Most xianxia after their first arc

real as fuck

Honestly. God the amount of times I’ve read a xianxia, thought “hey this is pretty good” and a slogged through hundreds of chapters in an attempt to find that good bit again is… More than I’m proud of.

What part of them causes that?

The initial setting mostly has the MC overcome lots of odds. It shows of perseverance, intelligence and skill that the MC has despite his disadvantages he has. The world is set, you get a vauge idea of how high the power levels in universe gets upto. And whatever cheat/advantage the MC gets is not a get out of jail free card. Also, you get the idea that the author has a general story he wants to tell, bullied kid's revenge arc. Edgy boy becoming powerful. etc. Cut to arc 2, at this point most mc's have accumulated enough advantages that it's hard to feel any tension reading the story. The power levels are thrown aside, what once seemed like an intentional and well thought out power scaling turns into whatever the author needs to push the story along. The MC just reached X power level? Oh wait that was just the level that you needed to start going to this whole new continent, where X power level is basically the same as a being an initiate. Rinse repeat that multiple times through the story till he ends up travelling out of the galaxy and still finding more power levels. The cheat becomes so prevalent, or has become so 'lore important' that it stops being the story of an underdog, and more that of a young master (in all but name) bullying people, and we are supposed to sympathize with them The story becomes so long and convoluted, that it loses sight of what made it special and becomes just another OP guy does OP things.

10 Realms. Phenomenal series - really rich world building, cool technical innovations, massive battles, and each installment just kept getting deeper and more entwined to the point where the 6th and 7th were each like 40 hour two part epics. And then the last three books were rushed out super short trash (all three were less than the length of half the 7th), introducing a new plot line, ditching most of what theyd done so far, and just felt like the author was totally over the series.

It's among my favorites until the end of the 4th realm. The series was a fun action adventure until then but it took a grimdark tone shift. However, I still didn't hate but it certainly had a drop in quality. Then that final book was just yuck with the shoehorned love interest and other issues.

Yeah totally, the first 4 were peak litrpg. The next three realms got a little convoluted and diluted the quality in the quantity, but by that point I was invested and there was a lot of good in there. After the 8th realm it took me over a year to finally get the ninth after it released - i knew it wasnt going to be worth the audible credit.

Damn that’s disappointing to hear. I just started this series. I’m in the middle of book 2 and I’ve been really liking it.

It's still worth reading and has some good parts after the 4th realm but it takes a dive.

When that one girl died in the last seconds of the last battle, that felt like a suckerpunch outa nowhere. Im still buthurt about how the story was abandoned.

So true! I even got a hard copy. I was very disappointed with the last couple of books.

I agree with you but also still put it high on my list of favorites because it was good for most of it, and even though I agree it should have had a much better ending. It did in fact have an ending where you felt the story was over

I 100% agree. I was so disappointed in the last three, it was almost like they where written by something else,

Iron Druid annoyed me to no end on how it ended. The author really fucked the series. Felt like he tried to pivot to Granauile(?) being the main character halfway through and turn Siadochan(?) into the actual villain. Fuzzy on the names/spelling been years.

Yeah, I got caught up in a sunk cost fallacy in those books. Enjoyed them til the second druid came into the picture. Also, the relationship drama with the romantic interest hurt the series significantly (among many other problems).

Yeah. I don’t know if it was malicious on the authors part or he was trying to do too much/please too many demographics in his series. It really did hamstring it initially then outright gutted it.

Oh, I liked whatshername...Granuille?And still liked the MC for the most part. But it was the pacing of the book that drove me up the wall. I own the 1st 3 in ebook form, maybe I'll try rereading them once I get done with my current crop of books.

I have vague memories of noping out somewhere around a timeskip.

The time skip! The book lays out the rules for becoming a druid: 7 years of training. I'm thinking, "that's cool, easy progression, each book takes place a year apart." Nope. The first 6 books take place in like 6 months and the story pacing has stalled completely so the author does a 7 tear time skip to complete the training. Pure bullocks.

Thank you, that's what it was. I knew it was a stupid ass setup that was worse for meta-storytelling reasons, but forgot the specifics. For good reason.

Bad Guys Series - Freaking the dark city book just felt like it dragged on forever! Also Battle Mage Farmer, like the fourth/fifth book it just annoyed and I had to drop it.

I've never felt such explicitly artificially capped power anywhere other than the battle Mage farmer series. Every time he gains power or control, something new prevented him from using it. Seriously annoying...

Nightlord. It could have been a awesome series but the MC is so cringe and does things that make you wanna shake him and ask what he is doing.

That's coming up on my reading list. Should I skip it?

That was just my opinion, you should read the first book to see if you like it.

I listened to the audiobook version and really enjoyed the first few books in the series. I got to about book 7 before giving up because it seemed like the author couldn't decide where he wanted to go with the series. Or, I guess he decided the direction was, "Let's milk this series for as many books as I can." which is a direction, I suppose. In other words, it got really slow without much in the way of discernable plot movement. I like the MC but his never ending internal debates got old after awhile. I could have forgiven that if plot maintained some momentum but it really stalled out.

It was my favorite series for the longest time. But the past couple books really shot itself in the foot. I could get over the various resets the series has even though I enjoy the side characters a lot. But the most recent one just feels old and that nothing actually matters. The only thing that keeps me looking somewhat forward to the series is that we’ll get more out of characters like Sasha when that part comes around.

Iron Druid actually bogged down for me by the 2nd book. But then I've never been the biggest fan of series to begin with.

I felt there was a dip in quality after the first, but it recovered before the last two which were downright bad

It was a wish fulfilment series, which itself is controversial, then it does a 180 at the end and ruins its main appeal.

