Would agree with this. 8-9 is a little young considering the heavy focus on entrapping others/being imprisoned/implied torture for the first few books. 11-12 would be more appropriate, especially with parental guidance.
BadAdvice
joined 2 years ago
I've tried both more times than I care to admit and I can't do it. Malazan I think is doable if it hits me at the right time in my life but Eye of the World drives me right up the wall. Mat is my least favorite literary character in any series I've ever read, bar none. I have never wanted to reach through a book to strangle words more strongly than I did when I read Eye of the World and Mat starts up his stupid whiney dumb moronic mouth breather idiot horseshit.
I didn't mind the first book, but I do see why people do. It was definitely rough. But it had that nior vibe you were talking about, so it works for me despite its edges.
The last two books, on the other hand, I absolutely hated. PT/BG is the biggest pile of crap I've read from Jim. I feel like his editor was replaced by a Disney exec for that publication. I understand he had a rough time during writing, but the quality is shockingly off from the rest of the series. You can see the elements of the usual Dresden Files entry in between the books, but it's so padded out with filler and gratuitous bombast that it's a slog to read.
Imo this is kind of a recurring theme for Jim when he gets to wrapping up a series. Codex Alera does this, though most of those books are still some of my favorite. Unfortunately, the only way Jim seems to be able to power up the witty, clever guy is to just make him the secret grandson of the last big badass strong guy in the series and suddenly the witty, clever guy is the new zomg over 9000 guy.
I'm always sad to see Codex Alera not get the respect it deserves. Granted, considering its origin, it doesn't deserve much respect, but the end product is just so good imo.
Also never see Embers of Illeniel make the list either. Mageborn is an alright fantasy romp but the Embers prequel series really steps into interesting territory for me. It's that perfect level of fantasy setting meets Sci fi concepts. Like ye Olde battlefield earth.
Bro Jim has chops I don't think a lot of people respect. I hated BG/PT more than most and am still pretty vocal about how blatant a cash grab it was, but that's just the latest Dresden drip. Go back and look at Codex Alera again. The complexity of plot, the subtle politics and character relationships, and the over the top large scale action. Imo it's pretty great all time fiction work, and it's genesis was a drunken bet about Pokémon and the lost Roman legion. I'm honestly hopeful for the Olympian Affair, as the Cinder Spires series had a very promising start.
Because it's sexually explicitly material featuring a woman meant to look underage. Does that not feel sleazy to you? That was the whole point of r/jailbait and I guess whatever this faux jailbait is trying to be. That gives me the icky feeling. You might not recognize the handle, but that's the online account of Ghislaine Maxwell. You should know who that is.
You can't trick me. I've seen what AI does to teeth.
I gotta ask what's up with the overabundance of very petite, young looking women in the NSFW boards? It's giving me a pretty icky feeling ngl. Feels a lot like the early reddit days when u/maxwellhill ran a whole bunch of NSFW subreddits.
Besides already having the weakest defense by far, they just applied a sweeping damage reduction nerf, cooldown nerf, and a vulnerable/critical damage nerf. It sucks for everyone but it's tailor made to fuck over sorc
These are kind of non-standard progfantasy series recommendations but imo they fit the mold, especially if you want to steer away from gamelit or litrpg.
Embers of Illeniel - good story but it gets dark pretty quick and ramps up the brutality pretty hard by the end. Think Battlefield Earth meets Silmarillion. Darker prequel to the Mageborn series, which is another good softcore prog fantasy series in itself. Both series build up to over the top cataclysmic conclusions like cradle does, though limits itself to world level cataclysm.
Codex Alera - a bet about Pokémon and a lost Roman legion gone very right. Jim butcher wrote this series on a bet that he couldn't write a story from just two wildly disparate ideas. He technically lost because there's a whiff of starcraft in there just for funnies. Each book represents a step up in power or skill very similar to cradle.
Neither one has the xanxia influence though, you might try to find a translation of Heavenly Sword, Dragon Sabre for that. I read it years and years ago but haven't seen a good translation in a long time
I'd pull back the Fowl series for a couple years. It's got complicated issues involving consent, imprisonment, and violence in those situations that might not be very easy to contextually for someone that young. I was advanced for a reader at that age, but I found a lot of enjoyment in the Redwall series. It had great worldbuilding and an interesting setting for a kid just about that age. They might be a little difficult to get them to actually sit down and read though, as they are definitely larger books for children.