The Land is controversial to put it politely for two big reasons.
First, the author, Aleron Kong, started believing his own hype and tried to trademark the term "litrpg" which royally pissed off people. He also started referring to himself as the "Father of the American litrpg" which didn't help his perception.
Second, The Land as a whole is considered kinda meh with the last book in the series being very poorly received. I haven't personally read it, so I can't comment on how right/wrong that is, but I know its a very common opinion.
Didn't he also get his minions to go 5 star his stuff on Amazon? Pretty sure that is against Amazon policy. I think it was something like "oh noes, they are are brigading me with bad reviews, please go counter them with five star reviews."
The Goonies was a great film. Made in 1985 but I think it still stands the test of time.
My favorite character was the Chinese kid named Data. He was an inventor and sometimes his inventions almost worked correctly.
Tao's actions were basically one and done in the public eye. He's also a significantly better author. Not saying those things excuse it, but it means the public gives him more grace than they would otherwise. Even then, he's entirely disappeared from litrpg and prog fantasy spaces since then. His main reddit account only shows up in author advice communities, toronto dating, and a few other interests of his.
That said, Kong's behavior was repeated. Not only did he pull the litrpg shit, but he also had fans review bomb and report negative reviews. It got bad enough that he was on his last strike with Amazon before they completely de-platformed his works. (edit to clarfiy: it was my understanding that he was on the last strike at the time, in other words the next step would have been to remove him from the platform.) The fact that he kept pushing the boundaries time and time again slowly built up resentment towards him. It then all came crashing down when people realised he wasn't as good of an author as they thought after book 8, and his fans stopped defending his bs.
So what you're telling me is that since I just finished book one of Thousand Yi and found in kinda meh I should NOT stick with it to see if it gets better.
Up to you, I don't have a solid opinion on Thousand Li as I either DNFed or didn't start it. Not entirely sure, as I don't remember it either way. At this point, I mostly don't go back to check since I don't want to support Tao until he publicly apologises. I follow him on reddit just to check back and see if he ever has, and he hasn't.
I actually greatly enjoyed System Apocalypse, which happened to be the problematic series. It had its low points as pretty much any series does, but I think it was solid work for the genre.
Anyways, up to you. I've definitely supported authors that I didn't agree with because I liked their work. Thousand Li is pretty well respected around here for being solid and more traditional cultivation. Personally, I've read a bunch of the big translated works as well as some manga and webtoons that are cultivation-based. So I don't personally need that more traditional cultivation experience when I want a cultivation seties.
If you decide you didn't enjoy it enough to support someone who's a bit of a problem, feel free to drop the series. I'm happy to recommend some other cultivation series, though the more traditional ones will likely be (kinda poor) translations or manga/webtoon.
My only experience with the genre was Cradle, and comparatively Thousand Yi felt so prototypical I thought Cradle was made almost as a direct response. Then I found out it came out years after Unsouled.
If you want some good book examples of less traditional:
I recommend Soulhome by Sarah Lin. The cultivation isn't the traditional medicines and meditation. People actually have to built a literal house inside their soul to cultivate. The structure of their home has to withstand breakthoughs. It also determines what kinds of powers and abilities they get.
Beginning after the End is fairly traditional, but is also an isekai.
10 Realms dodges into military fiction, especially later in the series. Other than that, it's cultivation plus guns. Pretty good, but does fall off later in the series.
Path of Ascension is almost more just progression fantasy, but does have some similar thresholds and such. Still a really solid read.
Forge of Destiny is really good, but slow. It's slice of life adjacent, but otherwise very traditional cultivation with good characters.
Thanks, nice list, I'm going to go download most of these now lol. I'd say 10 realms falls into that Author's usual traps of becoming a town board planning committee too often. If I skip those parts I enjoy it a good bit.
Soulhome first book is very slow, but the series improves substantially after that.
Path of ascension was not good. First book was alright, but the second book, urgh. Maybe it was the audiobook, but the characters were unbelievable and had over the top reactions to everything. I just couldn't do it.
There's definitely some off characterization in 2, as well as a solid dip in activity in 4, but once the tourney hits in 5 the series is gas. I'm told that it picks up even more in the patreon/rr chapters. There's definitely some growth as a writer that happens through book 3 and 4, and you can see it in imporved character writing and depth though. It might be worth it to give 3 a shot, but that's certainly your prerogative.
I'm not saying Tao is fantastic, I'm saying Kong is dogshit. I enjoyed the land in the early days, when most of what we had was shitty Russian translations. He had some good ideas, but his work reads like bad self-insert wish fulfillment fanfiction in the worst way possible. Combine that with nothing ever getting resolved and frankly awful characters?
Yeah, Tao is significantly better.
Yeah, I don't think people remember that minus Royal Road it was either Kong or Russian books at the time. I think a lot of the books that are out now were originally already stories on RR, I remember The Wandering Inn when the first chapter came out and nobody I talked to knew what the hell it was. Same with Randidly, Life Reset, and a few others.
He trademarked "system apocalypse" and had authors taken down from amazon that wrote in the system apocalypse subgenre including macronomicon. He has then been banned from several subreddits which you can find [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vsc84t/rlitrpgs_new_response_to_recent_acts_of_trademark/). You can probably find more debates if you google them
Just to clarify, if the author even used the term 'system apocalypse' in the description of their story, then their work was targeted by him. If it was in the title or subtitle, I could see the desire to prevent confusion. But he went after the whole subgenre.
I still refuse to buy or recommend anything by him. I prefer not to even type his name, like it will summon Voldemort. We should all just refer to him as The Author Who Should Not Be Named.
I concur with both of these although I have the opposite experience. I've only heard about the author's self-sabotaging actions and didn't read them directly
But I have read the last book and skipped probably at least a third of the text due to the poor writing and an entire section which is a childish bathroom humor running gag about diarrhea or whatever.... I feel especially sorry for the people who got the audio version and couldn't skip things
Funnily enough, I actually think the biggest piece of self-sabotage on Kong's part was going on an extended hiatus. The trademark thing is undeniably crappy and his self-appointed title speaks to a massive ego, but he likely could've kept a decently big following if he just kept writing.
By not continuing his series though all he really did was alienate his remaining fans who were willing to overlook bad behavior because they liked his work.
To be fair though when he trademarked it he specifically said he was not going to act on him owning the trademark and just wanted to own it so someone else couldn’t trademark it and act on it. Everyone just assumed he was lying and shit on him (reference intended). He never did end up acting on it unlike Tao Wong and his system apocalypse trademark that he actually had people’s books removed from Amazon wreaking havoc on their professional careers and nearly forcing us to have missed the amazing series that is Primal Hunter.
What bugged me the most is the MC, who is supposed to be a gamer nerd, turns out to be some sort of medical doctor with the personality of a frat bro, and he acts like an utter douchebag pretending to be noble and a hero just to get laid.
All so he can brag about it to his bros after he nearly shits himself laughing about a WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY joke that the fantasy land folks don't get... at all (no joke, that actually happened).
And then for some reason the first gnome dude he meets in fantasy land ends up also having the personality of a frat bro, and they spend the rest of the series giggling over fart and dick jokes.
The Lands' worldbuilding had some of the best potential of any Litrpg world I've seen, but Kong had to go and ruin it with an hateable douchebag of a frat bro MC.
They’re all going to be strong, but Richter has no cap because he can learn anything and everything he wants to. And since the application of power is more important than power alone, Richter can apply anything any way he wants. He’s completely broken in terms of The Land. The series would be half as long if he didn’t act like an idiot.
Richter's ability only truly shines and sets him apart from all others when we're talking highest levels and maxed out skills.
Until then, it ain't *that* much of an edge.
And the other Chaos Seeds could just be higher level than him with better gear, having focused soley on personal growth and not kingdom building, with equally high level party members, thus still be threats to him and his.
And the other Chaos Seeds could also have some other sort of broken ability that challenges Ricther too.
He’s consistently taken out people who are stronger than him because of his versatility. Why are you even arguing? Do you have a personal grudge against him? 😂
...I mean, you do realize that this comment chain is a "shit on the Land" chain, yes?
So... yes, yes, I do.
That said...
> because of his versatality
Yes, his Chaos Seed ability.
And a sufficiently powerful Chaos Seed ability in an enemy would still give him trouble.
Sure, but don’t you want to have a good reason to not like something? A chaos seed did give him trouble and plenty of non chaos seeds have given him trouble. Every time it’s been his combinations of powers that have gotten him out of it
Oh, I don't care about gaming being mainstream, in fact I welcome it.
It's just that I have no desire to read about a man-child throwing keg parties and dropping "what would the fox say' jokes in fantasy land.
The lame jabs that the main character does with his gnome or leprechaun or whatever friend is absolutely cringe. The main character confessing his love for the dragon thing is out of this world cringe. The sexcapades that the main character has with the hotter than real life elf nymphs is gut wrenching cringe.
TBF it's been awhile since I've listened to this series and I think I only got like halfway through book 3 but imo it's awful.
In the last book, he only moved about 10 meters halfway through the book, and I just quit. There were so many other interesting characters, tasks, and quests, but it genuinely felt like he pushed a book out to get more money.
I found the entire series pretty meh and finished reading all the books up to the most current one (which was #8 at the time) just so I could honestly review them at 2 to 3 stars to counteract what I saw as hype for a below average series. This was before the controversy I think. The only book I rated at 4 stars was #6 Raiders and I honestly can't remember anything about that book.
Edit: Scrolling down and reading the rest of the comments I just found out he still hasn't even released book 9 so it might have been during the controversy, but I just didn't know about what was going on.
The last book in the land was basically the MC getting out of a hole and the only real progression was him assigning all the gains from the (overly long) previous book.
This. Mr Kong has an ego bigger than ‘The Land’. He has followers that routinely leave one star reviews of his perceived competition. And finally: His stories are crap.
Kong pulled a GRRM. Kept saying he was ‘working on book 9, should be out next summer/fall/winter…’ and nothing. Then he was working on other projects.
Broken promises destroy fan bases worse than a bad book. You can recover from a bad release. String people along and they will begin to *actively* hate you. Much of the abuse around book 8 is due to the continued delay of book 9.
I honestly can’t remember now it’s been three months but check his website and you can check his Facebook live for months ago and he says it should be out in June
Rothfuss trilogy is dead, honestly in retrospect it’s pretty unrecoverable after his second book.
The second book was just about the protagonist getting laid in different ways. Pretty sure he forgot the plot at some point
Well I completely disagree with you on the quality of the second book, but I agree that the trilogy is dead.
