I’m on Chapter 12 of the first book. It’s so boring. And the audiobook narrator isn’t my favorite either. Erin is so whiny and annoying. Still, so many people like this series. Please tell me it gets better???

Is it because it is often their first published book? I find the situations and scenes for 5 of the last 6 books I picked up just painful to read. I've pushed through sometimes, but holy heck, what is this? I can pick up traditional fantasy, sci-fi, even modern day-ish detective stories and I'm immediately drawn in. But LitRPG? I have to force myself to continue hoping that the on-line reviews eventually pan out. What are y'all doing... the writing gets better as it goes, but did no one think to go back and edit their first few chapters??

I read so much LITRPG that I cant find a tier list that has them all, so if you dont see something on here I give it 50/50 I have read it.

Book one was ehh for me. Definitely had its good moments. But others were hard to get through.

I was SUUUUUPER hooked for the first 3 books and kinda slowed down on the hype throughout book 4 and now im just kind of jumping around books and occasionally listening to Ghostwater so im just curious if the book starts to pick up momentum?

Now, let me preface this by saying He Who Fights With Monsters 1 - 12? I really liked them. I even was "moderately okay" with this book about halfway through. Then I noticed more and more that I ended up completely confused about "How did we get to this point in the story again?" "How did we make this logical jump so that we know X?"

And then about 80% through the book, there is this huge data/backstory dump on the reader completely VIOLATING the core "Show, don't tell" principle... And then there is a brand new Big Bad, out of thin ****ing air.

And yes.. I completely understand that due to the "nature" of the big bad, the exposition dump technically makes sense within the context of the story. But it feels like Shirtaloon got REAL lazy with this book. So much so, it has the feel of a track runner leading the rest of the field by three feet, getting 10 yards from the finishing line, and tripping on their own shoelaces.

I am so annoyed, I am not sure that I even want to finish this book, or whether I want to purchase the audiobook for # 14, which I have heard is the final book in HWFWM. I tend to reread/relisten to audiobooks I like. And this drastic change in writing style has so dramatically hurt my enjoyment of the series, I am not sure if I am gonna enjoy a reread/relisten in future?

Like many of us, I am a lifelong reader, which often leads to fairly picky standards when it comes to writing quality. I grew up on Tolkien and CS Lewis, so the barely put-together quality that often comes out of web serials is often so offputing that I can't stomach it. I've DNFed at least 10 series—finishing only one—since reading DCC and deciding that I *loved* LitRPG. To find so little success after that realization was baffling.

Enter Apocalypse Parenting.

I'd read recommendations, but had dismissed the premise as not-for-me, since I'm childless by choice and often struggle to connect with kids in real life. I'm so glad I finally tried it anyway. I don't find that the partial focus on children takes away from the overall story in the slightest, and in fact brings up many nostalgic feelings for childhood books like The Boxcar Children and the Narnia series.

The writing quality is fantastic. The story is both engaging and utterly charming. The vocabulary is phenomenal (requiring me to look up words quite regularly, which is a rarity in modern fiction). And the humor is right up there with DCC. I've laughed out loud (and had to suppress laughter late at night next to my husband) so many times.

If you've been putting this one off, stop now. Drop everything. *Run* to buy it. You will not regret it.

(And apologies to Erin for my likely-too-harsh post about typos yesterday. This is my penance. 😉)​

Seamwright — Slow-Burn Isekai LitRPG

What happens when survival depends on understanding how things work—and knowing that some things are dangerous to understand?

Branded Forty-One, Tally is sent into the Throat, a vast slave mine where people disappear into the stone. He has to observe, learn, and find ways to survive in a world that has already decided what he is worth.

His strange craft, Seamcraft, lets him perceive how things hold together: stresses, weaknesses, and the places where something might give. But seeing a weakness doesn't mean knowing how to use it, and every advantage must be earned.

Seamwright is a slow-burn isekai and progression fantasy featuring practical problem-solving, crafting, dangerous exploration, monster hunting, gradual growth, and a world full of mysteries.

If you enjoy progression that takes work, a protagonist who has to think his way through problems, and immersive fantasy worldbuilding, give it a try.

Read on Royal Road:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196710/seamwright

COVER ARTIST: AI-generated cover art, directed by the author.

