Get Away for the Summer with July Catchups!

Zeteni

I'll join the pile of folks recommending Min-Maxing my TRPG as it is in my top three series overall. Top quality prose, world building, characterization, and the only series where the fights are described so vividly that I have zero trouble creating an image of how they flow in my imagination. (That never happens.)

Great Cleric didn't resonate with me but I'm glad to have another shot at Sorcerer's Receptionist and with only three volumes it's not so daunting.

Zakrhune

@rsog412 Yeah. It wasn't just her. The sexual "tension" between the reincarnated MC that is mentally like 20 to 30 and the forever 12 year old is still creepy. Then other young characters being into the MC. Tired of reading about MCs that're basically 30 being into 15 year olds.

jpwong

Guess I can go ahead an re-read Sweet Reincarnation. I do really like it, but I've been a bit hesitant on the whole manga thing because google books doesn't really handle manga ebooks well.

MasterLillyclaw

Min-Maxing is one of several I fell behind on when I was busy for a bit, so I’m happy to have the chance to catch back up on it!

As for stuff I’ve read, I actually didn’t mind the slow pace of Great Cleric’s early volumes, but after volume 5 I wasn’t feeling how the plot had progressed… I do miss Luciel’s horse though ngl.

And Sorcerer’s Receptionist is one I really like a lot, I just find it very enjoyable haha. To give my usual spiel on it for those on the fence, “this isn't a story of one-sided bullying - it's mutual antagonism.”

GeorgeMTO

I do heavily recommend TRPG, but enough other people have commented on it that I want to make sure people don't just skip over the Sorcerer's Receptionist too. It's a fantastic 3 volume fantasy/romance series that has been complete for several years... also v4 begins prepubs later this week, so even if you read it before it might be a fun refresher. (author has been writing the sequel webnovel for years, but slowly, JP publisher has decided to just keep it in the same series it appears).

the green death

Thanks to everyone’s advice here I’m going to focus my time on TTRPG and Sorcerers Apprentice.

topgnu

I've gone through half of the first volume of The Sorcerer's Receptionist, and I find it - in a word - underpowered. There's the exceptionally good double scene of the MC leaving her room, once for school and once for work - but that's it. Everything else reads like superficial exposition.

Did I miss something? Someone set me straight if so.

kuali

@topgnu Several of the 'inconsequential' bits that show up in the first half of Volume 1 become more plot relevant in Volume 3. You've got a couple of books of mostly fluff to get through before they start to pay off, though.

Personally, I found the series pleasant enough, but unsatisfying.

spoiler

Travis Butler

@kuali said in Get Away for the Summer with July Catchups!:

@topgnu Several of the 'inconsequential' bits that show up in the first half of Volume 1 become more plot relevant in Volume 3. You've got a couple of books of mostly fluff to get through before they start to pay off, though.

I suppose it depends on what you call “fluff”. Like I said, one thing I like about the series is that it gives support roles some time in the limelight - it’s not just the front-line adventurers who are important, but also the people who evaluate requests and match them with the right teams. (Something I also liked about Middle-Aged Businessman, Arise in Another World!, though sadly it got shut down without a satisfying ending.)

Personally, I found the series pleasant enough, but unsatisfying.

spoiler

Same thing here, to a degree. Natalie isn’t a “faux” action girl, because her job isn’t being an action girl. Her dream was to be the receptionist she met as a child, the clever one who was competent and knew what was going on and had the right answer for all the adventurers who need an effective Mission Control. A problem solver, not an ass-kicker.

spoiler

Geezer Weasalopes

...And no one comments concerning Fantasy Inbound.
It's dark.
Really really dark.

And the snippet from the author's afterward to the first volume hits it on the nose; they told him their idea, he could tell precisely why everyone they pitched it at ran away screaming, figured he'd toss something back so esoterically off-the-wall and unmarketable that they'd ditch the entire idea...and they loved his proposal and hired him on the spot.
At which point he had to write the thing.

I finished the first volume.
I've purchased the rest, but not yet gotten around to reading them because your mind has to be in a very strange place to get into it, and my mind hasn't been there.
I think it's well written, and the translation team did a bang-up job with it.
But it's not for everyone, and even when into it...your mind needs to be in the proper headspace.

xdrfiredogx

I'm shocked at the apparent lack of love for Sweet Reincarnation.

It's a bit like AoaB in the sense that the series is actually way deeper than you'd expect from the premise. You'd expect that he spends most of his time trying to bake and convince others to try new foods, ala Cooking with Wild Game but it's actually got a lot of politics and world building going on. Not just figuratively but also literally... a big part of the series is he and his father having to figure out how to settle and develop this barren area they have been given for a settlement, to accomplish his dream of building a land of sweets. And then on top of that you add on some magic and fighting for good measure.

It does help that he was born into this world and is very attached to his family and this world here, not his old world and whatever family he had there. Him being reincarnated also gives him knowledge, but doesn't actually make him OP in any usual way.

Oh, and did I mention that our adorable little baker is named Pastry Morteln? His father is Lord Casserole Morteln, of course, and along the way he meets the equally adorable Lady Licorice.

Seriously, half the name in the series are food puns! 😁

topgnu

@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Get Away for the Summer with July Catchups!:

And no one comments concerning Fantasy Inbound.

I'll bite. I opened it, saw mechas, I did a 180 degrees. End of story.

saidahgilbert

@Geezer-Weasalopes The synopsis just feels too grim dark for me to try. I just finished the latest Monster Tamer volume so my quota for grim dark is full. I can only handle one grimdark series at a time and Monster Tamer is still ongoing so...

Geezer Weasalopes

@saidahgilbert said in Get Away for the Summer with July Catchups!:

@Geezer-Weasalopes The synopsis just feels too grim dark for me to try. I just finished the latest Monster Tamer volume so my quota for grim dark is full. I can only handle one grimdark series at a time and Monster Tamer is still ongoing so...

Monster Tamer?
That's not grimdark.
Not compared to Fantasy Inbound at least.

Your instincts are good.

HarmlessDave

@Geezer-Weasalopes I tried reading Fantasy Inbound when it was first streaming, and it was too dark for me.

It was well written, unlike for example the dumpster fire that Oversummoned turned into, just not the kind of story I enjoy,

the green death

This post is deleted!

anony-mouse99

Didn’t seriously look at Sorceror’s Receptionist previously, but thanks to some encouraging comments I decided to give it a try.

I found it surprisingly charming. Despite the dorkiness of the FMC, it still a fun and sweet story. There’s even a Cinderella scene in the first book, complete with glass slippers, though subverted. I’m glad to have given it a chance.

saidahgilbert

So I read The Sorcerer's Receptionist in a couple days and I feel about it the same way I feel about The White Cat's Revenge. They both feature romance tropes that I don't really care for.
Next, I tried Min-Maxing My TRPG Build. I was going to quit after volume 1 but the forums were full of background information that I really needed so I may continue for another couple of volumes. From reading this book, I am now more informed of the differences between TRPG and MMORPG. I used to think that they were basically the same thing but one was played on the computer and the other with pen and paper. However, it seems to be a bit more involved than that. I can follow along with worlds based on (MMO)RPGs but TRPG-worlds needed more background information that I didn't have and the book didn't really go too much in depth on that topic (probably because they assumed that people either knew about it because they were gamers or that TRPGs were part of the cultural zeitgeist and therefore common knowledge).

Zeteni

@saidahgilbert You'll find that as the series continues the TRPG terminology becomes less and less important and that aspect fades a bit more into the background. It never goes away entirely but it's nothing like that first volume.

saidahgilbert

@Zeteni Thanks for telling me.