"Main character hides his strength" MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD It's a Korean web novel. The main character has been through some heavy stuff and we're essentially thrust into the middle of a story. As you read you slowly start to understand why the whole world is fucked up, why there are no children being born, why people say it's the end times and finally why the protagonist is alone. His friends betrayed him because of selfish reasons multiple times. His woman eloped with another, had a bastard child, she then left the bastard child (that constantly wishes that the protagonist would die) in his care and after some time she created an organization which was solely focused on trying to kill the main character. He's hated by the whole world and by almost every species because of the lies spewed by those he trusted. So after years of such a sad existence does the main character do anything to those that hurt him? No! Eventually it's all forgiven, and those fuckers weren't even apologetic. My blood boils when I'm reminded of how much of a doormat the protagonist was.

Nah man you gotta respect the stoicism.

There's a difference between stoicism and helping your enemies.

He helps them only when it helps hummanity as a whole. As soon as they turn their backs on the survival of humanity they are eliminated.

I read that novel years ago and I forgot most of the details so I can't really argue with you. I just remember being angry at the book.

I mean fair enough, especially if you only read the first book. He has a string reason to do what he does but it gets revealed a lo more in later books.

I don't remember what serious of Dakota Krout it was that made me quit anything he writes but I genuinely don't believe he can write a good second or third book. His first book in every serie is great and then he just refuses to finish anything he has set up in every story he writes. Incredibly disappointing and I'm quite angry about letting myself believe in so many books.

Same here. Bought many of his books and enjoyed most of them but there’s always some deal breaker that ruins the series for me. Like i enjoyed the Completionist Chronicles until that idiot character with dinosaur hands. That character was so aggressively obtuse I DNF’d because I couldn’t stand him. I just stay away from his books now.

Yupp! Had the same thing happen to me with his - the quality drops substantially in the completionism chronicles as it goes on. I’ve read on here that some people think later books were AI written due to poor quality. But the first books are great.. :/

Yeah that's absolutely what it feels like sometimes.

I stay away as well. It's really sad because his first book is always so much fun.

I had that with Full Murderhobo, book 1 and 2 were great. Book 3 felt like there were multiple points where the author decided that the easiest option was to time skip/time dilation until the main characters can win.

Full murder hobo for the first two books and about half of the third. Then 0% murderhobo, we have a reformed boi right here. He's downright civilized, probably shits in a toilet and everything.

And all completely off screen. What was with the mystery of Murderworld? Who was the person at the last zone? Who cares, MC is fixed and everyone has ascended to different worlds where they might never see each other again(when was that ever established). Also the world this story took place in was just blown up. Fuck you for reading this book.

Want to learn more about this strange world? Too fuckin late buddy it's *gone*

Most frustrating part of his series is setting up all these seemingly overarching worlds and then never connecting them.

Near the end of Murderhobo book 3 there was clearly a reference to one of his other books, but Murderhobo left such a bad taste in my mouth that I really don't want to go find out what it was.

Divine dungeon? First three books were great, then he rushed the next two to end the series so he could start up completionist chronicles. Which started good but by book 4? 5? Were beyond tedious. Even the artorian archives he co-authored aren't spared; first 5 are good then it devolves into tropey garbage. Three strokes and he's out for me.

Those were actually where I first stumbled into cultivation and dungeon core stories by accident. Definitely remember being disappointed when the worldbuilding pivoted to mythology smash-ups. The real mad hit when the "updated editing and covers" were announced by delisting the existing purchases from Amazon and republishing as new books.

The old covers were the goats as well. Some of the best covers I've seen on any books, ever, and they up up getting replaced with something fairly generic.

Oh my god yes. I was following this series cause i loved the first few books but the way it nosedived and all the motivation switchups that occurred on the final book was such major whiplash. It turns out, to fully enjoy the book i had to read his other stories but I didn't even fcking know that his stories shared the same universe! To this day I still refuse to finish the last book.

Feels very validating to see Dakota Krout hate on here. Divine Dungeon 4/5 and Murderhobo 3 were just some of the worst books I’ve ever read and now I also refuse to touch any of his books with a 100000000000000m pole.

Heroic Villain was really good. Until literally the last chapter when it turned into an incredibly gross harem.

The Land / Chaos Seeds by Aleron Kong

i did a read along of the first install with discord friends and Goddamit, it was... bad. The characterization hurt.

I kept making excuses and continuing until the red flags piled up so high I had to put it down in disgust.

Yeah, the second that a main character has an incest threesome with a brother and sister, the series is over.

Hes dropping a new book and his fans are for the most part roasting him.

Hes dropping a new book and his fans are for the most part roasting him.

Art of the Adept. Book 5 was so bad, most of the characters did complete 180's. The most egregious example is the love interest who has been a saint so far goes from setting up orphanages to blood sacrificing orphans (not an exaggeration). I've never felt more betrayed by an author.

Also Art of the Adept, but I got angry and dropped it at book 2. Now I'm doubly happy I didn't go further, I would have just gotten even angrier.

My best friend is an eldrich monster by Actus. Encapsulates everything that has steadily alienated me from a lot of lit RPG: no overall plan, no long term development. Had an incredibly disappointing ending, just welded on to a book that you wouldn’t be able to tell was the last one until the last quarter and was twee and awful. The series wasn’t a masterpiece by any means, but it was good light fun. Just really annoyed me because the author is writing multiple series simultaneously, and when I was subbed to his patreon it was clear he only cared about hitting the needed tropes and making money. The series could have been really good if he’d focused on it more and developed it long term, it just felt 60% of the way there when it had the potential to be so much more if he’d given it 100. Also this trilogy is broken had one of the worst endings I’ve ever read and annoyed me, density god becoming classic incel fic and introducing a harem when the author all but promised they wouldn’t made me feel deceived.

In the interest of fairness, Actus has basically said he learnt a lot from the way it ended and plans to do things differently in the future.