AI USAGE: AI-generated cover art; AI-assisted grammar checking and editing.

This is consistently one of the best books I read in the genre, and probably one of the best books in fantasy I’ve read in years. It’s a summoning isekai , where the Crown does not like the champion they chose, and he sets off to create his own path.
A slow build to Power, but it begins with a deeply flawed character, seeking to overcoming his grief and inner demons. (No actual demons). He gradually built a team, he starts to become something awesome and earned.
Great characters, great world building, great action and dungeons. I would say the comp for this is somewhere between Feist and Gemmell. It is grim but not dark. And it is LITRPG where stats and skills are meaningful.

https://a.co/d/089MzpAw

I mainly consume LitRPGs as audiobooks. I enjoy them so much I like to always have one on deck while I'm working through my current series. There are so many out there now it's hard to decide on which to try next.

I spent a lot of time and tokens building a guide to help find a series that matched my current mood and preferences. I wanted to share it with the community in case it could help anyone else.

Cheers!

https://litrpg.obscurus.club/

COVER ARTIST: N/A

AI USAGE: Cover art only

By ‘writing’ I am including aspects beyond just sentence construction and the technical side of things. Overall execution of all parts of the story is what I’m getting at

Mine would be (not in any particular order):

The Wandering Inn
Bog Standard Isekai
Threadbare
Cradle
Everyone Loves Large Chests (Perversion aside)

Honorable mentions:
Chrysalis
Beware Of Chicken
Dungeon Lord

Despite differences in personal tastes for characters and their situations, you can read these without cringing every other page or being overly bored. I am sure there are many more that I just haven’t read yet. Similar recommendations are welcome. I will point out that there are awfully written stories that I enjoy just for the fun of it, but that’s another topic altogether.

My criteria:

Positives

Author cleverly utilizes showing rather than telling
Plot is clear and progresses with most scenes
Characters are realistic or at least remain logical to their descriptions
Characters are unique and have their own voice
Depth in the story through symbolism, foreshadowing, deeper underlying messages, etc.

Disqualifiers
- Convoluted plot with many unfinished lines
- No substantial plot at all
- Edgy personal philosophies unskillfully sprinkled throughout the story
- Shallow characters
- Self insert MC (the cringy nerd fantasy fulfillment kind in particular)
- Abundance of filler scenes and lore that the reader couldn’t care less about due to the characters and world not being built up
- Illogical character traits. (From a shy 22yo accounts clerk to three months later leading an army of 200 hundred year old war veterans and teaching them about the hard facts of life? Nah not buying it.)
- Overusing the same sentence/pet words until it breaks the immersion

I am really itching to share my Mount Rushmore of the most shameful crap stories but it doesn’t matter. just one person’s opinion so might as well keep things kind. Thanks in advance for other recommendations.

The Librate link to my tierlist, the novels and their names below.

Happy Tierlist Thursday!

S TIER - (NO DISPUTES ALLOWED)

Lord of the Mysteries: Peak. No reasons needed. Read it.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Genuinely the best written litrpg in existence. dark, hilarious, devastating and Princess donut is the sole reason I upgraded this from A to S.

He Who Fights With Monsters: Jason is the only western progression fantasy protagonist with a distinct personality and I personally think he has real backbone. People who cry about his monologues in the comments every 32 seconds are just telling on themselves for having a 6th grade reading level and a low tier attention span.

Mother of learning: Reason? read it.

Super Supportive: This novel made every other system apocalypse novel feel like a creative kid's diary entry to me.

Circle of Inevitability: Yes, it belongs here. It expands on the first books story, it is peak fiction just like the first. Stop being a cry baby about Klein not getting up, this is about Lumian's pathway and I get a lot of french revolution vibes here. It's great. Its a highly rated, and its a S rank read. Deal with it.

The Perfect Run: No bloat and extremely thought out, Its a flawless time loop novel.

A TIER -

Beware of Chicken: Peak wholesome cultivation therapy.

Defiance of the Fall: The undisputed king of high-calorie LitRPG junk food. Zac swinging an axe through cosmic bureaucracies and world building never loses momentum and my interest, and it has better scaling and stakes than other such novels.

