Side stories are often easily ignored for me since they can't affect the main story and I'm not that fond of the silly what-if stories.

The side stories for Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear in the two .5 volumes aren't essential but are fun and something to read while waiting for the next "real" volume.

JNC's Realist Hero has some very good side stories that fill in little gaps in the main story that were skipped to keep the narrative moving smoothly. They're good enough that I re-bought the first few JNC volumes because I'd originally bought them from Amazon.

@endoftheline That's fair. The way the characters react in-universe led me to believe that the reveal was meant to be shocking, but maybe no readers on either side of the planet are actually surprised by most of them.

I liked how Sylphiette's reveal was handled in Mushoku Tensei. With careful writing and a disciplined narrative POV the narrator's confusion can become the reader's, and there is no need to hide the pronouns. By contrast, omniscient third person narrators just don't lend themselves to such surprises very well.

@YooS111

If you only want to buy one book, the simplest thing to do would be to sign up for a free account, then buy enough coins and purchase the book. Most light novels are 699 coins and most manga are 899 coins.

You can think of a coin as about 1 cent in US dollar currency.

However, if you want to get the best deal, I would recommend signing up for a Premium membership for one month. This adds complexity because you have to remember to cancel the membership at the end of the month if you do not wish to continue it. However each month of Premium includes 699 coins and a 15% discount on buying more coins. So you could sign up for a Premium membership, buy one book with the included coins, and be able to purchase more coins at a discount if you want to keep reading more volumes in a series.

A Premium membership would also let you read the catch-up series and the newly translated parts of ongoing series that are updated each week, so you can see if you like any of the other series beyond whichever series initially caught your interest. I have discovered several series that I enjoy this way.

J-Novel Club is an unusual publisher, in a good way. There's a bit of a learning curve to understand how it works, but I have been pleasantly surprised how thoughtful their design decisions have been, with regard to their business model and how they interact with readers.

We're waiting to see if the author is writing more books or not, so we can continue publishing 3-in-1 omnibus editions. As for other Slayers series, we don't comment on possible licenses before they're ready to be announced, so please check out our announcements when they occur to see what we have licensed.

@Perplexed, that’s exactly why I always look for it at J-Novel Club first whenever a novel piques my interest.

I finally 'made the leap'; I purchased a Meebook m7. I had some gift cards for the bezo's site so purchased there (used 'like new" for $159)

ticked a number of boxes for me:

runs Android o/s and supports the JNovel app eInk - so easy on the eyes and long battery life has a browser mechanical page buttons size of a paperback (roughly octavo) usb type-c charging/data (plus wifi/bluetooth) rated decently by sources I trust

just got it and am playing with it now - will post more once I've used it on the train a few times

@TrinaBear sorry, no, but maybe the more specific title will lure in someone who does, while keeping new catch-up readers safe.

I just read The Great Cleric because it was on catch-up, and it might be the most impressive example of falling off a cliff only to climb out of the hole I've personally encountered. It starts off as nothing special, but there are some fun characters and mysteries in the second and third volumes (the first is entirely a training arc), but in the fourth and fifth volumes literally every character besides the MC is ditched along with much of the plot up to that point in favour of a huge new cast that is barely introduced and random political shenanigans. The new characters are soooo boring and one-note. The earlier volumes introduce an obvious love interest and her friends who are actually interesting to have in the party, only for her to become irrelevant for multiple volumes for...no reason. And when this second arc is done, the new cast introduced to replace the old one is almost entirely left behind in favour of a mix of the old and new. I only pushed through to the end of volume 5 because it was free, though the finale was the start of a comeback.

It seems like the author realized his mistake at some point though because around volume 7 all the original characters and the permanent keeps from the second batch keep being relevant at regular intervals, but what saves the series is that the MC becomes a leader that is fun to watch in a crisis. Volumes 7 to 10 are easily the best of the series so far, and far better than the first three, but getting there is a tough sell.

On a positive note, it is the only isekai adventure series I've read so far where most of the regular cast is male. And while there are harem indications (I imagine the epilogue will consist in marrying at least 6 women), there are no harem antics, and one of the girls is clearly in focus.

I would also like to report that Full Clearing Another World Under a Goddess with Zero Believers is one of the rare consistent quality series, and to some extent it gets better as it goes. It's not nearly as good as Bookworm though, but it is good fun.

@LurkingMcLurk said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

@LurkingMcLurk said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

@LurkingMcLurk said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

@lurkingmclurk said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

@LurkingMcLurk said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

Today is (at least in my time zone) the one year anniversary of J-Novel Club releasing Part 1 Volume 1 (Part 1) and after just a year we are now at Part 2 Volume 3 (Part 9). Comparing to the web novel fan-translations, after one year they were at web novel chapter 40 which would be in the middle of Part 1 Volume 2.

And now (in my time zone) it's one day after the two year anniversary and they're at Part 3 Volume 5 (Part 5). Again comparing to the web novel fan-translations, after two years they were at web novel chapter 59 which would be about a third of the way into Part 1 Volume 3.

