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sentry's reviews
150 reviews
The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
Amnesiac stories feel like a cop out, they don't do anything for me.
Iron Prince by Luke Chmilenko, Bryce O'Connor
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This was such an easy and enjoyable read. A new fav. Reading it was like candy. Each event, each character had a place and purpose. You understood most everyone's motivations and their actions made sense.
Military sci-fis aren't usually my speed, but everything felt well thought out. I would say this is in the middle of hard/soft sci-fi as it attempts to root the technology a bit in realism, but still has a bit of handwavy in some of the tech.
Multiple times while I was reading, I felt myself rooting for the MC.
The pace is on the slower side, sometimes weeks pass at the start of a chapter, but the story itself is slow.
This book is good if you enjoy battle shonen anime, Red Rising by Pierce Brown, or progression fantasy/litrpg, I highly recommend this one.
Military sci-fis aren't usually my speed, but everything felt well thought out. I would say this is in the middle of hard/soft sci-fi as it attempts to root the technology a bit in realism, but still has a bit of handwavy in some of the tech.
Multiple times while I was reading, I felt myself rooting for the MC.
The pace is on the slower side, sometimes weeks pass at the start of a chapter, but the story itself is slow.
This book is good if you enjoy battle shonen anime, Red Rising by Pierce Brown, or progression fantasy/litrpg, I highly recommend this one.
Heretical Fishing by Haylock Jobson
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
5.0
"Heretical Fishing" by Haylock Jobson (the pen name of Heath Miller) is exactly what I seek in an isekai/portal fiction: a perfect blend of self-awareness, references, humor, and progressive gamelit themes. Although cultivation books aren't typically my preference, Miller skillfully intertwines them with gamelit and progressive fantasy elements in this compelling narrative.
The world-building is enigmatic, and the diverse cast of characters leaves a lasting impression.
A joke could be made about the dialogue that this is just what happens when an Australian leaves Australia, rather than being transported to another world.
The story unfolds at a deliberate pace, with each scene serving a purpose and seamlessly leading to the next. The protagonist's goals are evident from the outset, evoking a strong sense of empathy and support from the reader.
"Heretical Fishing" shares thematic similarities with Kung-fu Panda, and the main character kind of shares similarities from Saitama from One Punch Man, or Montana from "The Good Guys" by Eric Ugland.
Recommended for fans of "He Who Fights With Monsters," this book offers a captivating journey that balances humor, action, and character development with finesse.
The world-building is enigmatic, and the diverse cast of characters leaves a lasting impression.
A joke could be made about the dialogue that this is just what happens when an Australian leaves Australia, rather than being transported to another world.
The story unfolds at a deliberate pace, with each scene serving a purpose and seamlessly leading to the next. The protagonist's goals are evident from the outset, evoking a strong sense of empathy and support from the reader.
"Heretical Fishing" shares thematic similarities with Kung-fu Panda, and the main character kind of shares similarities from Saitama from One Punch Man, or Montana from "The Good Guys" by Eric Ugland.
Recommended for fans of "He Who Fights With Monsters," this book offers a captivating journey that balances humor, action, and character development with finesse.
Jackal among Snakes by Nemorosus
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, Child abuse, and War
Welcome to Blade's Rest by Tom Watts
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
Fun start to a slice of life litrpg settlement builder. If you're looking for something chill with low/no stakes, this isn't a bad pallet cleanser.
Well written characters and dialogue, this is a story where the OP, high level players aren't the focus. There's no major world ending conflict. The only things our characters need to worry about are local monsters. This story has building, crafting, and town management.
I don't know if I'll remember this book in 10 years, but I don't think it was written to be anything more than some nice little escapism.
If you liked the first 20%-30% of Jake's Magical Market by JR Matthews, you'll probably like this book.
Well written characters and dialogue, this is a story where the OP, high level players aren't the focus. There's no major world ending conflict. The only things our characters need to worry about are local monsters. This story has building, crafting, and town management.
I don't know if I'll remember this book in 10 years, but I don't think it was written to be anything more than some nice little escapism.