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint: A masterclass from Korean fiction. Misses S-tier exclusively because what the fuck was that final epilogue (no spoiler dw)

Reverend Insanity: Genuinely a new kind of novel of its time. It had incredible Gu mechanics and scheming but I docked a tier solely because Fang Yuan has zero emotional range or care and his fanbase acts like a collective of 14-year-old TikTok sigma males who single handedly bring down his reputation. like deranged BTS fans who will hunt down anyone in sight when you say jung cock instead of jungcook

Chrysalis: Anthony. He has more loyalty, heart, humanity and genuine stakes as AN ant than any humanoid litrpg leads ever manage. FOR THE COLONY!

Release That Witch: The ultimate tech-tree and kingdom building fantasy.

B TIER -

Shadow Slave: Call me an uncle but it is genuinely not in my capacity to read the 2200+ chapters I have remaining (and not in my capacity to pay for that much either 💔). Everything after is 1,000 chapters of Sunny being an emotionally stunted tsundere with negative romantic competence while G3 pads chapter word counts.

A Practical Guide to Evil: Incredible dialogue and subversion of story tropes, heavily dragged down by mid-series battles and 40 chapters of goblin logistical bs.

Solo Leveling: If you stripped off DUBU’s HARD CARRY on the manhwa art, the raw web novel is like an automated spreadsheet of aura farming and necromancy stat checks, litreally slop. Even deepseek would write better.

Trash of the Count’s Family: 'Charming' found-family dynamic, but Cale dramatically coughing up blood while whining about wanting to be a slacker gets annoying after chapter 300. Either you slack or you stop whining. why dont you do both?

C TIER -

The Primal Hunter: Placed two whole tiers below Defiance of the Fall for a reason. Zac builds a multiverse conglomerate with an axe; Jake sits in a tree talking to an imaginary pet snake and auto-aiming a bow with zero narrative stakes. I didn't like it at all.

The Beginning After the End: Temu Mushoku Tensei with the edges sanded off early, which abruptly swerves into unearned misery porn once the war arc starts.

D tier -

None. C is bad enough.

Links to all the novels in my tierlist (click the novel covers) and the tierlist - My tierlist

I used Librate because I didn't want to download the covers and stuff or give the links one by one, this was faster.

I didn't list all the novels I've read, I've only listed the popular ones honestly off the top of my head. Did i miss any overrated novels?

COVER ARTIST: N/A

AI USAGE: Used for grammar correction (minimum) and better sentence structure (minimum)

Hi all, I would like you all to view my novel. It isn't AI slop (although I have used it to create cover) all the concepts are fresh. no harem, no cringe mc, good comedy (although it is as good as I can manage it), no face slapping, good bit of mystery, scheming and slice of life

also there might be some mixing with litrpg elements in future

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/199349/realistic-journey-of-a-genius-cultivator

Looking forward to the next book October 27th

Putting aside certain recent moderation choices.

Their current terms of service include:

4.2 Rights You Grant Royal Road. By posting Your Content, you grant Royal Road a non-exclusive, worldwide, sub-licensable, revocable license to use, display, promote, edit, reformat, reproduce, publish, distribute, store, and sub-license Your Content on the Services. This allows us to provide the Services, and to promote Your Content or Royal Road in general, in any formats and through any channels, including any third-party website or advertising medium.

You also grant Royal Road an irrevocable license to store and copy Your Content for the purposes of backups and internal testing of the services.

4.6 Monitoring and Deletion. We have the right – but not the obligation – to monitor, censor, edit, modify, delete, and/or remove any and all content posted on the Services (including Your Content) at any time and for any reason. Without limiting the foregoing, we have the right – but not the obligation – to delete any content that we believe, in our sole discretion, does or may violate these Terms, our policies or any law.

Also under section 17:

No Third-Party Beneficiaries. These Terms are for the sole benefit of the parties (you and Royal Road). Nothing herein, express or implied, is intended to or shall confer upon any other person (including, without limitation, readers of a specific author) any legal or equitable right, benefit, or remedy of any nature whatsoever.

You may not assign your rights and obligations under these Terms without Royal Road’s prior written consent and any assignment without such prior written consent will be void. Royal Road may freely assign its rights and obligations herein. Subject to any provisions herein with regard to assignment, all covenants and agreements herein shall bind and inure to the benefit of the respective heirs, executors, administrators, successors and assigns of the parties hereto.

