u/morningstarsubaru

I’m back after 6 weeks because I had to wait for my audible subscription to give me two new credits, and it was about two weeks for each book.

I had so much more fun with this saga than the first one. The stage had finally been set in a way where consequences have become real and danger is starting to show up in a way that feels slightly more tangible.

Gerling is a great arc. Having already seen one of his powers in the past, you quickly realize how dangerous one of his powers will become if it’s wielded by the wrong individual. The three deaths attributed to him were what needed to happen for Jason to stop acting invincible and realize the weight of his own decisions.

Having said that, “I’m going to sleep with your wife and raise your children. They’re all going to call me daddy.” Is probably the most savage line that had me in stitches in the context to the scene.

I’m glad I’ve stuck with the series. I told my wife that the scene where “I’ve learned one of Jason’s secrets” in the territory grab was the first time I experienced a “holy crap” moment in the 6 books, and then spent thirty minutes trying to explain the entire series to her to give the context to why him knowing that secret was crucial.

All in all, I’m committed. Some of you told me to bite the bullet, and with the sale that just went on I simply bought the remaining six books and used my last credit to preorder book 13. I think with my pacing, I should be finishing up the whole series as the newest book is released.

Onward, to the next arc.

I had an unexpected solo road trip that gave me 18 hours alone in the car, so I finished book 4 a lot sooner than I anticipated.

And now I’m pissed.

If I would have had my normal pacing, my new audible credits would post to the account. Now, I have to wait 11 days before I can start book 5.

Book 4 is so much more of the story I was hoping to get out of this series. Right when I was starting to get bored, the entire story shifted in a way that changed the power dynamic of the characters in play, added weight to decisions, and finally got me invested in Jason as a protagonist.

Best non spoiler-y takeaways -

Taika is my favorite new character bro.

The Thanos helicopter is the most petty prank possible and I’m here for it.

The drunk scene with Dawn made me laugh out loud.

Amy finding out about all the things she will never see was brutally justified.

The lemonade recipe is at the end of chapter 36. I hope there are more to come.

Now I have to figure out what to listen to over the next two weeks while I wait for my audible credits to post.

Alright. For those of you who wanted me to get through the first arch, I’ve made it.

The story is finally taking shape. I have the players, I have the world, I have the overarching idea of what’s going on, and now (thanks to the epilogue) I have a small amount of intrigue on how things are connected.

For the person who said my comment on Thadwick made them laugh, I see that I didn’t need to wait very long to find out what you were talking about. Although, even with everything that happened with the vessel, I continue to stand by my statement, “I wonder what will become of Thadwick”

I’m still having a hard time being emotionally connected to the characters. Jason’s final sequence in the book seemed so…passionless. Like it was over and done with and we moved on, and I never really got a sense of emotional inertia from the rest of the team. Maybe it’s the writing style that doesn’t allow the readers to sit in the moment, maybe it’s the narrator for lacking an emphasis on emotion, maybe I’m just simply missing it. Regardless, this is my biggest struggle with the series so far.

Coming back to the DCC comparison that started these posts, I feel like the first person perspective allows me to embody the protagonist and feel what they feel, while the third person of HWFWM only allows me to view the story from a recording crystal.

I’m hopeful that the next story arch moves me, now that the character and world development has been laid out. I was excited to read so much in reviews about the tragedies and emotional baggage carried by characters, but I just haven’t found it relatable to a point that I care about any of it.

All of this to say, book 4 is downloaded and I’ll check back in two weeks.

11 days later, and I’ve finished the second installment of HWFWM.

Again, from the last posts I’ve made, I’m going to try and not be spoiler-y if there are other DCC converts coming for the ride or anyone new to the series that simply hasn’t read it yet.

First off - I really hope you all aren’t in on a big joke where you tell me the story is going to get better, and I have to sit through a bunch of non consequential filler to get to it. Book 2 seems to be ENTIRELY set up for future stories, and even though it was hours shorter than the first audiobook, it took me a couple extra days to get through it because it wasn’t pulling me as hard as the first book did. Having said that, I can recognize that meeting Shade and then again later being reintroduced to Shade adds a bit of heft to that character. Understanding the flask is a growth item while having a whole book bragging about what its later variation looks like adds heft to that item.