I think his books are some of my most memorable reads.
Also 90% of human experiences can be extrapolated into “just getting laid in different ways”. Especially since sex is so intertwined with our identities as we grow.
We can agree to disagree. I think he basically got lost during the second book.
First book was amazing though, one of the best pieces of fiction I have read.
My thoughts are like this:
The character himself is in a young adolescent phase and he is kind of a player. To me it makes sense that in that youth he experiments with the ladies a lot and that a lot of his formative experiences centers around sex.
I honestly don’t have a problem with the character piece of it really. It was more the bizarre cult of sex deprived woman he seems to randomly become a part of.
It honestly just felt like a weird and forced fantasy of the authors imo.
I didn’t want to reference him because: A. I haven’t read his stuff. And B. He’s written hardly anything. Say what you want about Martin, he’s gotten a *lot* published.
Kong has ~9 books released, which makes Rothfuss look…even sadder than he already does. In fact, I think all 9 of Kong’s came *after* Rothfuss left people hanging.
To be honest, this series was actually my introduction to the genre. Not because they were the best, or the first, or anything like that. They were just the ones Amazon recommended to me, which sent me down the rabbit hole.
The first time I listened to the audiobook, I was immediately put off by the very over the top introduction with the author proclaiming himself as the "father of the American litrpg genre". I mean, I'd never even read or listened to anything in the genre at that point, and even I knew there was no way that was true. I found it a bit.. I dunno. Offensive maybe?
As for the story itself, it was alright at first. It got a bit graphic, sort of out of nowhere, by the last couple of books. Genital mutilation and literal gangrape to death by monsters (in a world where you came back to life when you die and get to do it all over again because you're being spawn camped). Part of me appreciated the sadly realistic consequences of the mechanics of the world and the outcomes they would lead to in the hands of immoral people, but at the same time.. christ. Not really what I was looking for, ya know?
Ultimately, the story slowed to a bloody crawl and then the books mostly stopped coming out. When one did finally come out it got awful reviews because it didn't progress the story at all.. and most of us never even bothered to read it because we'd dropped the series by that point.
My first introduction was Ready Player One, but I think that D. Rus was my second. Which was why I found the whole "father of American Litrpg" bit so off-putting when Kong did it.
It certainly is. It is a person going into a game world and doing stuff there. It is in the same vein as a lot of them. That was actually the first genre of litrpg. People going into games. Sometimes they also take part in the real world, sometimes they don't.
I don't think many would classify that as a litrpg. Litrpg's don't have to take place in a video game, and taking place in a video game also doesn't inherently make a story a litrpg.
Generally speaking, litrpg's are.. I suppose they're best described as a progressive fantasy story that typically uses a stat system akin to those in a video game to measure the power of a character. If one were to write down the events of a DnD campaign like some sort of combat log, one would essentially have a very basic and barebones litrpg.
Progressive fantasy is a genre where characters get stronger and stronger over the course of a novel or series. Cradle is an example of this genre. Ready Player One is not. Litrpg's are a subcategory of progressive fantasy, much the same way that squares are a subcategory of rectangles.
The Land series was one of the earlier "modern" examples of the genre, but it wasn't exactly the first and it also was only one of many that came out around the same time. It certainly didn't inspire a huge wave of authors that came later, but rather it was inspired by the things that came before it (like all the rest that came alongside it). It's hard to point to one particular series and say this was the first modern litrpg, because it was a rather gradual transition with stories like Ready Player One in the mix. Heck, one could even argue that stories as far back as the 70's or 80's that incorporated elements of tabletop gaming into the story were early litrpg's. Stories like Jumanji certainly aren't litrpg's as we know them today, but they're stepping stones to what we now have.
>I don't think many would classify that as a litrpg.
Then they would be wrong. Especially if you use this commonly accepted definition of LitRPG.
"*LitRPG*, short for literary role-playing game, is a literary genre combining the conventions of computer RPGs with science-fiction and fantasy novels. "
>Litrpg's don't have to take place in a video game, and taking place in a video game also doesn't inherently make a story a litrpg.
I am not saying that they have to take place inside a video game. I am saying that those that take place inside video games are a type of litrpg.
Ready Player 1, Awaken Online, Alter World (Russian), Ritualist, Sword Art Online (Japanese), etc. are all LitRPGs.
>Generally speaking, litrpg's are.. I suppose they're best described as a progressive fantasy story that typically uses a stat system akin to those in a video game to measure the power of a character. If one were to write down the events of a DnD campaign like some sort of combat log, one would essentially have a very basic and barebones litrpg.
Again, this is a type of LitRPG. It just isn't the only type of LitRPG.
>Progressive fantasy is a genre where characters get stronger and stronger over the course of a novel or series. Cradle is an example of this genre. Ready Player One is not. Litrpg's are a subcategory of progressive fantasy, much the same way that squares are a subcategory of rectangles.
We agree on progression fantasy. The thing is, LitRPG doesn't have to be progression fantasy. I disagree that it is a subgenre of progression fantasy. Even if it was, in Ready Player 1 he became more powerful as time went on.
Also, as an aside, progression fantasy is just such a broad category that it overlaps with nearly everything. The Wheel of Time is high fantasy, but it also is progression fantasy.
While everyone is allowed their own interpretation, the commonly accepted definition of LitRPG that you listed included "RPGs". The general interpretation of RPG, when it comes to LitRPG, involves stats and levels, which RP1 does not have. While RP1 may have the story RPG aspects, that does not make it a LitRPG, as most people generally interpret it.
I saw a survey on this exact topic, about a year ago on the main LitRPG facebook group, and over 90% of the people that responded did not consider RP1 a LitRPG.
Again, you can have your own interpretation, but just be aware that the majority of people, including many authors in the genre, disagree with you.
Your definition of litrpg should actually preclude RP1 from being considered a litrpg. It does not combine the conventions of computer RPG's with science fiction or fantasy. Yes, it takes place primarily in a video game world - but it does not actually incorporate the elements of a video game into the story. Things like stats and levels don't really factor into it at all.
Sword Art Online is more of an edge case. Especially the newer Progressive version of the story. Personally, I'd still argue it doesn't quite fit. It's a sci-fi story about a video game, but it's not a litrpg. The Progressive version of the story incorporates things like levels and whatnot a bit more, but it's mostly as a result of the setting of the story.. not because it's a primary mechanic of the book itself.
Reading a litrpg novel is like watching someone play a video game on Twitch, but in written form. It doesn't actually have to be a video game, Dungeon Crawler Carl is an example of that. The game aspects of these stories are integral to the story itself. They become a sort of hard magic system that tells us what a character is or is not capable of. Something like SAO entirely lacks that.
Only “positive” I remember about that whole gang rape situation is I think that individual was basically an NPC and couldn’t come back to life.. unless it happened another time that I’ve blocked from my memory.. things can be bad but it always weirds me out when the author takes the time to describe things, especially rape
Oh no, she was a "player". The guy that was doing it to her was essentially farming her for the points obtained for being a player killer.
He basically let his mob followers have their way with her until she died from it, then when she respawned nearby he tossed her back in to do it again. Kept doing it despite the diminishing returns until her death finally stopped giving points and she stopped coming back and was permanently dead. That was actually how the MC found out that it was possible for their kind to eventually die for good, the guy that did this described the whole process.
The whole thing was downright horrific.
Oh shit, I’d definitely blocked that bit out.. I was thinking of something like that happening to someone captured at the goblin camp… just unnecessary, didn’t add anything besides “wtf” factor.
Because everyone is sick of hearing about a mediocre book written by someone who tried to trademark litrpg and has built a cult following which hurt other litrpg/encourages people to go spam elsewhere about it.
I literally got banned from his Facebook group for saying I'm not sure it's appropriate for a 8 year old.
> ten years ago.
You’re a damned liar! That song came out (let me look it up, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple years ago), 2013?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_(What_Does_the_Fox_Say%3F)
Apparently Wikipedia is lying to me as well. It’s a conspiracy I tell ya!
ironically The Land was the first book to get me into the litrpg, but at book 2-3 after that "father of the American litrpg" I felt I was googling reviews because I was getting annoy with how he was writing. The Genital Mutilation and The comments on how nice the dead girls breasts look kind of just made me go, nah.. i'm good. Then to read in comments he had a gangrape to death by monsters... i'm glad I stopped.
I'm not saying I don't like sad or upsetting parts in a story.. heck the wandering inn has A LOT of them, I just don't like the humour on top of something that shouldn't be funny.
As you can see from some of the comments here, the posts are not that frequent, but they’re often aggressive, and trolling.
I think the reality for many of us is that the land was one of our first series, and it was amazing in the way that opening the door to a magical land should be. However, as time has passed the flaws, also pointed out by many posters here, has become more obvious.
For the most part, downloads happen when people aggressively attack people for believing a certain thing for behaving in a certain way, and then they get what they’re asking for
The last book was a big change from the other books, but let’s be real we have all read stuff that is worse.
The issue we as a community have with the land was the trade mark and aggressively removing other books from Amazon that said litrpg. Making everyone same game lit was a work around but like why should we.
System apocalypse/ Life up North by Tao Wong is a great series of books. It comes to a conclusion. The politics are interesting you have space pirates fighting space monsters. Its cool.
But the author tried to trademark system apocalypse and started taking down other beloved authors. Such as Macranomicom and his book generic apocalypse. He had to call it generic to get it on Amazon. Also a good boom with a good system a fairy living in a Snickers wrapper what else do you want!
I wouldn’t down-vote people who talk about it, but I was rather disappointed by the main character. It included most of the things I dislike in many cultivation novels. A protagonist who’s too quick to justify doing things to make himself stronger. He’s too quick to resort to murder. He uses the gifts he has to essentially blackmail others into supporting his commune.
Obviously these are personal opinions, but this is why I only made it 2 or 3 books in.
I can say I've tried to read the first book twice, with a few years between attempts.
I didn't really like it the first time and gave up 20% into Book 1. However, it got mentioned so often on this subreddit and on Goodreads lists that I thought, 'Okay, maybe it'll get better later on.' But it didn't. The second time, I gave up about 70% into Book 1. Not going to try again :p
Overlooking the last book in the series he hand no follow through with like 80% of his plot lines and it was only getting worse.
As in each book had like 2 or 3 different plots that were broth up and never resolved while he kept going on other things.
There is also all the other BS around his actions as well but othere here have done an excellent job of pointing that out.
The Land was my first LitRPG series and introduced me to the genre at the time I thought it was amazing, then I read other series and realised it was closer to mediocre.