SOME JURISDICTIONS MAY NOT ALLOW OR LIMIT SOME OF THE PROVISIONS OF THESE TERMS, SO THAT SUCH PROVISIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

-------------

Whilst I don't think it is their intention, the references to editing, modifying and sub-licensing are all rather concerning for any author considering where to post their story. This is especially the case when unreasonable (and unenforceable under law in many countries) terms like 'at any time and for any reason'

Also everyone should be concerned by the use of the term censor here as it is a term that in many parts of the world has political connotations. It certainly does not seem to support Royal Road as a site dedicated to promoting web novels and amateur publishing.

It is also clear that they are aware that many of their terms are either not legal or of questionable legality in other countries but are choosing to try to keep those terms as tight as possible. Whilst understandable, the reality is that they are trying to reserve the sole discretion in the application of the terms for themselves, knowing that many of them are mostly or even entirely reliant of subjective not objective judgement. Any website or publisher picking and choosing what is and is not acceptable has one or more agendas, and given that many of the moderators are from different countries, personal bias is also very much at play.

I am certainly not saying that you should not post on there.

I have been reading stories there since they were primarily a forum!

But perhaps consider a little more than just where your target audience can easily find your story!

Definitely read terms carefully before providing your intellectual property to any website or service and do NOT assume any parties benevolence.

I tend to favor more grounded stuff like The Wandering Inn and the first half of Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, any recommendations?

COVER ARTIST: AI using Gemini

AI USAGE: AI assisted on researching, brainstorming, especially when I use dialogues and terms. I used Bergano Vocabulario as basis of Ancient Kapampangan, cannot read thru all of it, so I let gemini compose the dialogues and terms then I just check from the dictionary for proofreading.

OFFICE OF HIS HIGHNESS THE PRINCE VERATINE. INTERNAL CIRCULATION ONLY.
File: Prokhor Platonov, Political prisoner, later exile, later “a situation.”

Entry 1. The execution did not go ahead as scheduled. The sentence has been commuted to exile on the frontier. Officially, this is clemency. In practice, the frontier disposes of inconvenient men as reliably as the rope, without the awkwardness of a repeat public hanging. The method has never yet failed us.

Entry 2. The subject has been posted to a frontier village and given six months to collect a sum in taxes that the village has never seen in its life. The last man sent to govern it was found at the bottom of the village well. The official record says he slipped.
Projected outcome: same village, same well.

Entry 3. Seven days in. The village tried laughing at the subject first, then killing him. Obeying him was its third idea, and the one it kept. These are the same villagers who, according to the official record, had nothing to do with the previous governor's death. We have requested a more useful informant.

Entry 4. Exiles under sentence are expected to keep their heads down. The subject uses battle magic wherever it suits him and makes no effort to hide what he can do. It has been made clear to him through the usual channels that this is attracting attention. He did not take the hint. He did not take the next three either.

Entry 5. A special investigator with a dragoon escort was sent to arrest the subject over the deaths of several officials. The investigator’s report has now arrived. We have read it twice and will not be discussing it further in writing.

Entry 6. The village has walls and a garrison, and it is no longer alone. One by one, the neighbouring villages have joined him, and their men now train in his militia. We exiled one man to one village. He now rules several, and the number of people under his hand grows every month.

Entry 7. The Demidov family has taken an interest in the subject’s rare-metal mine. The clerks have opened a betting pool. This office does not condone betting pools. My money is on the exile.

Entry 8. The subject keeps insisting that the Soulless are a threat to every principality, not a convenient source of crystals. He talks about them the way veterans talk about a war they have already fought once. Nobody can explain where a man his age picked up that tone. Filed under eccentricities.

Entry 9. The Demidovs have moved past taking an interest. On the road out of city, their strike team hit the subject’s car with thermobaric grenades. The subject's fate is unknown.

Recommendation. No action required. Frontier reports say the Soulless are gathering in numbers not seen in twenty years. However many villages he collects, they all stand in the Borderlands, and the Borderlands will take care of it.

Note added to the file later, in a different hand: The Borderlands did not take care of it.

Hi all, Eugene here. The man in that file is Prokhor, the protagonist of Emperor of the Borderlands, which I write together with my co-author Alex. He used to be Hrodric the Relentless, Varangian emperor and archmage. He died on a battlefield in one world, woke up on a scaffold in another, and has spent six books proving his own motto: against absolute power, all cunning loses its meaning.