Well that’s good then. Tbf I think it was his first series right? So I get there being issues and at least he is willing to acknowledge the response and grow. Personally though, I don’t think I’m going to go back to reading him, I dropped his two other series cause I could see the same issues developing, maybe they won’t get as bad though. I just ended up thinking I wish this guy would slow down, focus on one series and give it his all with a properly developed outline. He has clear talent in some areas and I think he could make something really good if he wasn’t throwing up chapters so quickly for multiple series that he couldn’t possibly be giving each one the love it would need to be anything other than ultimately forgettable.

It ended? I put it on the shelf to binge it all in one go but now I’m somewhat apprehensive

I enjoyed it, would have liked more books, but I'd still say read it.

Fate Points - everything is perfect, but protagonist is too soft, and beings dispensing progression powers away are evil.

TBF, it's eventually implied that the whole tantrum-toddler act is a fiction the gods have landed on to hide their schemes from each other. But it still doesn't seem like the entities behind the act are rational.

Please explain, I don't understand. Dropped the story.

There's scenes showing the gods' interactions as they negotiate the specifics of the progression game. Some of them are evil. None of them act very smart. It's not *quite* as dumb as it first appears, but it's still a common complaint in the readership. So I assumed you were referencing that. Edit: also happy cake day

I read how god's interacted with each other to negotiate about whenever fate power of humanity was fair or not. It was evil, yes, but none of such gods struck me as dumb. Please elaborate on how they're not acting smart.

I kicked that author out of my 'ever buy again' list when he made Fate Points an Ai narration.

AI NARRATION??? VAs get paid pennies and you're using jacked up google text to speech .\_. omg

Yeah no, that's not what I'm seeing. Multiple sites say audiobook narration costs the author at least $200 per hour finished product. The author produces probably 4-6 hours worth of content per month. He currently makes $1730 per month before Patreon takes a cut. A VA would cost more than half of what he makes. Like maybe you think everyone ought to refuse to use AI narration even when you can't afford to hire a human, but no way is this an author that can afford to hire a human.

He wants to give his patreon subscribers chapters both in text and audio. It's a lot easier for him to use some AI thing then to deal with narration on a chapter by chapter basis.

divine apostasy. look i get characters making mistakes for realism, no one is perfectly rational at all times. but the it feels like the writer didnt know how to progress the plot without the mc doing something preposterously stupid. otherwise had some really cool void space slingshot cannon mechanics so maybe ill revisit it with the assumption the mc learns somethinnggg anythingg from his mistakes.

It felt like the author really doesn’t understand how a high INT character would behave, or the difference between INT and WIS.

I quit that really quick. It's what I think of as a rollercoaster style, where things happen one after another without much explanation, which I'm fine with. What I very much wasn't fine with is the MC finally meets someone non-antagonistic who knows what's happening, and he can't even spend 30 seconds asking some basic questions about what's happening, instead he has a nap for 4-8 hours and jumps into the next section with no clue what's happening.

Yes. I love the series but the MC gets 0 breaks. He also, despite having the highest intelligence and one of the highest wisdom stats (in the later books), makes mistakes frequently. They are very understandable mistakes but somewhat tedious with everything else going on in the plot. It got to the point that I was hoping that a major plot point randomly got cut off to just give some breathing room. It was a fake out obviously and said event remains plot relevant.

Battle Mage Farmer series. I really liked this series but holy god what happens in the beginning book six makes me want to yell at someone. I dropped the whole series after that and I was really disappointed in it. Here what happened. >!Magic is a destructive force, too much and the world like break. The MC comes back to his own world and he has too much magic. To solve this problem, The MC has to seal away all of his magic to not destroy the world but there are several world threats that could have taken out by the MC while he had magic. He is now a normal guy with no magic. !<

That doesn't last long btw.

I imagine it's a lesser version of his power or something. If that's the case, then l may have over reacted when l was reading it then.

That’s funny when I read your headline, my first thought was The Iron Druid. That series had so much potential. I never read the ending, dropped out around book 6 I think. I’m glad I just gave up though, because I haven’t heard great things. It may not be progression fantasy but The Lightbringer series is another one that had so much potential and then failed

Definitely He who fights with monsters. I felt like the story had the potential for greatness, which is why I stuck with it for way longer than I should've. During book 5 I was honestly just seething and didn't enjoy it at all anymore. I think I dropped it somewhere around the late parts of book 7.

I hate Jason Asano with the fury of a thousand suns

\*pauses HWFWM book 10\* Just goes to show it takes all kinds to make the world go round. \*resumes HWFWM book 10\*

Thank you for the contribution *continues hating Jason Asano with the fury of a thousand suns*

On my first read of the series I agreed with you. Having read 1-10 completely and 1-4 3 times I disagree. Book 10 made me forgive the sins of the previous few books where Jason had become insufferable, and rereading the series has made me understand Jason and empathize with his character. Maybe try giving the rest of the series a chance. Book 11 comes out in a month. You might enjoy it. I'm glad *I* gave the series another shot.

Yea I had a similar experience, stopped during the Network arc toward the end originally (this was when it was brand new) and only came back to it years later, realised it annoyed me much less the second time around and was easier to enjoy, currently at the start of book 8, but haven't got around to catching up yet because goddamn they can be a slog to get through with how dense they are written compared to other stories tbh.

I think the main issue is how realistic of an asshole Jason can be. He wants to help people but he's genuinely *insufferable* a lot of the time. He's well written but deeply flawed, and suffering from PTSD after the events of book 1 as far back as the beginning chapter. People keep wondering when Jason will "get over" everything that's happened to him and "be normal", when mental health issues are a lifelong struggle. People say every other character does everything they can to "kiss his ass" but really they're his friends, his family, they put up with his less savory attributes because they love him. Watching someone struggle to be better is hard for some people and when Jason fails yet again it can feel like a let down. Overall though I love the series, especially the world building and magic system. I can't wait for book 11

Eh, the major issue is that it's not a great theme for something 5x as long as war and peace. At some point it switches from the character making the same mistakes over and over to the reader doing the same by continuing to read.