And now (as always, in my time zone) it's the three year anniversary and they're at Part 4 Volume 6 (Part 7). This is final time where I can compare to the original web novel fan-translations since the they ran for almost exactly three years themselves (2015-12-29-2018-12-24), at their endpoint they were at web novel chapter 96 which is about two thirds of the way into Part 2 Volume 1. The point of the comparison isn't to say that somebody doing it as their hobby is slower than somebody doing it as their job but rather to show just how good the last three years have been for English readers.
Another thing to point out is that in Japan Part 4 Volume 6 came out on 2019-03-09 so they're one release away from being where Japan was when the light novel was announced (ignoring auxiliary material).

Time sure flies. It's now the four year anniversary (in my time zone) and they're at Part 5 Volume 4 (Part 1). This time I'd like to show some four year old messages from the Discord server.
alt text
Note: Part 5 Volume 3 is book 24 of the main series.

You know the drill. It's the five year anniversary (in my time zone) and they're at Part 5 Volume 10 (Part 3) pre-pub wise, Part 5 Volume 8 eBook wise, and Part 5 Volume 2 physically. This time let’s look at two somewhat comparable light novel releases by Seven Seas and Yen Press (do keep in mind though that J-NC’s workflow is very different).

For Seven Seas we'll look at Mushoku Tensei. The light novel license was announced on 2018-07-08 but more importantly for the comparison they released volume 1 physically on 2019-05-21 (J-Novel Club released Part 1 Volume 1 digitally on 2019-05-20 and physically on 2019-09-03) and released volume 26 (Final) physically just this week (which would correspond to Part 5 Volume 5). If you're interested in the eBook release dates subtract about a month and a half.

For Yen Press we'll look at Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town. The light novel license was announced on 2019-03-29 and they're currently at volume 14 with volume 15 (Final) scheduled for 2024-07-23 (which would correspond to Part 4 Volume 2 and Part 4 Volume 3 respectively).

Note: Quof apparently began translating the light novel on 2019-01-27.

It's the six year anniversary (in my time zone) of J-Novel Club announcing the light novel license and they're at Hannlore's Fifth Year at the Royal Academy Volume 1 (Part 8) pre-pub wise, Part 5 Volume 12 eBook wise, and Part 5 Volume 8 physically. This time let’s look at where the Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese releases were six years after they released Part 1 Volume 1 (since these were the only languages that came out before the English release and I'm not going to search for their announcement dates).

Japanese: They released Part 1 Volume 1 on 2015-01-25 so its six year anniversary was 2021-01-25 at which point they had released Part 5 Volume 4 (2020-12-10), Fanbook 5 (2020-11-10), Short Story Collection 1 (2019-10-10), and Royal Academy Stories: First Year (2018-10-10).

Korean: They released Part 1 Volume 1 on 2016-08-11 so its six year anniversary was 2022-08-11 at which point they had released Part 5 Volume 2 (2022-07-08) and Fanbook 1 (2017-11-07)

Traditional Chinese: They released Part 1 Volume 1 on 2017-08-07 so its six year anniversary was 2023-08-07 at which point they had released Short Story Collection 2 (2023-07-31), Part 5 Volume 7 (2023-05-05), Fanbook 6 (2023-02-13), and Royal Academy Stories: First Year (2020-08-17).

English: They released Part Volume 1 on 2019-05-20 so its six year anniversary will be 2025-05-20 at which point they will have released Short Story Collection 2 (2025-01-22), Part 5 Volume 12 (2024-09-04), Fanbook 5 (2024-11-11), and Royal Academy Stories: First Year (2022-07-26).

This is an issue on Amazon's side, and JNC can't resolve it. You should contact them to get the right file, which you did. The store you buy something is who you need to contact if there's an issue with your purchase; if they need anything from us, they will contact us. And if they can't help you, you should absolutely request a refund.

Also, I would like to remind everyone that if you buy directly from our website, you get the premium bonus content, and you can also load your books onto any device you want without restriction, including your Kindle!

The standard response is here.

Volume 5 has been released in Japan, 9/25/2024.
That's after JNC did the initial license negotiations, so it'll be a newish discussion with Overlap (the Japanese publisher.)
JNC is very good about keeping a series going, but they very rarely say anything prior to announcing that pre-publication posting will commence.

@rajbha Because in Japan, that was the release order.

It took a few extra days for Amazon to add the digital edition, but 80,000 Gold volume 7 is now available there along with the other stores.

https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Another-World-Retirement-light-ebook/dp/B0DYWCJYVT

(Not a referral link - I cleaned the tracking stuff off the end)

Sadly Fruit and AWS are gone for now, but Hanashi is still releasing new LNs.

Yesterday's release was Observation Records of My Fiancée volume 2, which completes it. Volume 1 was a fun take on the otome game villainess genre where she's a sweet girl a bit like JNC's Lady Albert volume 1 where she's trying to be the villainess to give others their good ending. It's also all from the POV of the non-isekai prince she's tying to help.

@RobD Me too, one of my top 3 favourite LN series. I can't wait for the king-related shenanigans...