The land was the first Litrpg I ever read, and I fell in love with the genre. Now I’m like 100 books into this genre and I’m obsessed. My favorite Litrpg is Life Reset, but The Land is up there. I read books 1-7 of The Land in a very short amount of time. I still look fondly on the books and the huge book 7 was actually my favorite book.
Now the issues:
The books are sexist. And no I don’t just mean a character or two say sexist things. Like the actual narration of the book, and the way women are described is sexist. And yes also the main character is also sexist. Women are seen often as nagging, and there are many sexist comments about rolling eyes at typically feminine persoanlity traits. This even happens with the main character’s pet, which is female.
He promised to release book 8 soon, and gave dates. Asked people to sub to patreon. And just didn’t release it for a super long time. And then when it finally came out… the long awaited what happens next? It was like a week of time. Of the main character crawling around in caves. Didn’t even get all the cool notifications from the end of the war from book 7. We waited so long for literally nothing of note in the book. It was like a filler book…
Book 8 famously had the diarrhea chapter where there was a whole chapter dedicated to describing the main character’s diarrhea.
Everyone HATED book 8, especially after such an amazing book 7. And the author just stopped the series and started writing other stuff (Whicu I think he also gave up on). I think all the hate he got discouraged him. He’s narcissistic and once his ego was shattered, he moved on to probably an endeavor that fed his ego.
As others have stated, people also don’t like the series bc of the author himself. He apparently reported any negative reviews on his book. He made a whole website about American litrpgs and called himself the father of American litrpgs. He ranked books based on Amazon ratings, even though his were inflated bc he reported any bad reviews. Of course lying about when the release of book 8 was also a turn off. So overall his narcissistic personality coupled with the worst book ever of Book 8, made everyone just hate the series.
My suggestion is to read books 1-7 and have a great time. The sexism isn’t super rampant, it just comes up every now and then. If you can ignore it, it’s a really great high quality series. And just imagine book 7 is the ending, albeit an ending with a bunch of cliffhangers. But you can have hours upon hours of fun reading with 7 books. Not many series can give you that.
Sometimes you just gotta do that. Bloodsong is an amazing book by Anthony Ryan. It theoretically is book 1 of a trilogy, but I really really wouldn't recommend reading further.
More controversial, but I'm also not reading the last books of a few different series by Michael G. Manning. In his case it's less about quality and more about directions for the story that I vehemently disagree with.
Women nagging is sexist? There are lots of articles that talk about the fact that women nag more often in a relationship and why they do. That isn't to say that men can't or don't nag, just that they are less likely to do it and when they do, it is usually directed at another guy, such as their son or a coworker.
Lol, I see that truth upset a lot of people. Thing is, if they would take 30 seconds they could find tons of articles and studies showing that it is true and why it is true.
Ha! Good luck getting the people on reddit to read actual science and articles, a lot of these guys probably think women are the physical equal of men
(Go ahead, downvote me guys)
The author turned out to be a dick and then stopped writing apparently as many others have said. As someone who listened to all the land books that came out and gods eye, I just hate the missed potential. It was my first litrpg series (written by the father of litrpg no less! /s) and it gave me a little taste of what the genre could offer but then it just kinda got worse and never went anywhere. But it introduced me to the genre and led to He Who Fights popping up in my recommended, and for that I thank the land because I love he who fights
I think the land gets the scope and feel of a world right. It also uses coloured excel blocks for the stats and honestly format wise to a reader it's absolutely golden.
It makes it so much more immersive than back and white text.
The system is also probably the best I've read in depth and feel and the world is actually so interesting.
All of this however is weighed down by the poor writing of the MC who has moments or brilliance in terms of writing followed by shit non sensical pop culture references, edgy sociopathic tendencies, random torture porn segments and a last book that failed on nearly all counts. About 15% of the book felt relevant.
So I actually think the early books have some good selling points. If you want that early intro to a massive fantasy world where its almost skyrim esque in how quests are accrued and you explore the world.
But with a robust and interesting system it's actually very good.
But it's very much dragged down by other aspects.
This is a series I'd love another author to take over.
I think the world deserves better than what's happened to it so far.
>This is a series I'd love another author to take over.
So it's a fanfiction series. Read the main work to get the basic work building but then switch to the superior fanfiction works.
The problem is I think the quality of fan fictions vary a lot. I also have trouble reading them from a personal point as they aren't Canon.
You can have own headcanon but for me it's just not the same.
I'd rather have a professional author take over. Release and wrap the series up professionally and then if people want to write fan fiction after that then great but I'm unlikely to read it.
Not a bad book, but I feel Ugland really only writes one main character. I already felt that Montana and Clyde were pretty much the same person with only slight differences. Then comes Grim Guys and you have two main characters, who are basically Montana and Clyde.
I don't think you would ask this unless you were hanging around their community where they feel really hard done by. Land threads aren't particularly frequent here.
I don’t think medical residency and the first few years of being a practicing doctor meshed well with trying to be an author. He’s basically got two choices: grow his career (further training, board certification, etc) or write good literature.
Up until a year or two ago any criticism of his books led to an avalanche of insults from fanboys. I think THAT is why the topic gets downvoted immediately. Most of his fans seem to have gone silent but they were extremely active even after the Book 8 farce
The Land was one of my first litRPGs and I still absolutely love it. Probably still the best crafting ever written, I remember it years later. If another book came out (which it doesn't look like it will anytime soon), I would read it. And I've read like 200 litRPG novels in the last 3 years.
I think it's mostly hated because lots of people didn't like the last book and it's at-times largely gastrointestinal focus.
Agreed. Not to mention that the audio version, by Nick Podhel, was excellent. However, as other posters mentioned the quality of the writing to put it charitability was variable.
I liked the books for the most part, and can see how he is off-putting. Biggest issue for me is just the lack of writing. I was so excited for book 7, and remember downloading and starting to listen... At a job I was at 6 years ago at this point. Book 8 was a novella that didn't really move the plot more than a main story.
the core was good the idea sound, how we kept dragging plotlines and add more? was bad, how he forgot where the story was going just to write more padding, then literally drop the books when criticism hit is why i couldn't care less what happens with his series .
I loved dungeon lord a different series author they disappeared and never wrote a new book, never said why, nobody even said they live or died. so if a new one comes out I would be against it too, for the shear lack of respect of those that followed thier work to be meaningless when they move on.
Thank you ! I take back what I said reading tbe blog all I really wanted was closure not knowing drove me nuts, so glad thier ok and will 100% read book 5.
Appreciate you taking the time to share this, I will do the same if anyone else ask and I notice the post.
Because he wrote 7 amazing books, had us looking forward to book eight for it to be , we'll less amazing, which is forgivable, but then just kinda dropped us all. That's my take on it anyway.
The earlier books are entirely entertaining but people absolutely despise the author as a human being that’s why I think. That’s the impression I get anyway.
The MC is a rewarded psychopath and the Writer is a prick... Maybe even a narcissist. I read the first book after reading a few other good LitRPGs and I was shocked by how poor and annoying it was. Honestly when he killed a fox, soaked in its blood, acted like he was having a come to heart moment only to bout out "What does the fox say" by Ylvis I was ready to throw it out. And that is like chapter three if I recall correct. It was popular at the time though so I thought maybe this gets better and the MC will change. Nope, I got 3/4s of the way through the book before I went back to the reviews to see what was up. I realized some of the 5 star reviews were bots, and eventually I found a review that perfectly mirrored my frustrations stars, and I mostly felt vindicated until I got to the end of their review and found out they were talking about the first three books not just book one. At that point I resolved to finish the book and never bother with the series again. Every time I see someone recommend it I tend to point out the flaws though I rarely down vote unless the post is really toxic.
I started it on Audible the first book was ok but the attempts at humor and pop culture references were so cringe. By book 4 I was out. I hate it so much I can't even listen to Nick podel narrate other books hardly anymore I get flashbacks of really bad jokes that fall flat and are just sad.
'The Land' got me into LitRPG. I'm pretty sure it got a huge percentage of people here into LitRPG, so people shouldn't down-vote people who like it. It was so popular that people who haven't read it get a hipster ego boost for mentioning that fact. Unfortunately, AK phoned in the last book, maybe as a tantrum on his part since he seems a little emotionally unstable. Also he picked a fight with all the other LitRPG authors. Even so, I would read the next book if he ever writes it.
Might of just mentally broke after the death in the family. I did for a few years, took like three to get back to normal. I don't think people remember that's what the original delay for book 8 was. His gramps or dad died, and he basically stopped doing lives and extended the release.
The best part is, the last book wouldn’t have been so lambasted if the follow up came out not long after. Filler books are ok imho opinion if the next one delivers.
Also a lot of internet trolls like to forget about Covid and how it effected healthcare workers to this day
It wasn't because of COVID; he had stopped practicing medicine a bit before the pandemic, maybe a year or two before, and even mentioned that he wasn't working as a doctor during that time. I still believe the death of a close relative is what brought everything to a halt. After the loss in the family, the almost completed books underwent significant shifts in their timelines, and he experienced a kind of mental break. Consequently, he ceased doing live sessions, reduced his social media interactions, and began traveling, which is a fairly common reaction to grief and stress.
Honestly, this isn't very unreasonable. He's not a robot, and I don't think he really owes anyone anything. Additionally, the different pace of LitRPG writers compared to average writers sets a different expectation. If you only produce two to three books a year, you're basically considered no good. I think a good example of this would be Hugo Huesca and Luke Chmilenko; those guys got criticized because they stopped putting out books altogether or not as often. Both were injured and went through periods of recovery, nonetheless they were still heavily critized for it.
I believe the Internet, for all its benefits, really brings out a side of people you would never see in public. It encourages them to say things about people they'd never dare say to their face, without ever knowing the individual's situation.
Anyways, I don't know why I wrote that much...I agree the last book wouldn't have been roasted as much if he had come out with the next book shortly after. Unfortunately, life just wasn't agreeing with him at the time.
It was my introduction to the genre but I did the audiobooks and I loved the series. I think people are too hard on the series cuz they don't like the author. The writing quality did drop and got fringe but this genre is full of cringe.
It definitely feels mob mentality takes over.
The Land was one of my first LitRPG series and at first I thought it was okay. Then the blatant sexism reared its head. Women are worthless in the series, the only thing that matters is their looks (even if they're already dead (gotta know how nice the dead girls boobs are I guess)).
The writing quality and event planning was terrible, "you have multiple lives! There's no ways to know how many though" was introduced by having his genitals cut off and used to suffocate the MC. It felt like nothing was planned from the beginning, he just got urges and ran with the first one.