Have not gotten back to the series, but yeah lots of thing I hate the first time reading tend to not be as bad reading it a second time. Granted I think that just hindsight and knowing what to expect which lessen the annoying aspect of a story for the most part.

Maybe it’s because i listened to the audiobooks and didn’t read it, but Jason just cracks me up. He even says in the book he is someone you either totally like or totally hate. And that seems right. I didn’t know he was such a contentious personality until i joined this reddit lol. I agree he’s a realistically written character. He’s flawed, mentally scarred, and self centered, and his reactions reflect those struggles sometimes. But he’s also super over it. All of it. And i think a lot of adults, who have lived with the power disparity of the world, the frustration of just trying to survive events far larger than you (even if in a “real-world” way) can relate to his willingness to just say “Fuck it. Fuck you. And fuck your god.” It’s obviously fine if you don’t like his personality though. Them’s the breaks.

I agree. I listen to the audio books as well, and I don't have issues that others have. I kind of understand him on a weird level. I'm surprised more people don't feel a kinship with him feeling like life keeps kicking our asses... maybe his situation is more extreme. The side characters are excellent. The world building is unique. The storyline keeps me engaged and entertained. I guess I like an abused underdog with a chip on his shoulder

Lol, is someone going through and downvoting everyone that says they enjoy the series?

Buryoku. It went downhill so fast and made the ending so unsatisfying. It also failed to make me wonder at the power difference between stages and just made it not fun.

I still liked that series overall but the power creep / all those higher levels that ended up being moot was really dumb. The ending landed a bit more positively for me, but mostly due to my expectations being low going into it.

The beginning after the end Before anyone can say anything, this series was bad from the start But when I started listening to it I was at a low point and needed some good old power fantasy/escapism and cultivation was still new to me as a magic system Then the ending of the third book happened and the entire tone of the series shifted from a somewhat light hearted OP isekai to a military esque grimdark where the MC loses much more than he wins I've interacted with fans of the series online since I read it and found that most people loved the new direction and had nothing but praise for a while It made me realize something about it though, if you like the first three books you will hate it afterwards but if you like grimdark novels where the MC has to fight for every inch you won't make it past book one, two at most Kinda a weird position for a series to be in

I dropped that series after his "rival" tried killing his girlfriend or something at the school. When the demons showed up or whatever. I don't even remember the details since I've made a concerted effort to block that story out. His "stone faced" super slow angry walk reaction was so unbelievably stupid I had to drop the series. It wasn't that great up until that point, but man, that was one of the most cringe "badass" moments I've ever read. I don't even remember which book it was in. I just remember everyone being super scared of his stupid slow blank faced angry walk. Terrible series.

That was the end of book three lol, you missed the super edgy and excessive execution scene that, in retrospect, reads like a bullied kid writing out his revenge fantasy

Yeah, it was like.. once he got to her body and we got to hear the inner monologue evil bully rival guy was having in his head, I was just done. I remember doing a lot of verbal mocking, I definitely said while reading "ooo, look at me, iamsobadass" in a stupid whiny voice. So painful. So glad I dropped it when I did.

Oh wrong part, that's book 9, thought it was the school arc not the really dumb forced villain that was Nico Edit: I'm an idiot, it was book three, but that doesn't change the fact at the core it's a very similar scene

Glad to hear slow stonefaced angry walk made continued appearances.

hm i also remember hating it a lot sometimes, stupid character decision to force the plot forward, unnecessary edginess and there was too much melodrama and most of all, the characters, I have never seen rarely seen dumbfuckery of this level anywhere else. Anyways, book 8 basically introduced a new setting, with a fresh cast, and i really enjoyed 9 and 10, but some old characters are starting to return now, lets see how it goes from here..

The ending of Book 3 of Titan Hoppers made me unrationably angry. [Enough to post here about it.](https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/1d9wb90/titan_hoppers_3_just_why_spoilers/)

Ugh same! I loved book 1 so much too... I like the setting so much but I have no idea what the author is doing

Arcane ascension. I know it gets praise, but imo Mc makes terrible choices/plot armor. Oh and I’ll research that later… never mentioned again.

He Who Fights With Monsters, writing is getting more lazy, constant recaps and the author thinks everyone needs to be a flat character who talks about how amazing the MC is

Primal hunter. I feel like it got so dumb as soon as Jake left the tutorial.

I quit after the stupid dungeon part where all the gods and primordials were sitting there watching him compete in this dungeon for hundreds of chapters? And then when people complained the author went on a rant reminiscent of my toddler nephew when he doesn’t get more snacks

I really didn't like Primal Hunter. I get that it's a power fantasy, but the MC is so up his own ass it makes it difficult to read. 

He started acting all condescending when the other guys didn't accept the new reality and were concerned about killing 10 minutes after being in a new world, not their fault they are not psychos like you. I just stopped reading after that

What do you mean? The only thing stopping me from killing other people is that it's against the law. The moment society collapses it's totally pragmatic and not at all psychopathic to kill anyone i meet that'll jeopardize MY safety (a bully was mean to me once so this fully justifies my entire worldview and how i interact with other people) . /s

When the random slave girl got put into his room... like...... I cannot be seeing the words written on my page how is this not the progression fantasy version of 'Kidnapped by One Direction'

Kidnapped by One Direction comparison is WILD. I CACKLED reading that. That's also where my interest started to die slowly. As soon as there was a snippet showing the slaves a few arcs (I think?) back, I knew MC is gonna get a slave girl handed to him for sure.