If you liked the first 20%-30% of Jake's Magical Market by JR Matthews, you'll probably like this book.
Antimage by Alexander Olson
Review contains various spoilers.
Pros
The author did a lot of research to make Nathan feel intelligent. I usually don't like stories that put a huge focus on how smart a character is since it tends to be harder for me to enjoy for a couple reasons.
1) prone to author making mistakes & unable to future-proof, things that seem smart today might be wrong in 5 years.
2) their interactions and comparisons with other characters - whether it's tropey, a poorly written low eq/high iq, or simply dumbing down all the other characters to prop up the smart one
But Alexander Olson did a good job balancing Nathan's intellect and researching things for this story. Olson must have some sort of background in academia because Nathan mentions small aspects and things about grad school life that I've only learned about/experienced from having a partner complete a PhD.
The main character would often, but briefly, go into more complex scientific, mathematic, and technical knowledge, which I enjoyed. It only felt forced once or twice,(name dropping for seemingly no reason) but to be honest it was easy to ignore. The whole premise of how he uses his intellect to grow and adapt to this new world is well done and happens at an enjoyable and believable pace. Helping a mage with electricity magic by teaching then having them derive the complex mathematics behind how electricity works, for instance, was fun and was an element of something I don't see very often in portal fantasy/isekai stories. I'm a big fan of the Earth knowledge conversion aspect that this story's foundation is built on and I think it does it extremely well.
The main plot/narrative itself was somewhat simple and so were character goals, but it works with in this fun story. An evil wizard pisses off the MC so much he makes it his life mission to destroy that wizards country/city. (world building note: the reader doesn't learn much about the world outside his new home city, it's kept pretty vague how large things are in general which is pretty neat. I think the mystique works well for a portal fantasy, though I hope future entries in the series open things up a bit more.)
The cast of chatacters was large (too large at times, but I'll get to that below) and had lots of pretty memorable moments.
Nathan's motivation drives most of the story. Halfway through the story he decides to make this world his new home and I think that decision and a few others are really good character defining traits.
Mehs:
The pacing was good, a bit wonky at times. Sometimes it's moment to moment. Sometimes days go by without anything happening.
Besides one breif but entertaining kidnapping attempt, Giants Rest was a non factor all book which I was a bit disappointing.
(actually side note here, the team that took the job essentially broke the oath and were exiled, but the why was pretty meh. Were they given a big paycheck? I think it said they wanted access to hunt/adventure near Giants Rest? That was it? Was their team human? What was the point of their team making that choice?)
Nathan doesn't really have any flaws. He's a good guy and wants to do good. He comes across as sort of a boring self-insert at times.
Nathan's relationships are all boring. I'm not one to complain about lack of steam, but in general besides a few passing mentions of other people being attractive, there are literally no interesting new relationships that form.
Cons:
Some side characters didn't get enough love, besides Nathan, I can't really remember many details about the other characters in the story. A few characters stuck out to me and had somewhat good characterization like the main antagonist being a racist high intelligence low wisdom archmage, the old crone enchanter, some of his teammates, or the leader of the adventuring guild, but others we don't really get enough time with and they kind of muddle the story. If we met a character we got a basic initial description of them, but after that I couldn't really tell you who was who or what they looked like. A lot of side characters almost felt like they were expositive overload, like Olson was just trying to build the cast/world out too fast.
Ending was okay, I think ending with the oath being sworn was good and impactful. But to be honest, the politics of the city were so anti-climactic. The dual, which Nathan was trying to convince others that it was barbaric in the first place, was short and one-sided. The warring politics just fell a bit flat unfortunately. I didn't know anything about the challengers.
Nathan himself calls them petty squabbles at the start of the confrontation and my two cents are that I just don't think the two sides were built up enough. I didn't really know who was who going into the dual. The initial introduction between the two sides were good, the progressive current leadership vs traditionalists. But it kind of fell by the wayside. It was mentioned why the two sides disagreed at one point and it boiled down to "Oh well our city adventurers are the cream-of-the-crop, why should we waste resources on stinky village adventurers." just comically dumb or maybe selfish characters when violence is everywhere in this world.