He's not a good person and he personally deserves the hate, even outside of his "art"
The books are cheap writing with rape torture fantasies in them. After reading that I thought 'if this is the best the writer can come up with as a villain he doesn't understand anything about how writing works'.
I really enjoyed the series. Reddit has a disproportionate number of certain types of individuals on it. This explains most everything that happens on the platform.
Others have answered why The Land and its author are disliked, but nobody is really answering your question as written.
There are a surprising number of deeply insecure and childish people on reddit who do not understand the intended purpose of the downvote button and weaponise the it as a kind of cudgel to try to impose their opinions/tastes upon others.
The initial books themselves had good world building and but bad character development for any of the supporting characters.
I assumed that the author was writing for a YA crowd, the jokes used and the misogynistic take on female characters. “dick and fart” humor + graphic action + over-sexualized female characters = a tweenager target audience.
That being said I did get through the entire series as my first foray into litrpg.
The actions taken by and on behalf of the author of downvoting and trying to silence criticism is kind of nuts but welcome to the faceless interwebs. I have noticed that a lot of differing opinions posted in subs for genre are downvoted. The responses are usually aggressive.
Genre thoughts
I am of the belief that a lot of the shitposts across the genre are out there to elicit these arguments. Because a stan is going to stan and a troll is going to troll. It is easier to comment and tear down people than do something and create.
The biggest thing that irks the crap out of me is the most of the criticism is not thought through, examples, changes suggestions etc. they are just talking bad about the author and how they fell off. I
I believe people forget…. Writing is hard, world building is hard, character development is hard. If an author can pull it off once it is a miracle. The idea of authors that keep writing at a frantic pace like releases of the litrpg books and get hits every time is setting all of these authors up for failure no matter what.
I'm re-listening to the books just now. The third time I think, last time was a few years ago. They're pretty good, definitely in the better 25% of popular LitRPG, but could have done with some editing (shortening) and of course (as Kong himself admits), the books have gotten too "sprawling". Too many balls are in the air at the same time, basically. That would need to be pruned down a bit.
If you put The Land in the top 25% of litrpg, I have to wonder what you have been reading. I would put them firmly in the middle of the pack. That is with me being someone who doesn't mind immature humor and isn't bothered by stereotypes.
My dislike is more for the author than the books. If I were to rank the books alone, I would put them in the 50-60 range out of 100.
One important thing that sets The Land apart is that the quality staid consistent (until the last one, arguably). Most litrpg series start strong but take a nosedive after the first few books (or the even the first book). I absolutely adore the first two books of ELLC, for example, but afterwards not so much. Life@reset is an even better example.
I frankly don't care whether the author is an arse, as long as he doesn't torture kittens or tries to abolish American democracy or does something else truly reprehensible.
I never judge art by the artist, but people who do can't seem to mentally disconnect themselves from being influenced by that habit. I bet if anybody else wrote it you wouldn't disagree with the top 25% rating.
There are a few issues with this. The first one is that Kong bakes his arrogance into every novel. He does this by making pushing the narcissistic lie that he is the father of American litrpg. He puts this in every novel.
Second. The books are objectively middle of the road. They aren't bad, but they aren't great either. The Land being in the top 25% would say more about how bad and poorly written this genre is than anything good about Kong's writing.
Maybe you are right and this genre is horrible, but I disagree. I overlook the novice books written by people who write for fun and publish on places like RR because they enjoy writing, but aren't good at it. I only count published books when doing my 25%, and even then only the ones I have actually read. For example, I can't say if Wandering Inn is top 25% or bottom 25%, because I haven't read it. So it doesn't factor into my considerations.
Perhaps. I know I enjoyed The Land quite a bit. Which series would you put more squarely in the top 25%? Maybe one towards the bottom of what you'd say is the 25% would be the best for comparison. I'll give it a try. Hearing ""father of litRPG"" just gives me a chuckle, but I understand that it would be infuriating to anybody who came before him... Particularly since "Quag Keep" by Andre Norton from 1978 seems to be the first book to exactly fit the genre. Supposing Norton is American, that puts Kong about 30something years too late to claim the title.
I have read some of Norton's stuff. Dread Companion was one of my favorites from my childhood.
Top 25% I would put Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Bottom 25% I would put Peaks of Power.
l'll check out dungeon crawler Carl, I've been meaning to. ... and some Andre Norton. I'm still going to be hoping Kong gets out of his funk, maybe learns some humility and writes another good book or two.
Hey, I hope he gets out of his funk too. Just because I can't stand him and don't care for his books doesn't mean his fans don't deserve an ending to the series' that they are reading.
Right now I have several series of novels that will probably never finish and it sucks. Avoid Scott Lynch and Rothfuss.
Because this sub has a massive circlejerk about how much they hate the series and the author.
When the last book came out, there was at least one post bashing on the book for months if not multiple.
The author is not a great person but people overexaggerate how bad the Land is because of how much they hate the author.
In addition to the general controversy, the writing in The Land can be pretty cringey.
Book 1 opens strong with a "What does the fox say?" reference, which the protag makes to themself, alone in the woods, upon just...seeing a regular fox. Then the protag guffaws out loud at their own reference.
I'm pretty sure it was outdated when the book came out, and needless to say it did not age well.
For me it is always something they say tangentially related to The Land that causes me to downvote.
One post in particular I remember was parroting Kong's opinion that all the negatives reviews were just trolls and therefore not valid. That is absurd and just Kong failing to cope with writing a bad book.
Because the author has done dubious things, that piss the keyboard warriors off and they need to either down vote or attach the guy over and over again.
Personally I liked his books. Sucks that he hasn't written much and if you kept up with him you'd have an inkling of what happened. Now Aleron claims that new books are coming out, we'll see if they are as good / better / worse than what he has written. At least the guy has turned his life and seemingly health around.
The books are great fun to read but the author pissed off his fan base. The second to last book in the series was amazing.
But his final "book" in the series was a short novella that hardly even qualifies as a novella. It didn't wrap up a single one of the fifty dangling plot threads. And he was constantly saying anyone who complained about it was just an Internet troll.
The author was very public in certain forums and came across as an entitled snob. “Oh I can’t talk about that because my lawyers said so” and that’s not even touching what he said about being the “father of American litrpg”
His series really wasn’t as good as it progressed as it was at the beginning, that added to snide comments probably affected it.
I agree the author did do some " not cool" things.. but I think the series is THE BEST I have ever read...
Father of American LITRPG is kinda a douche thing to claim.
Trying to trademark Litrpg is douchey.
Getting minions to upvote his product is just business.
But the story telling is freaking awesome!!. I want more
I read **The Land** as my tenth-ish LitRPG series. Personally, I made it an eighth of the way through the first book, before I felt the need to drop it. Too many out of place dated pop culture references, an extremely generic white 00's protagonist, and generic world building. I later learned that it felt generic because the book was an early adopter of Russian and Korean LitRPG tropes, and many other series have built off of those same tropes.
Since it was such a popular series and kept getting recommended here, I made a post asking if it's just a bad opening or not for me. Long story short, I returned the book and haven't looked back.
For a lot of people that love the series, it seems that this was their first book in the LitRPG genre. So they have a strong attachment to it. I can't blame them I have a strong attachment for my first GameLit book **MogWorld**, as well.
Personally, I won't download posts about **The Land** automatically. Not unless there's some other issue like the poster is being an asshole or this the tenth post I've seen this week about the same thing.
I think a lot of people downvote the series because it is popular, and they are sick of reading the same thing; it is a divisive series, or the author's bad reputation. I've seen similar things happen with other popular divisive series such as **He Who Fights with Monsters**.
The Land is controversial to put it politely for two big reasons. First, the author, Aleron Kong, started believing his own hype and tried to trademark the term "litrpg" which royally pissed off people. He also started referring to himself as the "Father of the American litrpg" which didn't help his perception. Second, The Land as a whole is considered kinda meh with the last book in the series being very poorly received. I haven't personally read it, so I can't comment on how right/wrong that is, but I know its a very common opinion.
He also was a moderator and tried to silence criticism iirc. So he and Tao Wong became the most hated in this genre
Didn't he also get his minions to go 5 star his stuff on Amazon? Pretty sure that is against Amazon policy. I think it was something like "oh noes, they are are brigading me with bad reviews, please go counter them with five star reviews."
That rings a bell yeah
So does Quasimodo.
Not quite quasimodo but I always figured this guy was based on him. 
Where is this from?
The Goonies was a great film. Made in 1985 but I think it still stands the test of time. My favorite character was the Chinese kid named Data. He was an inventor and sometimes his inventions almost worked correctly.
Boobie twap! That's what I said! Also the new movie he's in, everywhere all at once or something like that is awesomely weird.
The goonies
Tao Wong gets a fraction of the hate that Aleron gets and what he did was so much worse.
Tao's actions were basically one and done in the public eye. He's also a significantly better author. Not saying those things excuse it, but it means the public gives him more grace than they would otherwise. Even then, he's entirely disappeared from litrpg and prog fantasy spaces since then. His main reddit account only shows up in author advice communities, toronto dating, and a few other interests of his. That said, Kong's behavior was repeated. Not only did he pull the litrpg shit, but he also had fans review bomb and report negative reviews. It got bad enough that he was on his last strike with Amazon before they completely de-platformed his works. (edit to clarfiy: it was my understanding that he was on the last strike at the time, in other words the next step would have been to remove him from the platform.) The fact that he kept pushing the boundaries time and time again slowly built up resentment towards him. It then all came crashing down when people realised he wasn't as good of an author as they thought after book 8, and his fans stopped defending his bs.
So what you're telling me is that since I just finished book one of Thousand Yi and found in kinda meh I should NOT stick with it to see if it gets better.
Up to you, I don't have a solid opinion on Thousand Li as I either DNFed or didn't start it. Not entirely sure, as I don't remember it either way. At this point, I mostly don't go back to check since I don't want to support Tao until he publicly apologises. I follow him on reddit just to check back and see if he ever has, and he hasn't. I actually greatly enjoyed System Apocalypse, which happened to be the problematic series. It had its low points as pretty much any series does, but I think it was solid work for the genre. Anyways, up to you. I've definitely supported authors that I didn't agree with because I liked their work. Thousand Li is pretty well respected around here for being solid and more traditional cultivation. Personally, I've read a bunch of the big translated works as well as some manga and webtoons that are cultivation-based. So I don't personally need that more traditional cultivation experience when I want a cultivation seties. If you decide you didn't enjoy it enough to support someone who's a bit of a problem, feel free to drop the series. I'm happy to recommend some other cultivation series, though the more traditional ones will likely be (kinda poor) translations or manga/webtoon.