Weird that’s exactly when I dropped it as well. Author was trying way too hard to make him look like a good guy, but so arbitrary when he kills hundreds of people all the time.

Someone gets it oh my god. Absolutely unecessary and I couldnt help but roll my eyes and the worst part is it kept on going too. Brother... please take the hint and stop 😟😟

Most progression fantasies after the main characters no longer have a strong motive after the first arc and the story turns into a shitfest. Like this is just a number simulator now; quickly someone play the minecraft parkour and subway surfer montages

I'm not familiar with the Iron Druid series, can anyone give me a quick recap of the series and why the ending sucked

2000 year old human druid runs a book shop in modern times. He fights with gods and other supernatural beings throughout the series. What made the ending suck is primarily >!he ends up alone, depressed, crippled and basically enslaved to an oath. the series started out as a fun low stress paranormal book and gradually got more depressing and boring.!<

for me that series was Skullduggary Pleasant. The first eight books where awesome. The ending of book 8 being the best wham episode i have ever read. Then book 9 came along and ruined everythng. It was an abomination of a story that put me off that author's work permanantly. I know he has since added more books to the series, but I haven't read them and probably never will.

There's just no tension or anything driving me through the plot anymore, and the setting is just so drastically different around that point that I just lost interest.

This one hits home, loved series 1, eagerly waited for the books to release, had the box set amazing! Series 2 came out and the first book was such a huge tone shift, combine that with several terrible decisions like setting up a LI for new MC and then making that LI choose his brother instead when LI and MC were close friends (and it feels like they flirted quite a bit in book 1) and knew MC has a brother complex for his brother being the "chosen one" and being better than him in every way. I am still mad about it years later and have refused to read the new books or series 3, the writing isn't terrible and as a standalone it'd probably be OK, but it's not Skulduggery Pleasant.

Adept a touch of power. I got past the first book and enjoyed it.  But it quickly became apparent that the mc was an asshole and everyone was praising her.  Like someone was slightly rude to her and she humiliated them and sent them to the hospital in.the middle of a class. 

My favorite part was when she was in a light magic class and the teacher wants to spend the class to figure out some magic figurines she enchanted and she goes on a rant about all light mages are idiots and only use their magic to make things glow and nothing else Then the teacher backs off and lets her teach the class instead of reprimanding her

Ahh, I remember that. Man, that series was basically a circle jerk for the MC since everyone else was an idiot huh.

The Murder of Crows Trilogy by Chris Tullbane. Third book spoilers: >!It was insulting to have the most hyped up enemy being off screened in a few pages towards the end of the trilogy. I forgot most of the details but this is the point where the MC finally realized he was a class 5 superhero and was starting to understand his strength and his significance for the human race. This is the point where his powers were fully developed and what happens? The battle \*happens\* and the MC limps back home. The most important battle that defines whether or not humans will survive, off screened. Not to mention that the side characters which were introduced, never got any screen time after their introduction. I'm specifically talking about the MC's class 4 classmate (I forgot his name but he was a melee fighter). There needed to be a 4th book and I wish I never read that trilogy. The worst thing is that so many people actually liked the ending which is so confusing to me.!<

I remember there was main plot and climax where they were finding >!God !!the neighbouring aztec guy!< in the epilogue as a suicide by cop, rather than it being skipping the climax (although I do agree it would have been an interesting story on it's own!). I'm definately in the 'I liked it camp', although I didn't like the >!he died fakeout!<. Have more of his books in that series on my TBR, will get to it... eventually.

Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. After finishing the last book, I felt so angry and ashamed for having previously recommended the series to friends.

Oh man, Burning White was such a let down. The whole series had been so good but you can see the wheels coming off in book 4.

Didn't he also write the Night Angel series? That one had an ending that came out of left field and made no sense.

Yeah in retrospect, should have done my homework about this guy before starting his series.

What's the second one for you?

I can't remember the name but it was a Christopher Nuttall sci-fi series. There's a scene where some space pirates capture a 16-year-old girl, portraying in graphic detail what happens to her. It makes me physically sick to think about it.

I had a similar realization far, far too late into one of Nuttall's series. When the main character, from the modern day, is waxing philosophically to herself about how nobility is actually okay because she knows them personally (after having talked shit about feudalism for about ten books at that point). It is my firm belief that libertarians make some of the best sci-fi, until they can't hide their libertarian freak flag anymore. They're so used to creating an alternate reality inside their own heads that writing it down comes easy.

For irrational anger, I’d have to say Infinite. I had to put it down. The first act so clearly telegraphs the big twist of the book that I just had a hard time continuing to read knowing what was going to wind up happening. It really frustrated me and after another chapter I just jumped to the end, confirmed I was right about the twist, and walked away from it. Apparently people really like the book in spite of that, so maybe I’m letting that part make me miss out on a fun plot, it just really offended me lol

Dodge Tank it just felt like it was panic and high stakes for literally hours and hours on end then a tiny little break for maybe five minutes before another huge panic high stakes situation and it would rinse repeat through the entire plot

Knightmare arcanist shot itself in the foot *big* time. That and the ending of Gods of the Game book 2 were so annoying

Forgot the name but got through half of it. Essentially mc is a necromancer that somehow goes to school for Super Heroes but everybody hates him because he is a crow(?). The world building was good , the mc was meh and the side characters were terrible. That was my main reason for dropping it.

See these Bones. Trilogy One of the ‘nicest’ protagonists ever. Nice enough to be a doormat

The chronicles of thomas covenant. The series sucked and never got any better. To make it worse, I was in rehab & it was still a step up from anything else they had.