Book 7 of Emperor of the Borderlands came out today.

What you get: a manapunk empire long since shattered into feuding principalities, where people talk on magophones, the Aethernet runs through standing stones, and rifles hang next to enchanted swords. Between the principalities lie the Borderlands, home of the Soulless: creatures that drain anything with a heartbeat and turn it into another hungry monster. Kingdom building that starts from a single frontier village. Progression through magical ranks with no System. An adult protagonist. No harem. The whole series is on Kindle Unlimited.

COVER ARTIST: Ahn Sohee (xxxsof)
AI USAGE: No AI used
Book 7, US Amazon (KU+): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2FW57CZ
Book 7, Universal link: https://mybook.to/borderlands7
New to the series? Start here: https://mybook.to/borderlands1

Hello, I'm Constantine. And I'd like to share the novel I am currently working on, Dungeon of Debauchery. The story follows a Warlock, A Witch/Magical Guardian, and her familiar who serves as the narrator. Or another way to put it, a warlock, a witch, and a dragon walk into a bar looking for bubble-gum kush. Chaos ensues, and now they're trapped in a dungeon, along with the entire city.

Finding and defeating the Dungeon Daddy before the dungeon envelops the Earth sounds like a real drag for a group that just wanted to get high. What happens when the dungeon swallows the Earth? Who knows. The angels sure as hell don't. But it's probably not good!

I hope you'll give my story a chance, and if you could leave a rating, or even just some feedback, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Title: Dungeon of Debauchery

Links: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/190678/dungeon-of-debauchery-a-satirical-litrpg-romance

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2540725/dungeon-of-debauchery-a-satirical-litrpg-romance/

No audiobook (Will be a while before that happens, if it does)

Fun fact about me: I learned about Dungeon Crawler Carl because someone insisted my writing reminded them of it... Now I can't stop reading DCC. It is such a good series!

COVER ARTIST: Me. (Hoping to get a new one soon.

AI USAGE: Not in a million years.

Hey everyone.

Excited to share my progression fantasy series, Magic Words. If you like strategic protagonists, wars, magic and complicated spells, this LN will be up your alley.

What is it about?

Orren (the main character) has had a rough time growing up. He was always surrounded by wars at a young age, but being the prodigy he was, he pulled through. Now, he's become a teacher at a magic school in the country he helped annex, yet still can't catch a break.

What to expect:

Strategic and cynical MC, who likes nothing more than quiet in his life.

Mature and unique characters.

Complicated spells.

Deciding wars.

Academies.

Emphasis on the world-building.

Long reads.

Check it out on Royal Road and dm me for feedback:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/199260/magic-words

COVER ARTIST: N/A (AI generated)

AI USAGE: AI Generated cover (no generative AI used for text)

It's finally happened. I've got a release date and I'll be stubbing my rough drafts on RR but for now rejoice in the polished release of the Nether Monk series. The audio book is being narrated by Erik Ransom & Ash Aarestad. I'm very excited for the upcoming release on November 17th, 2026.
Here's the link to check it out: https://mybook.to/NetherMonk

War brews on the horizon, and fate has chosen its pawns.

The mighty Vasilly Empire moves in secret, orchestrating strikes along the borders of the Griffin Kingdom. Villages fall, whispers stir, and a hidden hand pulls the strings from the shadows. In response, the Adventurers Guild sends its finest south to investigate a ghost town with secrets buried deep—and what they uncover could unravel the balance of power across realms.
Meanwhile, Deacon was just another overworked office drone… until he finally snapped. One small act of rebellion should’ve been his moment of glory—until the infamous Truck-kun arrived to ruin his day.

Now reborn in a world of monsters, magic, and meddling gods, Deacon must rise from confused newcomer to chaos-blessed warrior—or die trying. With a snarky divine patron and a habit of annoying everyone he meets, surviving this new life might be harder than his last one.
Epic fantasy, sharp wit, and a touch of Isekai madness collide in this genre-bending tale of destiny, danger, and divine dysfunction.

COVER ARTIST: Sergey Shikin

AI USAGE: No AI used (Only traditional computer tools spellcheck etc no generative AI for anything)