D0nk3yK0ng - Profile

Similar to Lord of the Mysteries, but not a rip off. The translation is fairly decent, except names are interchanged. A lot. Contextually you can follow along, but it ruins the pace when you have to stop and figure out who’s doing what since it seems like a new character is introduced. Also flip flops for ability categories.

Solid idea, poor execution. The grammar is horrendous, which is confusing since the first 20 chapters were okay. Then chapter 21, where the titles are all capitalized for whatever reason, it gets really bad. I dunno if it’s English as another language or poor machine translation copy-paste. Unpalatable regardless.

The writing, grammar wise, is fairly terrible. It’s all in passive voice, so everything sounds funny. It makes it less enjoyable to read. Honestly it seems to be on purpose to make the word coung longer. Even if English isn’t your first language, you have to actively try to sound like Yoda all the time. I think the wrong tense choice is also because of everything being in passive voice. Grammar aside, the story is wonderful thus far. Interesting magic system and world development. It’s not one size fits all, you have X tiers of power with X subtiers. It seems different enough to stick out, but not unnecessarily complicated just to be different.

I like the world building set in medieval times. The protagonist isn’t shielded by plot armor left and right. Side charactes are developed and have a distinct feel. Magic & knight system are kind of glossed over, same with the enemy’s power level. My only big complaint is the over use of rhyming. It started as a distinctive MC trait, and now every other character is doing it. Like characters who were introduced earlier weren’t doing it are now doing it. It’s kind of becoming a detriment to the dialog, because instead of working on different character’s tone it’s become how can I make things rhyme and kind of get my point across.

The one glaring problem is the author’s issue switching between 1st & 3rd person perspectives randomly. It’ll start with he (Elias) doing something then jumping to I (Elias) am doing something. Does that with other characters. A smaller complaint is the transition between chapters. It makes everything feel disjointed. Everything else is wonderful. The world development is interesting. The magic system isn’t tropey. He doesn’t have plot armor defending him left and right. I like the idea of the runes even if I don’t think they’re named aptly. Norse have runes, but I think India and similar cultures technically use scripts.

The story itself is rather enjoyable. Rather quick paced with very little to no filler. He basically gets a day of rest before he needs to go back into action. The universe isn’t overly unique, but still fairly developed. The side characters aren’t super devloped. They feel more like place holders while the MC does his thing. The most glaring issues are the terrible grammar and continuity. Plural and conjugation errors abound. Definitely in need of a proofreader. People and things are spelt one way then changed mid chapter. And then there are random ramblings interjected in the middle of the story for no explicable reason. Final thoughts: interesting without the usual tropes of most cultivation novels. Which this is, it’s just set in space with science and technology.

Updated from my previous review now that I’ve read all the free chapters. The grammar doesn’t get any better. There are “paragraphs” of just run on sentences. The author definitely needs an editor. Now that the Gender Bender is a permenate thing, Marcus just coasts through being a girl like nothing is different at all. There’s a modicum of it when he has to learn how to wear underwear and a dress, but mostly it’ background until he offends someone and they’re pissed off he’s a girl.