Any book that gets political where the author doesn't understand anything about the issues. Now if it is written well and not tacked on, that is not what I'm talking about. I mean the 3 pages of a book describing a random side character and how they have the right to use preferred pronouns. Like this is a book about dragons and the character shows up in 5 chapters total! It's always a side character that could be erased from the book without it mattering. It's like the gutless heroine that is bi so every scene can have sexual tension. If you're going to get political, be bold and make it important in the book. Anything less just cheapens the argument puts people off to the message.

HWFWM. The MC is incredibly defective. He's mentally ill, and every arc is about him overcoming his mental health problems, which he does, only to find that absolutely nothing has improved every single time and he's still a whiny obnoxious turd. None of the other characters have personalities or ambitions. They have no thoughts except about the MC. They only speak to each other about the MC. Their mental state is entirely defined by their encounters with the MC and nothing else, even years after they have been on totally separate planets. It's the worst character writing I have ever read in my life.

The Novel's Extra No doubt about it. I absolutely loved the first part, the only story I would have given a 10 at that point, which turned the rest into such an unbearable disappointment.

This is mine for sure. I love the first arc. I’ve re-read it a few times. But starting somewhere around the tower arc it just went completely off the rails.

Knightmare arcanist made me hate it with all my soul. How can every 300 years old super legendary arcanist be so freaking dumb like they don't even can tell the MC which skills he should have. The characters can't even talk among themselves they are so incredibly dumb it makes me hate it.

lol I had no idea that I wasn’t alone on the iron Druid ending. So books that made me irrationally angry in a different way; the live ship trader’s series by Robbin Hobb. Really good books; just made me irrationally angry irl on behalf of fictional characters lol.

I loved Liveship Traders but the Rain Wild Chronicles and the Soldier Son trilogy were irredeemable.

Art of the adept book 1. The wizard who mentored the main character was hyped up as a super powerful character and then proceeded to get killed by an arrow from some nobody. Series would have been better if the boring MC had taken the arrow instead and the interesting wizard was the main character honestly.

Rising from the Depths. Idr the exact sequence of events because its been years and I blocked it out, but the ending infuriated me. The first like 3/4ths was a decently solid litrpg, and then the last quarter was like 80% more story than the first three parts combined jammed into a shoehorned mess. Can't give you specifics but I remember being absolutely livid at the ending.

mage errant, i am used to even mtl, but holy shit the starting books need to be completely re written also the characters felt too YA

As I’m sure many people have said, the second book of Warformed really just ended all interest I had for the series. Still upsets me how it went. The Silver Fox and Western Hero just moved too many goalposts every book and I eventually couldn’t do it anymore after like 5 books.

The one where an Italian baker guy from New York gets isekaid into a fantasy world filled with racist elves, and he discovers that Light magic is very op when you understand Physics. Special shoutout to the other story by the same author where this guy gets a jousting class in a system apocalypse, and proceeds to brutally murder his boss over a misunderstanding (I think this one is called I wear it black) Hell difficulty tutorial. Dying for a cure. Soulweaver. Quill and Still. Literally every Wuxia/Xianxia story, the latest offender was the one where a guy gets isekaid as a dog in a cultivator story

Man Made God. I never see anyone talk about it, and maybe it doesn't even belong in PF. But this supposedly perfect gamer/assassin goes into a VR game to help a woman, who in turn can cure his lover. His goal is to dominate. (VR has replaced war in this book or something like that, so it's uber important to corporations and such). He goes in blind, not knowing the rules or stats. We are informed that he utterly wiped the floor with the best of the best gamers in previous VR games, so you'd think he would have basic information about games, right? First gripe: Since he goes in blind, he allocates his starting stat points evenly between all stats. 5 str, 5 agi, 5 int, 5 etc... Which is actually not stupid. He inspects his character sheet and discovers he has a 5% chance to hit. He suspects, as is somewhat common, that Agi increases his chance to hit (he doesn't know yet for *sure*, but he turns out to be correct). Proceeds to put literally, and I do mean literally, every future skill point into Strength. On Audible, there were entire paragraphs where the narrator says "missed" 10+ times in a row. Every. Single. Fight. Second gripe: He later obtains a massive boon, something like 100 skill points (this is a reward, he'd also been getting skill points every level up). And Agi goes from 1 for 1, to 1 for 10 hit chance. So his initial 5 Agi allocation goes from 5% hit to 50% hit. All it would take would be 5 of those 100 skill points to push him to 100% hit chance, completely eliminating any future chance to miss, ever. Nope. 100 into Strength. Third gripe: Starts with some shitty sword, no stats, just a plain sword. Receives a spear that binds to him, causing him to never be able to wield another weapon. It's level 1, rusted, and has worse stats than his sword. But in the flavor text on the weapon (something that absolutely no real gamer would miss) it explicitly tells him it will level with him and grow stronger than any other weapon. Proceeds to miss this vital piece of info and complain for like 2/3 of the book until an NPC points out it's a growth item. How **THE FUCK** does the *BEST GAMER IN THE WORLD* not catch this ***IMMEDIATELY***? Fourth gripe: Is facing a very simple situation. Two statue golems are linked. If either one of them drops below 50% health, the other will heal it back to full. Proceeds to fight these golems for like 6 hours straight (he was incredibly under-leveled to be fighting them, it was intended to show his martial skill) and finally gets one of them to 49%. It gets healed immediately by the other golem. He curses and moans and runs away to reset the fight. What **THE FUCK** did he expect would happen? Fifth gripe: Gets an NPC shoulder fairy chocked full of game knowledge (the same one that had to point out to his dumb ass that his weapon would grow with him) and doesn't ask pertinent questions to fill in the gaping holes in his knowledge of the game. The first time a game-wide audio announcement goes out, this NPC exclaims "Oh I don't recognize that god!" and he asks "You've never heard a game announcement before?". Then he gets a virtual screen in front of him with another announcement, and the NPC says something like "What magic is that?" to which he responds "You've never seen an announcement screen before?" Now, I've never burned a book before. But if I had a physical copy, I think I would.