My opinion is that the main focus of the story should have been kept on implementing Earth knowledge and technology to combat Giant's Rest and keeping the city and surrounding villages safe.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Review contains various spoilers.
Pros
The author did a lot of research to make Nathan feel intelligent. I usually don't like stories that put a huge focus on how smart a character is since it tends to be harder for me to enjoy for a couple reasons.
1) prone to author making mistakes & unable to future-proof, things that seem smart today might be wrong in 5 years.
2) their interactions and comparisons with other characters - whether it's tropey, a poorly written low eq/high iq, or simply dumbing down all the other characters to prop up the smart one
But Alexander Olson did a good job balancing Nathan's intellect and researching things for this story. Olson must have some sort of background in academia because Nathan mentions small aspects and things about grad school life that I've only learned about/experienced from having a partner complete a PhD.
The main character would often, but briefly, go into more complex scientific, mathematic, and technical knowledge, which I enjoyed. It only felt forced once or twice,(name dropping for seemingly no reason) but to be honest it was easy to ignore. The whole premise of how he uses his intellect to grow and adapt to this new world is well done and happens at an enjoyable and believable pace. Helping a mage with electricity magic by teaching then having them derive the complex mathematics behind how electricity works, for instance, was fun and was an element of something I don't see very often in portal fantasy/isekai stories. I'm a big fan of the Earth knowledge conversion aspect that this story's foundation is built on and I think it does it extremely well.
The main plot/narrative itself was somewhat simple and so were character goals, but it works with in this fun story. An evil wizard pisses off the MC so much he makes it his life mission to destroy that wizards country/city. (world building note: the reader doesn't learn much about the world outside his new home city, it's kept pretty vague how large things are in general which is pretty neat. I think the mystique works well for a portal fantasy, though I hope future entries in the series open things up a bit more.)
The cast of chatacters was large (too large at times, but I'll get to that below) and had lots of pretty memorable moments.
Nathan's motivation drives most of the story. Halfway through the story he decides to make this world his new home and I think that decision and a few others are really good character defining traits.
Mehs:
The pacing was good, a bit wonky at times. Sometimes it's moment to moment. Sometimes days go by without anything happening.
Besides one breif but entertaining kidnapping attempt, Giants Rest was a non factor all book which I was a bit disappointing.
(actually side note here, the team that took the job essentially broke the oath and were exiled, but the why was pretty meh. Were they given a big paycheck? I think it said they wanted access to hunt/adventure near Giants Rest? That was it? Was their team human? What was the point of their team making that choice?)
Nathan doesn't really have any flaws. He's a good guy and wants to do good. He comes across as sort of a boring self-insert at times.
Nathan's relationships are all boring. I'm not one to complain about lack of steam, but in general besides a few passing mentions of other people being attractive, there are literally no interesting new relationships that form.
Cons:
Some side characters didn't get enough love, besides Nathan, I can't really remember many details about the other characters in the story. A few characters stuck out to me and had somewhat good characterization like the main antagonist being a racist high intelligence low wisdom archmage, the old crone enchanter, some of his teammates, or the leader of the adventuring guild, but others we don't really get enough time with and they kind of muddle the story. If we met a character we got a basic initial description of them, but after that I couldn't really tell you who was who or what they looked like. A lot of side characters almost felt like they were expositive overload, like Olson was just trying to build the cast/world out too fast.
Ending was okay, I think ending with the oath being sworn was good and impactful. But to be honest, the politics of the city were so anti-climactic. The dual, which Nathan was trying to convince others that it was barbaric in the first place, was short and one-sided. The warring politics just fell a bit flat unfortunately. I didn't know anything about the challengers.