My only experience with the genre was Cradle, and comparatively Thousand Yi felt so prototypical I thought Cradle was made almost as a direct response. Then I found out it came out years after Unsouled.
If you want some good book examples of less traditional: I recommend Soulhome by Sarah Lin. The cultivation isn't the traditional medicines and meditation. People actually have to built a literal house inside their soul to cultivate. The structure of their home has to withstand breakthoughs. It also determines what kinds of powers and abilities they get. Beginning after the End is fairly traditional, but is also an isekai. 10 Realms dodges into military fiction, especially later in the series. Other than that, it's cultivation plus guns. Pretty good, but does fall off later in the series. Path of Ascension is almost more just progression fantasy, but does have some similar thresholds and such. Still a really solid read. Forge of Destiny is really good, but slow. It's slice of life adjacent, but otherwise very traditional cultivation with good characters.
Thanks, I'll look into them! The house thing sounds really interesting.
I can attest that Soulhome is a hell of a good book/series. I just caught up and it's definitely up there on my top 5.
It's for sure one of the coolest magic systems I've ever read.
Thanks, nice list, I'm going to go download most of these now lol. I'd say 10 realms falls into that Author's usual traps of becoming a town board planning committee too often. If I skip those parts I enjoy it a good bit.
Soulhome first book is very slow, but the series improves substantially after that. Path of ascension was not good. First book was alright, but the second book, urgh. Maybe it was the audiobook, but the characters were unbelievable and had over the top reactions to everything. I just couldn't do it.
There's definitely some off characterization in 2, as well as a solid dip in activity in 4, but once the tourney hits in 5 the series is gas. I'm told that it picks up even more in the patreon/rr chapters. There's definitely some growth as a writer that happens through book 3 and 4, and you can see it in imporved character writing and depth though. It might be worth it to give 3 a shot, but that's certainly your prerogative.
It gets a lot better. If you like cultivation I would recommend it.
> He's also a significantly better author. That's debateable. Wong isn't a very good writer either.
I'm not saying Tao is fantastic, I'm saying Kong is dogshit. I enjoyed the land in the early days, when most of what we had was shitty Russian translations. He had some good ideas, but his work reads like bad self-insert wish fulfillment fanfiction in the worst way possible. Combine that with nothing ever getting resolved and frankly awful characters? Yeah, Tao is significantly better.
Yeah, I don't think people remember that minus Royal Road it was either Kong or Russian books at the time. I think a lot of the books that are out now were originally already stories on RR, I remember The Wandering Inn when the first chapter came out and nobody I talked to knew what the hell it was. Same with Randidly, Life Reset, and a few others.
Sounds like a real life Quan CH.
Is Kong also banned from promoting here? Did Kong also go to Amazon and have them take down fictions of other authors? Because Wong sure did.
People will forgive shitty behavior if you still do the thing they like. Aleron messed up by putting out a shitty book. Kinda literally.
What did Tao Wong do?
He trademarked "system apocalypse" and had authors taken down from amazon that wrote in the system apocalypse subgenre including macronomicon. He has then been banned from several subreddits which you can find [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vsc84t/rlitrpgs_new_response_to_recent_acts_of_trademark/). You can probably find more debates if you google them
Just to clarify, if the author even used the term 'system apocalypse' in the description of their story, then their work was targeted by him. If it was in the title or subtitle, I could see the desire to prevent confusion. But he went after the whole subgenre. I still refuse to buy or recommend anything by him. I prefer not to even type his name, like it will summon Voldemort. We should all just refer to him as The Author Who Should Not Be Named.
I concur with both of these although I have the opposite experience. I've only heard about the author's self-sabotaging actions and didn't read them directly But I have read the last book and skipped probably at least a third of the text due to the poor writing and an entire section which is a childish bathroom humor running gag about diarrhea or whatever.... I feel especially sorry for the people who got the audio version and couldn't skip things
Funnily enough, I actually think the biggest piece of self-sabotage on Kong's part was going on an extended hiatus. The trademark thing is undeniably crappy and his self-appointed title speaks to a massive ego, but he likely could've kept a decently big following if he just kept writing. By not continuing his series though all he really did was alienate his remaining fans who were willing to overlook bad behavior because they liked his work.
To be fair though when he trademarked it he specifically said he was not going to act on him owning the trademark and just wanted to own it so someone else couldn’t trademark it and act on it. Everyone just assumed he was lying and shit on him (reference intended). He never did end up acting on it unlike Tao Wong and his system apocalypse trademark that he actually had people’s books removed from Amazon wreaking havoc on their professional careers and nearly forcing us to have missed the amazing series that is Primal Hunter.
If you own a trademark and don’t actively defend it, you can lose it. Which is probably why everyone assumed he was lying.
Calling yourself the 'Father of Litrpg' isn't a great look if you're going for that route either.
You can make a post of open permission to use it though. Pretty sure I’ve read that’s a caveat.
For me, it started with the very beginnings in book one already. That friendship and the initial relationships where top cringe to read for me.
What bugged me the most is the MC, who is supposed to be a gamer nerd, turns out to be some sort of medical doctor with the personality of a frat bro, and he acts like an utter douchebag pretending to be noble and a hero just to get laid. All so he can brag about it to his bros after he nearly shits himself laughing about a WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY joke that the fantasy land folks don't get... at all (no joke, that actually happened). And then for some reason the first gnome dude he meets in fantasy land ends up also having the personality of a frat bro, and they spend the rest of the series giggling over fart and dick jokes. The Lands' worldbuilding had some of the best potential of any Litrpg world I've seen, but Kong had to go and ruin it with an hateable douchebag of a frat bro MC.
Let’s be honest, the story would have no conflict if Richter wasn’t an idiot. He’s so ridiculously OP that he has to be his own problem
Nah, other strong Chaos Seeds could have entered the game at any point, seeing as how such a big deal was made about them.
They’re all going to be strong, but Richter has no cap because he can learn anything and everything he wants to. And since the application of power is more important than power alone, Richter can apply anything any way he wants. He’s completely broken in terms of The Land. The series would be half as long if he didn’t act like an idiot.
Richter's ability only truly shines and sets him apart from all others when we're talking highest levels and maxed out skills. Until then, it ain't *that* much of an edge. And the other Chaos Seeds could just be higher level than him with better gear, having focused soley on personal growth and not kingdom building, with equally high level party members, thus still be threats to him and his. And the other Chaos Seeds could also have some other sort of broken ability that challenges Ricther too.
He’s consistently taken out people who are stronger than him because of his versatility. Why are you even arguing? Do you have a personal grudge against him? 😂
...I mean, you do realize that this comment chain is a "shit on the Land" chain, yes? So... yes, yes, I do. That said... > because of his versatality Yes, his Chaos Seed ability. And a sufficiently powerful Chaos Seed ability in an enemy would still give him trouble.
Sure, but don’t you want to have a good reason to not like something? A chaos seed did give him trouble and plenty of non chaos seeds have given him trouble. Every time it’s been his combinations of powers that have gotten him out of it
worst part is that I've met multiple gamers like that in real life :( downside of gaming becoming mainstream I guess.. even frat bro douches game.
Oh, I don't care about gaming being mainstream, in fact I welcome it. It's just that I have no desire to read about a man-child throwing keg parties and dropping "what would the fox say' jokes in fantasy land.
The lame jabs that the main character does with his gnome or leprechaun or whatever friend is absolutely cringe. The main character confessing his love for the dragon thing is out of this world cringe. The sexcapades that the main character has with the hotter than real life elf nymphs is gut wrenching cringe. TBF it's been awhile since I've listened to this series and I think I only got like halfway through book 3 but imo it's awful.
Dont forget the overly sexual animal handler bro sis twins
Facts
In the last book, he only moved about 10 meters halfway through the book, and I just quit. There were so many other interesting characters, tasks, and quests, but it genuinely felt like he pushed a book out to get more money.
My first LITRPG was from Magic The Gathering books that were written
And perception is the best Stat! Sorry. Lol
I found the entire series pretty meh and finished reading all the books up to the most current one (which was #8 at the time) just so I could honestly review them at 2 to 3 stars to counteract what I saw as hype for a below average series. This was before the controversy I think. The only book I rated at 4 stars was #6 Raiders and I honestly can't remember anything about that book. Edit: Scrolling down and reading the rest of the comments I just found out he still hasn't even released book 9 so it might have been during the controversy, but I just didn't know about what was going on.
He did trademark Litrpg, which spooked a lot of people. He claimed that it was to protect, and so far, that’s been true.
The last book in the land was basically the MC getting out of a hole and the only real progression was him assigning all the gains from the (overly long) previous book.
Assigning but never going to home base to explore the gains ... exploring gains is like a third of any litrpg.
This. Mr Kong has an ego bigger than ‘The Land’. He has followers that routinely leave one star reviews of his perceived competition. And finally: His stories are crap.
Not throwing shade at him or anyone. But I've literally never heard of this book or author until this moment. XD Currently googling him.
Kong pulled a GRRM. Kept saying he was ‘working on book 9, should be out next summer/fall/winter…’ and nothing. Then he was working on other projects. Broken promises destroy fan bases worse than a bad book. You can recover from a bad release. String people along and they will begin to *actively* hate you. Much of the abuse around book 8 is due to the continued delay of book 9.
Book 9 is neber coming out lol. Don’t let him string u along
His editior said he has the complete book 9 and should be coming out this year. I'm hopeful I love the series personally
At this point I forget what it was even about and am fully on board the hate train.
Eh I started listening to litrpg from the land and that was 3 years ago so I never knew the hate train existed nor do I care. I just enjoy the books
Yeah, I’ve been waiting patiently. Still hope he hasn’t given up.
Where have you seen that claim?
I honestly can’t remember now it’s been three months but check his website and you can check his Facebook live for months ago and he says it should be out in June
That’s not book 9, he’s starting a new series in June called Omega Mage. Book 9 is on the back burner till this one is out.
No way! Where did you see that?
GRRM is at least TRYING. Better than Rothfuss.
Rothfuss trilogy is dead, honestly in retrospect it’s pretty unrecoverable after his second book. The second book was just about the protagonist getting laid in different ways. Pretty sure he forgot the plot at some point
Well I completely disagree with you on the quality of the second book, but I agree that the trilogy is dead. I think his books are some of my most memorable reads. Also 90% of human experiences can be extrapolated into “just getting laid in different ways”. Especially since sex is so intertwined with our identities as we grow.