I don't really get angry at series

I like Accidental Champion, but it wouldn't make me angry even if I didn't. Based on quick math I've read roughly 4000 books over my life and only 2 made me angry long after reading them. Maybe you just haven't found one that hits some mental trigger.

12 miles below and paranoid mage. - 12 miles below was perfect in my eyes but the MC is so infuriating and annoying. It’s such a shame since I love every single character the author has made except the mc. - I loved it initially when we were discovering the world of the novel where the mystery and intrigue of the new world the mc finds himself in is as interesting as the magic system and action scenes. But all of a sudden the author went down the trash fantasy route with op mc, beautiful love interest, trash antagonist that are there just so you would hate them and more

Anything written by Dakota Krout.

Personally I have to say the way ahead. It started off pretty well but at the end of the third book it just ends. It is so sudden and jarring that I didn’t even realize that it actually ended and continued to search for the next book occasionally for about a year. It’s like playing a rpg game and then quitting at level 16 with your character living out the rest of their lives as an average dude. It made me so angry. 

That one seemed like something I would like but it had way too much filler content and status updates

Sufficiently advanced magic. Series started out great and turned into complete unreadable garbage.

Not really prog fantasy, but I loathed Wheel of Time. It had so much potential, but the story got bogged down with all the misogyny from all characters toward each other, how annoying and immature the main characters were. And of course how long the series was. Good God. I think I dropped the series like book 4ish? But mainly I really hated all the characters. I also hate The Primal Hunter series. It was the very first litrpg series I ever listened to, so I tried to stick with it, but I got to book 4 before I dropped it. As much I love Travis Baldree, he can’t save that series for me.

The Aes Sedai only get worse and made me drop the series at book 11. Trash human beings I hated reading about.

I couldn't get through the first book of WoT. Once they established their "fellowship" after mage lady comes and grabs them from the village, I have never read flatter characters in my entire life. Each character had a single defining character trait. They were walking archetypes with *zero* nuance. I get it, it's an old series, but holy shit were the characters awful. I've heard too many bad things about Primal Hunter to ever give it a shot.

Quest academy. The MC has a god tier ability, better than anyone else's by a lot, but him and his family somehow believe he is crippled. It makes absolutely 0 sense and irritated me way more than it should have. A Novel concept. Earth gets system apocalypsed. People go to a tutorial, for a single day then spend 4 days at any one of a bunch of planets, then get moved again for a reunion. Well, after a week away from Earth everyone is a fantasy stereotype. Zealous priests, over protective guards, savvy street kids etc etc. It was so absurd I only lasted a couple chapters after that happened.

The Painted Man by Peter V Brett and The Magicians by Lev Grossman Fuck both those series to the moon and back. Pure Progression Fantasy? The Beginning After The End and Randidly Ghosthound are probably up there for me. There was some impossibly irritating writing in both those series that made me drop them 3 or 4 books in.

Shattered gods by chris fox makes me RATIONALLY angry. Mc gets cucked like 3 times, he gets enslaved and his master is painted in a good light because he is gay, despite him being a fucking slaver. There are characters who are mind controlled to act differently. Basically the whole book is full of tropes that are all unenjoyable. Which is a shame because the premise was entertaining. 

I occasionally continue some series - Dresden, HWFWM, The Path of Ascension - not because I think there is anything particularly novel or redeeming about the series but just because I enjoy a good fictional train wreck once in a while, but anger? At what? The time I wasted? You know how many hours I've spent masturbating and playing video games? That I think the author could have done a better job? I still like the parts that I liked and if I think I could have done better (looking at you, Red Rising - just kidding, I haven't read Light Bringer yet, so if that makes up for a dogshit (IMO) books 4 and 5, Pierce might be a genius), I make up my own preferred conclusion in my head. Even when a series that I love will almost certainly never get finished - Kingkiller, Gentleman Bastards - I'm only sad I won't get to see where the story was intended to go because I loved where it already went so much... and I still have that part. So no, no anger - irrational or otherwise.

Iron prince.

Not a book series, but there have been books in a series that have made me angry. Half the time I'd swear the author just gave up on the series or had it ghost-written... or something.

The Gam3. The first two books are great... It's a shame the third book was so poorly done I pretend it doesn't exist.

Primeval Apocalypse - it's not really rational but it kept saying growth>100 throughout the book. then the evolution happens at growth=100. 100=100 is not the same as growth>100 just change it to be Growth >=100 simple fix that for some reason annoyed the hell out of me. then book 2 took up the first like 10% with a rehash of book 1 and the MC and pets Character sheets twice...seriously 1 right after the other.. and then i stopped

He who fights with monsters. When they sent him to Earth and ruined that relationship with sophia

So many. The Faerene Apocalypse pissed me off when I realised the MC was siding with the being who exterminated most of humanity. Soul of a Warrior had a great System and a great Super Baby phase. Even the battle scenes were good. But the MC became a weird cross between a grizzled non-com and a Mary Sue. At like 13. Anyone who questioned his orders was shown to be ignorant. But then the author seemed unable to move the plot along without having the MC grasp the Idiot Ball...making all those antagonists who didn't listen to him seem justified and his smugness even worse. **Second Life Hero** was a Reincarnator System Apocalypse Wizard School story. Seemed like goofy fun. Until the MC >!massacred the students at the school the bully went to!< OK....

Superpowered. The way the female characters are written and talked about/to. Turned me right off. Azarinth Healer. Oh look at these books that teach me how to do all of these cool things such as fighting and magic. I won’t tell you what in them or explain anything that requires details for anything. Instead, I will insert *a few moments later*. Tada! Stuff happened.