I don’t mind when setup builds something greater, but it just didn’t feel like there was any substance to this book. Even the trials seemed like a relatively straightforward task that didn’t have much in the way of consequences for the group. And that brings up the second point. In the first book, I noted that I could relate with Jason as being an arrogant young person, so he was very relatable. In this book, it seems as if he is full of one on one introspections that would come alongside a life of hard lessons learned. That throws me out a bit that he can have so much personal development in such a short period of time, while acknowledging that his prior life experience was working in an office supply store.

These are me being nitpicky about things that break the immersion. I love Clive, and his dry sense of humor. Sophie’s character development near the end of the book is the thing I’m most looking forward to in the next one, and all of this cultist nonsense with Thadwick is making me curious what will become of him.

I may have my gripes on book 2, but I just downloaded book 3, so it obviously isn’t as terrible as the griping implies. I’ll be back in a few weeks with the next check in.

Alright, just finished the first book, and I will post with as non spoilery descriptions as I can, so please do the same in the comments for people who are also new to the series, but here are my major takeaways before starting book 2 tomorrow.

I disagree with a lot of you that said Jason is insufferable in the first book, while also acknowledging that you are all 100% correct in that assessment. I turn 40 in a month, and at some point I had to pinpoint why he was annoying me as much as he was, and then I started to think back to how I acted in my early twenties. I was headstrong with opinions on things I knew nothing of in practice, and i generally thought I was the smartest person in the room. Looking back at my younger self made me realize that I too was insufferable at that age, and it actually made Jason a more relatable character, for me at least.

The world building is intense, and I’m glad that it was an entire book of it. I was expecting a more definitive ending once I got to the final chapter, and it felt more like just another chapter ending instead of a story wrapping up. Maybe that was intentional because arguably this entire book is simply the first chapter of the overall story, but I’ll be happy if book 2 simply picks right up. Having said that, those last ten chapters came out of nowhere, and my illusion of plot armor quickly went away.

My new favorite quote is “I’m going to slap you so hard it will change your religion.”

As for the magic that is built out in book 1, I LOVE IT. Chaotic good, blasphemous magic powered by an atheist who shows no respect for gods and aristocracy. It has the right amount of antiestablishment sentiment paired with the correct representation of self righteous determination.

Coming from DCC, this is a wildly different story, but a lot of the punk rock ethos has overlap in both stories, and I still think people coming from DCC as their first LitRPG introduction (I already know I’m going to hear that it’s technically horror) should absolutely love this as a more fleshed out follow-up to how LitRPG can operate on a different scale.

Final thought - how on earth did this man write so many books in such a short time?

Considering how many of you couldn’t wait for me to meet her, I wanted to give you the update.

I’ve finally met Clive’s wife for the first time, and I had my first real laugh at Jason’s shenanigans.

Like my previous post says, I’m coming from Dungeon Crawler Carl to this new world to bide my time until book 9 gets announced. A few of you wanted me to give updates on my initial reactions as I go through, and I’m settled in enough to give first impressions. I will try to be as spoiler free as I can in my descriptions in case there are other folks like me who are exploring other LitRPG titles.

For context, I only have DCC to compare HWFWM with in the LitRPG category.

First off. I feel like I just went from binging Tarantino films into my wife saying she wanted to start watching the Shrek movies. Don’t get me wrong, I love Shrek. Shrek is life. But going from the visceral descriptions of violence and brutality that are constantly described with every expletive imaginable, into 4 hours of hearing “damn” only uttered a single time feels like going from highway speeds to back roads.

Second, going from a first person perspective into a third person narrative feels…less immersive. I am enjoying the ride, and the pieces are starting to connect, but at no point do any of the characters feel relatable because I don’t get to hear their train of thought.

I have reached the point where Jason has received his familiar, and I love two things about how the story is building his character type. Thing 1 - His powers sound dark AF and I can’t wait to see how he grows. Thing 2 - I love Gary’s influence pushing for power.

I’m sure some of you are reading this and thinking “oh…just you wait” and I’m here for it. The series has a solid introduction for explaining the magic system, and I like how COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from DCC this is. I’ll check back in when I get somewhere around the halfway mark.

I have a year to kill before book 9 of Dungeon Crawler Carl gets announced, so I figured I can start the audiobooks of He Who Fights With Monsters. I know nothing about this series, and I’m going in blind.

Without spoilers, what do you want me to know about what I’m getting myself into?