bit about what happened after exiting time loop. For many stories I feel they end too soon, and I would cut middle to get more of ending.

Main reason it might not be for you (or anyone really) is that the protagonist is bisexual.

I guess that depends on how it appears. If narration is going in detail over alluring penises/anuses then yes, it is likely going to be a blocker for me. If he is just having kind of relations that would make pope sad it is not a problem, if it is not taking over the story. Though yes, I have lower tolerance to homosexual romance as it is not sexy at all to me. For example if there would be MOL story about Zach using initial time loops to seduce various women in academy (there was a throwaway mention of this) then maybe I would read it.

No graphical sex depictions in arkendriyhthrist. More of a fade to black style. Arks has a lot of middle but also a lot of ending. Honestly they could have stopped before writing either of the last two books and it would have felt complete.

The world building is top notch in arks, autist levels of details and background. The story probably drags a bit too much because of the level of details provided. So that might be a plus or minus depending on your preferences.

The church of most of the gods are good. There is a god of magic that is a little crazy and not good.

Protagonist is not OP in the story for at least the first 5000-10000 pages.

Governments vary quite a bit. Some are basically third world shit hole tier levels of incompetent and evil. Others are highly competently run by millenia old metal life forms.

On mobile so I can't dig up the specific stories.

The Perfect Run has a time loop aspect, superheroes setting, main protagonist has a save point he can set. It's complete and doesn't faf around as much.

Millennial mage is filled with likeable characters and nice humans.

OP characters are admittedly very common and that is short circuiting a lot of my recommendations.

OP characters are admittedly very common and that is short circuiting a lot of my recommendations.

it is not a strict blocker for me, just that some sort of conflict is needed (maybe it is foregone conclusion that OP character will win - but they want to achieve also secondary goals?)

Ar'kendrythist handles power scaling better in the first few books, where there's not merely charged conflict but the protagonist being a pretty severe underdog. Even well after that, there's always a bigger fish until (arguably) the back half of the last book, and that's the point where the protagonist dying stops mattering and what the villain could do to everybody else becomes more important.

While it's still a little obnoxiously progressive-in-the-inevitability sense even by my standards, that works out pretty well for keeping the tension high; what fixing a wasteland of slavery and infighting even looks like is a more interesting question than who's power is more maximum and can blow up a city (though that happens a lot too). The author's also willing to kick out legs under the protagonist often enough that even some situations where it seems like they should be certain to win, a problem will show up and whatever the heroes built collapse. Never quite to the point of being unfair, though it gets a little close at times.

I've read like 200-300 stories in this genre,

How the fuck! So many of them are so damn long.

I read quickly and nearly constantly, so that helps. Also its been 8 years since I started reading this genre. 25-30 stories a year isn't a hard number to hit. I've also dropped many long stories, I don't feel compelled to finish anything I've started, and if I read 200 pages of a 1000 page story I still consider myself to have "read" it.

and if I read 200 pages of a 1000 page story I still consider myself to have "read" it.

That is fair, would do it, and at the same time is antithetical to me haha.

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