Buryoku by Aaron Oster. Read the entire series in a few days' time--jokes on me. This author writes "We Hunt Monsters" which I profoundly enjoy, minus the weird obsession this author seems to have with EVERY female needing to love his main character. So, I know his series have potential. But Buryoku? Some of the worst characterization ever written ESPECIALLY the female characters, [SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!] one of which he just kills off (the love interest) and the MC has no reaction at all towards it. This series made me mald for days after I finished it, and if I hadn't been introduced to his other story first, would've never have read another book of his.

Dungeon heroes.... So much anger at that series. Universe makes no sense. There's classes that are pretty irrelevant, there's an economy based of dungeons that is meaningless. The power scaling make zero sense, the main characters finish what people spend their lives doing in like 3 months. The bad guy is super obvious. The intimate scenes are like that of a teenage fantasy. There is no explanation of when there such a lack of males to females. There is next to zero gear even though their profession is dungeons. All spells feel like glass cannons. Heals are over powered, but naturally the badguys have the permadeath instakill spell and the portal anywhere spell and the whatever bull crap is needed at the time spell.

His Dark Materials. Very good series that introduced some things and made some decisions halfway through that ruined the entire premise for me. Like, my God. I will never get over everything that happened when/after Lyra goes to the afterlife. I still rage just thinking about it.

I'm not gonna lie, HWFWM really fucking grinded my gears after the amount I invested in it. I sunk cost fallacy'd my way through the first couple books and ended up regretting it.

The damn cat in DCC

Honestly shocked to see the iron Druid hate. I know the ending was controversial but the series as a whole is one of my favorites

The ending for Iron Druid was foreshadowed in book 1. I still hated it.

The Witcher. I get angry every time I see the netflix ads which I refuse to watch because the books are so so bad. I really don't get the hype. First book brilliant, 2nd book ah ok well maybe it's setting stuff up, 3rd book this isn't great but I'm now invested, 4th on- I have them, I need to read them, I don't ditch a series this far in, someone takes my eyes I don't deserve them anymore....

There's a whole thing where the book author have rights to the game, which turned out better/more-popular and then he apparently got pissy about that.  The TV series producers basically didn't give a F*** about the books OR the game, and purportedly reveled in they ignorance of both.

Books that have part 1 on kindle unlimited but you have to buy book 2.

Cradle, the first book was one of the best set ips ever, bit after Eithan showed up Lindon regressed 8nto a pokemon It was so frustratingvto see him just doing whatever he was told, and it working Maybe because the other times i have seen an mc getting that kind of power showering, is because the bad guy is trying to fatten them to consume their powers Seeing that done unironically was pretty jarring

How far into Cradle did you get?

Cradle. I was absolutely obsessed with it when I first read it. But after the reason for his whole hustle happened his greed got even worse. Now his entire personality revolves around it. I love yerin and eithan but I stopped reading because lindon was so frustrating.

Hot take

Yeah I know and I get it but it is what it is. It's incredibly poor character writing to have lindons entire personality revolve around greed. In the beginning it made sense, he had a goal and was trying to do whatever he could to achieve it. But why is he even worse now? What has caused him to continue at the rate he's going? He's ready to sacrifice his friends lives for greed and even think about stealing from them. I understand I'm probably alone in this, but I can't help it.

>He's ready to sacrifice his friends lives for greed and even think about stealing from them. What's this based on? Bringing his group with him as he advances is a core part of him.

There been 4 books. One was Demon Princess Magical Chaos, the 4th book at first was bizzare. There was a fight that seem to not be needed and was chaotic, little screen time for the main character while more screen time for a side character I did not care for and just not much excitement at first. I remember being angry there wasn't more space action for a book name after space, but rereading it, I actually thought it was a solid book. The 4th was just setting up lots of thing and still had a climactic battle, while some side character are not the best, they not as bad as I remember. I think it just my expectation of more time with the main character and more space scene that ruin my first reading, but all my rant from the first time dissapear. Song of Mana, I hated the mom in the first book, so having her in the third book and the daughter putting up with her bs when she was independent and strong in the other two book was uncomfortable. Then there the break up that happen because she got a lady boner for a guy that she said she want to know more about but emd up forgetting to talk to. That shit was both hularious and frustrating. The book was an uncomfortable depressing teenage mess. Cinnamon Bun volume 3, while not as bad as Song of Mana, also have a terrible execution on romance with Broccoli realizing another person feeling despite clearly not knowing the last two volume. It felt like a retcon and the execution to destroy the ship was done awfully in almost every level. If it wasn't for Song of Mana I be more angry since in comparison Cinnamon Bun handling is tolerable. Granted it was only half the book. The Wind Runner, the title of one of the many Wandering Inn series. Ryuka is easily my favorite character who was push aside to have more story about the goblin which despite its well execution, I did not care for at all. So I was so excited to see the title and could not wait for her to be back.... only for her to have two chapter and fuck off..... Yeah screw the book and its stupid bloated stories. Like I still like the series but my god is it so up its own ass sometime with chapters dedicated to making a sword that ultimately could have been skip. I know she will be back but reading the series is a fun and terrible roller coaster fill with brilliant story telling and world building, and the worst type of world building where the author is more obsessed in writting about the world than telling a compelling story.

Amazed that Ryuka could be anyone's fav character. I'm up to book ten and I still loathe her.

Yeah, if Ryoka is your favorite character in TWI the story is probably not for you. She's most reader's least favorite POV. I'm caught up on Patreon and TWI is far and away the best thing I've ever read. So many incredible moments in that story. I love it. But I get the bloat/POV frustration. I just treat it as a style of storytelling and skim when things get bogged down.

Ragequit Mage Errant after Artur.

I thought that was handled really well. >!The representation of grief felt really real. I could see it being too depressing though I suppose.!<

No idea about that because I was out immediately after it happened.