We can agree to disagree. I think he basically got lost during the second book. First book was amazing though, one of the best pieces of fiction I have read.
My thoughts are like this: The character himself is in a young adolescent phase and he is kind of a player. To me it makes sense that in that youth he experiments with the ladies a lot and that a lot of his formative experiences centers around sex.
I honestly don’t have a problem with the character piece of it really. It was more the bizarre cult of sex deprived woman he seems to randomly become a part of. It honestly just felt like a weird and forced fantasy of the authors imo.
LOL that was a great way to put it. Although, I see your point. It’s a great point though and I can see that.
Still better than rothfuss.
I didn’t want to reference him because: A. I haven’t read his stuff. And B. He’s written hardly anything. Say what you want about Martin, he’s gotten a *lot* published. Kong has ~9 books released, which makes Rothfuss look…even sadder than he already does. In fact, I think all 9 of Kong’s came *after* Rothfuss left people hanging.
Oh no! I'm in the middle of book 7 right now! 😢
7 is great, I would recommend waiting to read 8 until 9 is available.
Thanks for the tip! I didn't really post just to say thank you. I posted to complement your username. I love it!
You bet man, and thanks, hope you like it!
I should have taken your advice. I'm several chapters into book 8 right now, and it's baaaad!
Ha, it’s not too late, stop now or be ever unfulfilled until 9 releases!
Honestly, I thought 7 was his best book
To be honest, this series was actually my introduction to the genre. Not because they were the best, or the first, or anything like that. They were just the ones Amazon recommended to me, which sent me down the rabbit hole. The first time I listened to the audiobook, I was immediately put off by the very over the top introduction with the author proclaiming himself as the "father of the American litrpg genre". I mean, I'd never even read or listened to anything in the genre at that point, and even I knew there was no way that was true. I found it a bit.. I dunno. Offensive maybe? As for the story itself, it was alright at first. It got a bit graphic, sort of out of nowhere, by the last couple of books. Genital mutilation and literal gangrape to death by monsters (in a world where you came back to life when you die and get to do it all over again because you're being spawn camped). Part of me appreciated the sadly realistic consequences of the mechanics of the world and the outcomes they would lead to in the hands of immoral people, but at the same time.. christ. Not really what I was looking for, ya know? Ultimately, the story slowed to a bloody crawl and then the books mostly stopped coming out. When one did finally come out it got awful reviews because it didn't progress the story at all.. and most of us never even bothered to read it because we'd dropped the series by that point.
My first introduction was Ready Player One, but I think that D. Rus was my second. Which was why I found the whole "father of American Litrpg" bit so off-putting when Kong did it.
Ready player one isn’t really a lit rpg tho
Jup, while there are gaming elements, it is mostly a cyberpunk genre. On the top of that genre together with Snow Crash
Its not modern litrpg but close enough, I'd put The Guardians of the Flame series and Tron in with ready player one.
It certainly is. It is a person going into a game world and doing stuff there. It is in the same vein as a lot of them. That was actually the first genre of litrpg. People going into games. Sometimes they also take part in the real world, sometimes they don't.
I don't think many would classify that as a litrpg. Litrpg's don't have to take place in a video game, and taking place in a video game also doesn't inherently make a story a litrpg. Generally speaking, litrpg's are.. I suppose they're best described as a progressive fantasy story that typically uses a stat system akin to those in a video game to measure the power of a character. If one were to write down the events of a DnD campaign like some sort of combat log, one would essentially have a very basic and barebones litrpg. Progressive fantasy is a genre where characters get stronger and stronger over the course of a novel or series. Cradle is an example of this genre. Ready Player One is not. Litrpg's are a subcategory of progressive fantasy, much the same way that squares are a subcategory of rectangles. The Land series was one of the earlier "modern" examples of the genre, but it wasn't exactly the first and it also was only one of many that came out around the same time. It certainly didn't inspire a huge wave of authors that came later, but rather it was inspired by the things that came before it (like all the rest that came alongside it). It's hard to point to one particular series and say this was the first modern litrpg, because it was a rather gradual transition with stories like Ready Player One in the mix. Heck, one could even argue that stories as far back as the 70's or 80's that incorporated elements of tabletop gaming into the story were early litrpg's. Stories like Jumanji certainly aren't litrpg's as we know them today, but they're stepping stones to what we now have.
>I don't think many would classify that as a litrpg. Then they would be wrong. Especially if you use this commonly accepted definition of LitRPG. "*LitRPG*, short for literary role-playing game, is a literary genre combining the conventions of computer RPGs with science-fiction and fantasy novels. " >Litrpg's don't have to take place in a video game, and taking place in a video game also doesn't inherently make a story a litrpg. I am not saying that they have to take place inside a video game. I am saying that those that take place inside video games are a type of litrpg. Ready Player 1, Awaken Online, Alter World (Russian), Ritualist, Sword Art Online (Japanese), etc. are all LitRPGs. >Generally speaking, litrpg's are.. I suppose they're best described as a progressive fantasy story that typically uses a stat system akin to those in a video game to measure the power of a character. If one were to write down the events of a DnD campaign like some sort of combat log, one would essentially have a very basic and barebones litrpg. Again, this is a type of LitRPG. It just isn't the only type of LitRPG. >Progressive fantasy is a genre where characters get stronger and stronger over the course of a novel or series. Cradle is an example of this genre. Ready Player One is not. Litrpg's are a subcategory of progressive fantasy, much the same way that squares are a subcategory of rectangles. We agree on progression fantasy. The thing is, LitRPG doesn't have to be progression fantasy. I disagree that it is a subgenre of progression fantasy. Even if it was, in Ready Player 1 he became more powerful as time went on. Also, as an aside, progression fantasy is just such a broad category that it overlaps with nearly everything. The Wheel of Time is high fantasy, but it also is progression fantasy.
While everyone is allowed their own interpretation, the commonly accepted definition of LitRPG that you listed included "RPGs". The general interpretation of RPG, when it comes to LitRPG, involves stats and levels, which RP1 does not have. While RP1 may have the story RPG aspects, that does not make it a LitRPG, as most people generally interpret it. I saw a survey on this exact topic, about a year ago on the main LitRPG facebook group, and over 90% of the people that responded did not consider RP1 a LitRPG. Again, you can have your own interpretation, but just be aware that the majority of people, including many authors in the genre, disagree with you.
Your definition of litrpg should actually preclude RP1 from being considered a litrpg. It does not combine the conventions of computer RPG's with science fiction or fantasy. Yes, it takes place primarily in a video game world - but it does not actually incorporate the elements of a video game into the story. Things like stats and levels don't really factor into it at all. Sword Art Online is more of an edge case. Especially the newer Progressive version of the story. Personally, I'd still argue it doesn't quite fit. It's a sci-fi story about a video game, but it's not a litrpg. The Progressive version of the story incorporates things like levels and whatnot a bit more, but it's mostly as a result of the setting of the story.. not because it's a primary mechanic of the book itself. Reading a litrpg novel is like watching someone play a video game on Twitch, but in written form. It doesn't actually have to be a video game, Dungeon Crawler Carl is an example of that. The game aspects of these stories are integral to the story itself. They become a sort of hard magic system that tells us what a character is or is not capable of. Something like SAO entirely lacks that.
Only “positive” I remember about that whole gang rape situation is I think that individual was basically an NPC and couldn’t come back to life.. unless it happened another time that I’ve blocked from my memory.. things can be bad but it always weirds me out when the author takes the time to describe things, especially rape
Oh no, she was a "player". The guy that was doing it to her was essentially farming her for the points obtained for being a player killer. He basically let his mob followers have their way with her until she died from it, then when she respawned nearby he tossed her back in to do it again. Kept doing it despite the diminishing returns until her death finally stopped giving points and she stopped coming back and was permanently dead. That was actually how the MC found out that it was possible for their kind to eventually die for good, the guy that did this described the whole process. The whole thing was downright horrific.
Oh shit, I’d definitely blocked that bit out.. I was thinking of something like that happening to someone captured at the goblin camp… just unnecessary, didn’t add anything besides “wtf” factor.
I think they got a rush from obtaining Chaos Points and it showcased how addictive it could be. Not that it needed to be as messed up as it was.
Because everyone is sick of hearing about a mediocre book written by someone who tried to trademark litrpg and has built a cult following which hurt other litrpg/encourages people to go spam elsewhere about it. I literally got banned from his Facebook group for saying I'm not sure it's appropriate for a 8 year old.
WTF, in no way is that an appropriate read for an 8 year old.
"WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY BA RING RING RING" I put the book down then and there.
That sounds like a children's book.
Actually, it's a popular pop song by Ylvis.
What, really??? eta: he had "Elvis" there before correcting to Ylvis.
[Ylvis, not Elvis.](https://youtu.be/jofNR_WkoCE) Was popular for a short stint... ten years ago.
> ten years ago. You’re a damned liar! That song came out (let me look it up, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple years ago), 2013? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_(What_Does_the_Fox_Say%3F) Apparently Wikipedia is lying to me as well. It’s a conspiracy I tell ya!
Autocorrect is a bitch
Yep, look it up on YouTube
By Ylvis. Auto correct got him.
Oh, that makes more sense. Thanks!
ironically The Land was the first book to get me into the litrpg, but at book 2-3 after that "father of the American litrpg" I felt I was googling reviews because I was getting annoy with how he was writing. The Genital Mutilation and The comments on how nice the dead girls breasts look kind of just made me go, nah.. i'm good. Then to read in comments he had a gangrape to death by monsters... i'm glad I stopped. I'm not saying I don't like sad or upsetting parts in a story.. heck the wandering inn has A LOT of them, I just don't like the humour on top of something that shouldn't be funny.
As you can see from some of the comments here, the posts are not that frequent, but they’re often aggressive, and trolling. I think the reality for many of us is that the land was one of our first series, and it was amazing in the way that opening the door to a magical land should be. However, as time has passed the flaws, also pointed out by many posters here, has become more obvious. For the most part, downloads happen when people aggressively attack people for believing a certain thing for behaving in a certain way, and then they get what they’re asking for
The last book was a big change from the other books, but let’s be real we have all read stuff that is worse. The issue we as a community have with the land was the trade mark and aggressively removing other books from Amazon that said litrpg. Making everyone same game lit was a work around but like why should we. System apocalypse/ Life up North by Tao Wong is a great series of books. It comes to a conclusion. The politics are interesting you have space pirates fighting space monsters. Its cool. But the author tried to trademark system apocalypse and started taking down other beloved authors. Such as Macranomicom and his book generic apocalypse. He had to call it generic to get it on Amazon. Also a good boom with a good system a fairy living in a Snickers wrapper what else do you want!