Nathan himself calls them petty squabbles at the start of the confrontation and my two cents are that I just don't think the two sides were built up enough. I didn't really know who was who going into the dual. The initial introduction between the two sides were good, the progressive current leadership vs traditionalists. But it kind of fell by the wayside. It was mentioned why the two sides disagreed at one point and it boiled down to "Oh well our city adventurers are the cream-of-the-crop, why should we waste resources on stinky village adventurers." just comically dumb or maybe selfish characters when violence is everywhere in this world.
My opinion is that the main focus of the story should have been kept on implementing Earth knowledge and technology to combat Giant's Rest and keeping the city and surrounding villages safe.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Confinement and Violence
Minor: Racism and Xenophobia
Minute Mage by Reg Rome
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.75
Pretty fast pace book when things get going they don't really stop.
This book poses a pretty interesting philosophical question!essentially it's one big trolley problem, how many deaths is the life of one person worth?
Decent plot, a lot of scenes were predictable but that's not necessarily bad. There were a couple twists that I felt a bit unsure about. (mentioned later)
Biggest gripe:
The class restricted gear is a bit lame. I'm not a fan of system restrictions that don't really make sense. Each character has stats that they allocate, shouldn't melee geared classes who purposefully allocate any excess points in physical stats contribute to weapon/class strength be enough? But you put a lame restriction like "ope, I'm a mage, can't hold a sword in my hand anymore" - just doesn't sit right with me. I overlooked it, but when it came up multiple times it kept irking me. randomly while he's running for his life from a scorpion there's a scene where you learn "Oh! there are weapons that mage classes can use, they just needs to be enchanted" Okay... So... Why doesnt the main character focus on getting a weapon early on before the events start rolling? I get his primary attack spell is a grapple, but it just doesn't make much sense for a character who spent all his time training to be a swordsmen, to not prioritize trying to get a weapon he's most comfortable with. It's even reiterated later in the story multiple times when he goes up against melee classes he can easily keep up with them and dodge their strikes albeit due to high phys stats but also the author mentions his background training more than once.
Time traveling in books are hard to do right. This one does it okay, I think since it's in the forefront of your mind as you read the story it can take some of the stress from situations that 100% should be stressful. It does go the other way adding to stressful situations if he's out of resets, but I'm just not sure it's worth it each time. Especially because it's so shoehorned in whether or not it's past midnight each time something stressful is about to start.
MC is inexperienced and is still learning what he can do. He's pretty nicely written and I can tell the author put a bit of thought in the skill paths and how his chosen skills will affect the story.
He takes risks a lot which is good and bad in this story. It doesn't work well sometimes, you don't really feel any tension because you know the risk he takes will turn out completely fine thanks to time travel.
The survival scenes in the first fourth of the book did a good job of making the reader feel lost in the woods right along side the MC. Helps we know absolutely nothing about the world yet and are slowly dripped setting info.
I actually really liked the pace that the author took with exposition and telling us about the world. The MC was pretty clueless from a small village so learning about the world felt natural along side him. He learns mostly about things from his love interest and dialogue mostly felt pretty good thoughout.
Author had some interesting world building and made the world extremely dangerous, it's also mind boggling how people are able to even live safely behind walls. Anyone who is unclassed is either unlucky or insane.
Theinvasion felt extremely but also comically evil. And I'm interested in the author exploring more about how beuracracy and middle management is the true enemy lol. The main antagonist demon picking up human habits was an interesting move, if that's leading to something I'd say good minor character development there. Overworked and underappreciated gets intense when it happens to demons
Last of my rambling thoughts is on the characters themselves. This first book only really focuses on 4 characters. The group of 3 and the demon antagonist. All the others don't really get much attention on them. I thought the knight captain would was set up to be a way to build out a new character and a vehicle to explore the capitol city and the politics of this kingdom. But nope.in a interesting twist, that I'm not really a fan of, the captain and most of her squad is unceremoniously killed off, almost as a after thought. A bit meh, since there are so few characters in this story that we learn about or should care about.
All in all a decentish time travel litrpg that has me wondering if he'll be able to bring others through time with him, or perhaps just the whole timeline will be reset when/if the MC gets strong enough to go back further in time.
This book poses a pretty interesting philosophical question!