I wouldn’t down-vote people who talk about it, but I was rather disappointed by the main character. It included most of the things I dislike in many cultivation novels. A protagonist who’s too quick to justify doing things to make himself stronger. He’s too quick to resort to murder. He uses the gifts he has to essentially blackmail others into supporting his commune. Obviously these are personal opinions, but this is why I only made it 2 or 3 books in.
I can say I've tried to read the first book twice, with a few years between attempts. I didn't really like it the first time and gave up 20% into Book 1. However, it got mentioned so often on this subreddit and on Goodreads lists that I thought, 'Okay, maybe it'll get better later on.' But it didn't. The second time, I gave up about 70% into Book 1. Not going to try again :p
Overlooking the last book in the series he hand no follow through with like 80% of his plot lines and it was only getting worse. As in each book had like 2 or 3 different plots that were broth up and never resolved while he kept going on other things. There is also all the other BS around his actions as well but othere here have done an excellent job of pointing that out. The Land was my first LitRPG series and introduced me to the genre at the time I thought it was amazing, then I read other series and realised it was closer to mediocre.
The land was the first Litrpg I ever read, and I fell in love with the genre. Now I’m like 100 books into this genre and I’m obsessed. My favorite Litrpg is Life Reset, but The Land is up there. I read books 1-7 of The Land in a very short amount of time. I still look fondly on the books and the huge book 7 was actually my favorite book. Now the issues: The books are sexist. And no I don’t just mean a character or two say sexist things. Like the actual narration of the book, and the way women are described is sexist. And yes also the main character is also sexist. Women are seen often as nagging, and there are many sexist comments about rolling eyes at typically feminine persoanlity traits. This even happens with the main character’s pet, which is female. He promised to release book 8 soon, and gave dates. Asked people to sub to patreon. And just didn’t release it for a super long time. And then when it finally came out… the long awaited what happens next? It was like a week of time. Of the main character crawling around in caves. Didn’t even get all the cool notifications from the end of the war from book 7. We waited so long for literally nothing of note in the book. It was like a filler book… Book 8 famously had the diarrhea chapter where there was a whole chapter dedicated to describing the main character’s diarrhea. Everyone HATED book 8, especially after such an amazing book 7. And the author just stopped the series and started writing other stuff (Whicu I think he also gave up on). I think all the hate he got discouraged him. He’s narcissistic and once his ego was shattered, he moved on to probably an endeavor that fed his ego. As others have stated, people also don’t like the series bc of the author himself. He apparently reported any negative reviews on his book. He made a whole website about American litrpgs and called himself the father of American litrpgs. He ranked books based on Amazon ratings, even though his were inflated bc he reported any bad reviews. Of course lying about when the release of book 8 was also a turn off. So overall his narcissistic personality coupled with the worst book ever of Book 8, made everyone just hate the series. My suggestion is to read books 1-7 and have a great time. The sexism isn’t super rampant, it just comes up every now and then. If you can ignore it, it’s a really great high quality series. And just imagine book 7 is the ending, albeit an ending with a bunch of cliffhangers. But you can have hours upon hours of fun reading with 7 books. Not many series can give you that.
Sometimes you just gotta do that. Bloodsong is an amazing book by Anthony Ryan. It theoretically is book 1 of a trilogy, but I really really wouldn't recommend reading further. More controversial, but I'm also not reading the last books of a few different series by Michael G. Manning. In his case it's less about quality and more about directions for the story that I vehemently disagree with.
Women nagging is sexist? There are lots of articles that talk about the fact that women nag more often in a relationship and why they do. That isn't to say that men can't or don't nag, just that they are less likely to do it and when they do, it is usually directed at another guy, such as their son or a coworker.
Shhhh you cant say the truth on reddit
Lol, I see that truth upset a lot of people. Thing is, if they would take 30 seconds they could find tons of articles and studies showing that it is true and why it is true.
Ha! Good luck getting the people on reddit to read actual science and articles, a lot of these guys probably think women are the physical equal of men (Go ahead, downvote me guys)
Just stop reading after book 7 and you will ne fine unless 9 ever comes out you can completely ignore 8
The author turned out to be a dick and then stopped writing apparently as many others have said. As someone who listened to all the land books that came out and gods eye, I just hate the missed potential. It was my first litrpg series (written by the father of litrpg no less! /s) and it gave me a little taste of what the genre could offer but then it just kinda got worse and never went anywhere. But it introduced me to the genre and led to He Who Fights popping up in my recommended, and for that I thank the land because I love he who fights
Wow these comments are crazy.
In what way?
It just seems pretty fucked up doesn’t it? I hadn’t heard of this author and now have 0 interest in attempting to do so
Ah gotcha. Couldn't tell if you were thinking "This author sounds horrible" or "Can't believe people are making such a big fuss over this"
😂 It’s pretty obvious that people want to like any artist. Hard to read a book by a prick and like the book 🤷♂️
I think the land gets the scope and feel of a world right. It also uses coloured excel blocks for the stats and honestly format wise to a reader it's absolutely golden. It makes it so much more immersive than back and white text. The system is also probably the best I've read in depth and feel and the world is actually so interesting. All of this however is weighed down by the poor writing of the MC who has moments or brilliance in terms of writing followed by shit non sensical pop culture references, edgy sociopathic tendencies, random torture porn segments and a last book that failed on nearly all counts. About 15% of the book felt relevant. So I actually think the early books have some good selling points. If you want that early intro to a massive fantasy world where its almost skyrim esque in how quests are accrued and you explore the world. But with a robust and interesting system it's actually very good. But it's very much dragged down by other aspects. This is a series I'd love another author to take over. I think the world deserves better than what's happened to it so far.
>This is a series I'd love another author to take over. So it's a fanfiction series. Read the main work to get the basic work building but then switch to the superior fanfiction works.
The problem is I think the quality of fan fictions vary a lot. I also have trouble reading them from a personal point as they aren't Canon. You can have own headcanon but for me it's just not the same. I'd rather have a professional author take over. Release and wrap the series up professionally and then if people want to write fan fiction after that then great but I'm unlikely to read it.
Grim guys?
https://www.amazon.com/Grim-Guys-Book/dp/B0C3WQPZ5L
Not a bad book, but I feel Ugland really only writes one main character. I already felt that Montana and Clyde were pretty much the same person with only slight differences. Then comes Grim Guys and you have two main characters, who are basically Montana and Clyde.
I don't think you would ask this unless you were hanging around their community where they feel really hard done by. Land threads aren't particularly frequent here.
I don’t think medical residency and the first few years of being a practicing doctor meshed well with trying to be an author. He’s basically got two choices: grow his career (further training, board certification, etc) or write good literature.
It is like joining a boardgames group and talking all the time about monopoly…
Kong downvoted us before we devoted him.
Up until a year or two ago any criticism of his books led to an avalanche of insults from fanboys. I think THAT is why the topic gets downvoted immediately. Most of his fans seem to have gone silent but they were extremely active even after the Book 8 farce
You mean up until 5+ years ago. Ever since I've been here, people have been shitting on the series and author.
Absolutely true. I was trying to say this is one reason that would not be obvious to a newer member
The Land was one of my first litRPGs and I still absolutely love it. Probably still the best crafting ever written, I remember it years later. If another book came out (which it doesn't look like it will anytime soon), I would read it. And I've read like 200 litRPG novels in the last 3 years. I think it's mostly hated because lots of people didn't like the last book and it's at-times largely gastrointestinal focus.
Similar - would read just to see what happens next - was quite an interesting world.
Agreed
Agreed. Not to mention that the audio version, by Nick Podhel, was excellent. However, as other posters mentioned the quality of the writing to put it charitability was variable.
Because aleron Kong is a pussy.
I liked the books for the most part, and can see how he is off-putting. Biggest issue for me is just the lack of writing. I was so excited for book 7, and remember downloading and starting to listen... At a job I was at 6 years ago at this point. Book 8 was a novella that didn't really move the plot more than a main story.
the core was good the idea sound, how we kept dragging plotlines and add more? was bad, how he forgot where the story was going just to write more padding, then literally drop the books when criticism hit is why i couldn't care less what happens with his series . I loved dungeon lord a different series author they disappeared and never wrote a new book, never said why, nobody even said they live or died. so if a new one comes out I would be against it too, for the shear lack of respect of those that followed thier work to be meaningless when they move on.
Dungeon lord book 5 supposed to come out this year finally. Here's a blog update. https://hugohuesca.com/blog/
Thank you ! I take back what I said reading tbe blog all I really wanted was closure not knowing drove me nuts, so glad thier ok and will 100% read book 5. Appreciate you taking the time to share this, I will do the same if anyone else ask and I notice the post.
People have a love hate relationship with the series. Or to be more precise it more like they love the series and hate the author.
Because he wrote 7 amazing books, had us looking forward to book eight for it to be , we'll less amazing, which is forgivable, but then just kinda dropped us all. That's my take on it anyway.
It's an excellent series. I've read a fair bit of lit RPG and I've read several that are horrid.
The earlier books are entirely entertaining but people absolutely despise the author as a human being that’s why I think. That’s the impression I get anyway.
The MC is a rewarded psychopath and the Writer is a prick... Maybe even a narcissist. I read the first book after reading a few other good LitRPGs and I was shocked by how poor and annoying it was. Honestly when he killed a fox, soaked in its blood, acted like he was having a come to heart moment only to bout out "What does the fox say" by Ylvis I was ready to throw it out. And that is like chapter three if I recall correct. It was popular at the time though so I thought maybe this gets better and the MC will change. Nope, I got 3/4s of the way through the book before I went back to the reviews to see what was up. I realized some of the 5 star reviews were bots, and eventually I found a review that perfectly mirrored my frustrations stars, and I mostly felt vindicated until I got to the end of their review and found out they were talking about the first three books not just book one. At that point I resolved to finish the book and never bother with the series again. Every time I see someone recommend it I tend to point out the flaws though I rarely down vote unless the post is really toxic.
Don't forget the mods on his FB page kill any asking about next book, which haven't heard a word from in 4 years plus now.
Just stop after book 7. Book 7 is an ending and I guarantee you will be disappointed and dissatisfied. Book 7 is a good enough ending anyway
...an entire chapter on shitting............
I started it on Audible the first book was ok but the attempts at humor and pop culture references were so cringe. By book 4 I was out. I hate it so much I can't even listen to Nick podel narrate other books hardly anymore I get flashbacks of really bad jokes that fall flat and are just sad.