Decent plot, a lot of scenes were predictable but that's not necessarily bad. There were a couple twists that I felt a bit unsure about. (mentioned later)
Biggest gripe:
The class restricted gear is a bit lame. I'm not a fan of system restrictions that don't really make sense. Each character has stats that they allocate, shouldn't melee geared classes who purposefully allocate any excess points in physical stats contribute to weapon/class strength be enough? But you put a lame restriction like "ope, I'm a mage, can't hold a sword in my hand anymore" - just doesn't sit right with me. I overlooked it, but when it came up multiple times it kept irking me. randomly while he's running for his life from a scorpion there's a scene where you learn "Oh! there are weapons that mage classes can use, they just needs to be enchanted" Okay... So... Why doesnt the main character focus on getting a weapon early on before the events start rolling? I get his primary attack spell is a grapple, but it just doesn't make much sense for a character who spent all his time training to be a swordsmen, to not prioritize trying to get a weapon he's most comfortable with. It's even reiterated later in the story multiple times when he goes up against melee classes he can easily keep up with them and dodge their strikes albeit due to high phys stats but also the author mentions his background training more than once.
Time traveling in books are hard to do right. This one does it okay, I think since it's in the forefront of your mind as you read the story it can take some of the stress from situations that 100% should be stressful. It does go the other way adding to stressful situations if he's out of resets, but I'm just not sure it's worth it each time. Especially because it's so shoehorned in whether or not it's past midnight each time something stressful is about to start.
MC is inexperienced and is still learning what he can do. He's pretty nicely written and I can tell the author put a bit of thought in the skill paths and how his chosen skills will affect the story.
He takes risks a lot which is good and bad in this story. It doesn't work well sometimes, you don't really feel any tension because you know the risk he takes will turn out completely fine thanks to time travel.
The survival scenes in the first fourth of the book did a good job of making the reader feel lost in the woods right along side the MC. Helps we know absolutely nothing about the world yet and are slowly dripped setting info.
I actually really liked the pace that the author took with exposition and telling us about the world. The MC was pretty clueless from a small village so learning about the world felt natural along side him. He learns mostly about things from his love interest and dialogue mostly felt pretty good thoughout.
Author had some interesting world building and made the world extremely dangerous, it's also mind boggling how people are able to even live safely behind walls. Anyone who is unclassed is either unlucky or insane.
The
Last of my rambling thoughts is on the characters themselves. This first book only really focuses on 4 characters. The group of 3 and the demon antagonist. All the others don't really get much attention on them. I thought the knight captain would was set up to be a way to build out a new character and a vehicle to explore the capitol city and the politics of this kingdom. But nope.
All in all a decentish time travel litrpg that has me wondering if he'll be able to bring others through time with him, or perhaps just the whole timeline will be reset when/if the MC gets strong enough to go back further in time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Gore
Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Induction by Sean Oswald
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.75
System apocalypses are always entertaining, and this one is no different. Scratches that system apocalypse itch really well.
This first book seems to set up multiple antagonists in future books, eager to see where Oswald takes this world.
Side characters all felt very realistic and believable.
Scene, character, and action descriptions were all excellent. Felt like I was playing in a D&D game at times with how some of the descriptions painted the scene for me.
Simple, but entertaining and easy to follow plot and decent litrpg progression scale. We've seen hints of what stronger things are out there without giving much away. Does a good job with the world building as well, giving a good tease of what's to come for the series.
Feels like the mc couldbe using his epic upgrading inventory skill a bit more , but perhaps it will come up later.
This first book seems to set up multiple antagonists in future books, eager to see where Oswald takes this world.
Side characters all felt very realistic and believable.
Scene, character, and action descriptions were all excellent. Felt like I was playing in a D&D game at times with how some of the descriptions painted the scene for me.
Simple, but entertaining and easy to follow plot and decent litrpg progression scale. We've seen hints of what stronger things are out there without giving much away. Does a good job with the world building as well, giving a good tease of what's to come for the series.
Feels like the mc could