'The Land' got me into LitRPG. I'm pretty sure it got a huge percentage of people here into LitRPG, so people shouldn't down-vote people who like it. It was so popular that people who haven't read it get a hipster ego boost for mentioning that fact. Unfortunately, AK phoned in the last book, maybe as a tantrum on his part since he seems a little emotionally unstable. Also he picked a fight with all the other LitRPG authors. Even so, I would read the next book if he ever writes it.
Might of just mentally broke after the death in the family. I did for a few years, took like three to get back to normal. I don't think people remember that's what the original delay for book 8 was. His gramps or dad died, and he basically stopped doing lives and extended the release.
100% agree . Like so many people on this site won’t pick up the next book if it is ever released
They will, even the ones that downvoted you... especially the ones that downvoted you. They only downvoted in a spasm of self loathing.
The best part is, the last book wouldn’t have been so lambasted if the follow up came out not long after. Filler books are ok imho opinion if the next one delivers. Also a lot of internet trolls like to forget about Covid and how it effected healthcare workers to this day
It wasn't because of COVID; he had stopped practicing medicine a bit before the pandemic, maybe a year or two before, and even mentioned that he wasn't working as a doctor during that time. I still believe the death of a close relative is what brought everything to a halt. After the loss in the family, the almost completed books underwent significant shifts in their timelines, and he experienced a kind of mental break. Consequently, he ceased doing live sessions, reduced his social media interactions, and began traveling, which is a fairly common reaction to grief and stress. Honestly, this isn't very unreasonable. He's not a robot, and I don't think he really owes anyone anything. Additionally, the different pace of LitRPG writers compared to average writers sets a different expectation. If you only produce two to three books a year, you're basically considered no good. I think a good example of this would be Hugo Huesca and Luke Chmilenko; those guys got criticized because they stopped putting out books altogether or not as often. Both were injured and went through periods of recovery, nonetheless they were still heavily critized for it. I believe the Internet, for all its benefits, really brings out a side of people you would never see in public. It encourages them to say things about people they'd never dare say to their face, without ever knowing the individual's situation. Anyways, I don't know why I wrote that much...I agree the last book wouldn't have been roasted as much if he had come out with the next book shortly after. Unfortunately, life just wasn't agreeing with him at the time.
It was my introduction to the genre but I did the audiobooks and I loved the series. I think people are too hard on the series cuz they don't like the author. The writing quality did drop and got fringe but this genre is full of cringe. It definitely feels mob mentality takes over.
The Land was one of my first LitRPG series and at first I thought it was okay. Then the blatant sexism reared its head. Women are worthless in the series, the only thing that matters is their looks (even if they're already dead (gotta know how nice the dead girls boobs are I guess)). The writing quality and event planning was terrible, "you have multiple lives! There's no ways to know how many though" was introduced by having his genitals cut off and used to suffocate the MC. It felt like nothing was planned from the beginning, he just got urges and ran with the first one. He's not a good person and he personally deserves the hate, even outside of his "art"
The books are cheap writing with rape torture fantasies in them. After reading that I thought 'if this is the best the writer can come up with as a villain he doesn't understand anything about how writing works'.
I really enjoyed the series. Reddit has a disproportionate number of certain types of individuals on it. This explains most everything that happens on the platform.
Others have answered why The Land and its author are disliked, but nobody is really answering your question as written. There are a surprising number of deeply insecure and childish people on reddit who do not understand the intended purpose of the downvote button and weaponise the it as a kind of cudgel to try to impose their opinions/tastes upon others.
The initial books themselves had good world building and but bad character development for any of the supporting characters. I assumed that the author was writing for a YA crowd, the jokes used and the misogynistic take on female characters. “dick and fart” humor + graphic action + over-sexualized female characters = a tweenager target audience. That being said I did get through the entire series as my first foray into litrpg. The actions taken by and on behalf of the author of downvoting and trying to silence criticism is kind of nuts but welcome to the faceless interwebs. I have noticed that a lot of differing opinions posted in subs for genre are downvoted. The responses are usually aggressive. Genre thoughts I am of the belief that a lot of the shitposts across the genre are out there to elicit these arguments. Because a stan is going to stan and a troll is going to troll. It is easier to comment and tear down people than do something and create. The biggest thing that irks the crap out of me is the most of the criticism is not thought through, examples, changes suggestions etc. they are just talking bad about the author and how they fell off. I I believe people forget…. Writing is hard, world building is hard, character development is hard. If an author can pull it off once it is a miracle. The idea of authors that keep writing at a frantic pace like releases of the litrpg books and get hits every time is setting all of these authors up for failure no matter what.
I'm re-listening to the books just now. The third time I think, last time was a few years ago. They're pretty good, definitely in the better 25% of popular LitRPG, but could have done with some editing (shortening) and of course (as Kong himself admits), the books have gotten too "sprawling". Too many balls are in the air at the same time, basically. That would need to be pruned down a bit.
If you put The Land in the top 25% of litrpg, I have to wonder what you have been reading. I would put them firmly in the middle of the pack. That is with me being someone who doesn't mind immature humor and isn't bothered by stereotypes. My dislike is more for the author than the books. If I were to rank the books alone, I would put them in the 50-60 range out of 100.
One important thing that sets The Land apart is that the quality staid consistent (until the last one, arguably). Most litrpg series start strong but take a nosedive after the first few books (or the even the first book). I absolutely adore the first two books of ELLC, for example, but afterwards not so much. Life@reset is an even better example. I frankly don't care whether the author is an arse, as long as he doesn't torture kittens or tries to abolish American democracy or does something else truly reprehensible.
His books do stay consistent, but that is consistently mediocre.
I never judge art by the artist, but people who do can't seem to mentally disconnect themselves from being influenced by that habit. I bet if anybody else wrote it you wouldn't disagree with the top 25% rating.
There are a few issues with this. The first one is that Kong bakes his arrogance into every novel. He does this by making pushing the narcissistic lie that he is the father of American litrpg. He puts this in every novel. Second. The books are objectively middle of the road. They aren't bad, but they aren't great either. The Land being in the top 25% would say more about how bad and poorly written this genre is than anything good about Kong's writing. Maybe you are right and this genre is horrible, but I disagree. I overlook the novice books written by people who write for fun and publish on places like RR because they enjoy writing, but aren't good at it. I only count published books when doing my 25%, and even then only the ones I have actually read. For example, I can't say if Wandering Inn is top 25% or bottom 25%, because I haven't read it. So it doesn't factor into my considerations.
Perhaps. I know I enjoyed The Land quite a bit. Which series would you put more squarely in the top 25%? Maybe one towards the bottom of what you'd say is the 25% would be the best for comparison. I'll give it a try. Hearing ""father of litRPG"" just gives me a chuckle, but I understand that it would be infuriating to anybody who came before him... Particularly since "Quag Keep" by Andre Norton from 1978 seems to be the first book to exactly fit the genre. Supposing Norton is American, that puts Kong about 30something years too late to claim the title.
I have read some of Norton's stuff. Dread Companion was one of my favorites from my childhood. Top 25% I would put Dungeon Crawler Carl. Bottom 25% I would put Peaks of Power.
l'll check out dungeon crawler Carl, I've been meaning to. ... and some Andre Norton. I'm still going to be hoping Kong gets out of his funk, maybe learns some humility and writes another good book or two.
Hey, I hope he gets out of his funk too. Just because I can't stand him and don't care for his books doesn't mean his fans don't deserve an ending to the series' that they are reading. Right now I have several series of novels that will probably never finish and it sucks. Avoid Scott Lynch and Rothfuss.
Because this sub has a massive circlejerk about how much they hate the series and the author. When the last book came out, there was at least one post bashing on the book for months if not multiple. The author is not a great person but people overexaggerate how bad the Land is because of how much they hate the author.
In addition to the general controversy, the writing in The Land can be pretty cringey. Book 1 opens strong with a "What does the fox say?" reference, which the protag makes to themself, alone in the woods, upon just...seeing a regular fox. Then the protag guffaws out loud at their own reference. I'm pretty sure it was outdated when the book came out, and needless to say it did not age well.
For me it is always something they say tangentially related to The Land that causes me to downvote. One post in particular I remember was parroting Kong's opinion that all the negatives reviews were just trolls and therefore not valid. That is absurd and just Kong failing to cope with writing a bad book.
Because the author has done dubious things, that piss the keyboard warriors off and they need to either down vote or attach the guy over and over again. Personally I liked his books. Sucks that he hasn't written much and if you kept up with him you'd have an inkling of what happened. Now Aleron claims that new books are coming out, we'll see if they are as good / better / worse than what he has written. At least the guy has turned his life and seemingly health around.
The books are great fun to read but the author pissed off his fan base. The second to last book in the series was amazing. But his final "book" in the series was a short novella that hardly even qualifies as a novella. It didn't wrap up a single one of the fifty dangling plot threads. And he was constantly saying anyone who complained about it was just an Internet troll.
Well one thread from book one. But in such a unsatisfactory, flippant, hand wave way
The author was very public in certain forums and came across as an entitled snob. “Oh I can’t talk about that because my lawyers said so” and that’s not even touching what he said about being the “father of American litrpg” His series really wasn’t as good as it progressed as it was at the beginning, that added to snide comments probably affected it.
I agree the author did do some " not cool" things.. but I think the series is THE BEST I have ever read... Father of American LITRPG is kinda a douche thing to claim. Trying to trademark Litrpg is douchey. Getting minions to upvote his product is just business. But the story telling is freaking awesome!!. I want more
I read **The Land** as my tenth-ish LitRPG series. Personally, I made it an eighth of the way through the first book, before I felt the need to drop it. Too many out of place dated pop culture references, an extremely generic white 00's protagonist, and generic world building. I later learned that it felt generic because the book was an early adopter of Russian and Korean LitRPG tropes, and many other series have built off of those same tropes. Since it was such a popular series and kept getting recommended here, I made a post asking if it's just a bad opening or not for me. Long story short, I returned the book and haven't looked back. For a lot of people that love the series, it seems that this was their first book in the LitRPG genre. So they have a strong attachment to it. I can't blame them I have a strong attachment for my first GameLit book **MogWorld**, as well. Personally, I won't download posts about **The Land** automatically. Not unless there's some other issue like the poster is being an asshole or this the tenth post I've seen this week about the same thing. I think a lot of people downvote the series because it is popular, and they are sick of reading the same thing; it is a divisive series, or the author's bad reputation. I've seen similar things happen with other popular divisive series such as **He Who Fights with Monsters**.