Tom_Allia - Profile

The S-Rank Hate Reader lies helplessnessly on the ground. He inadvertently reaches for his smart phone with a desperate plan. He is going to post another chapter review...! Why has Leo suddenly developed temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome??? Why does he think himself so superior to everyone in the global chat? He has almost died several times over due to his bad choices and only survived thanks to dumb luck. Why did it take him so long to find a resource he can exploit for information, and why does he dismiss it out of hand after two minutes? There's probably a whole day's worth of observations by millions of people in there he can use! Just before this scene, he called himself a dumb man. I like that honest self observation a lot better.

While I'm glad that the obvious problems are finally considered by Leo, as he runs into them, if he's so smart he should have anticipated them and made efforts to gain more information before committing to a course of action. Why is this allegedly smart guy so incurious??? And then there's the Dark Emperor... HE'S NOT REINCARNATED!!! HE'S A REGRESSOR!!! GET YOUR TROPES RIGHT!!! I don't like where the plot is going. The story, up until now, has been a sci-fi. This is about humans playing an alien MMO. Not that time travel/regression don't happen in sci-fi, but we just get all this information from this Dark Emperor pov without foreshadowing, development of some kind of technology or mystery to solve related to it. It's unsatifsfying to just introduce a regressor character with a pov switch. If we have someone who mostly knows what will happen (up until he decides to intervene) then all suspense is meaningless. The S-Rank Hate Reader is not sure if he has the strength to continue in the face of such bad writing...

The S-Rank Hate Reader has fewer than normal negative observations. I genuinely liked this chapter. Leo makes a sensible plan based on his observations and knowledge. It's the first time we actually see him do anything smart. The only criticism I have is he is making assumptions without much knowledge of the game. Why does he think it would it take 20+ hours to make a rock wall? If he has a strength stat that can go up with his level, then his real world abilities are not a good basis for assuming what he can do in the game. Considering he has to play the game for 12 hours at a time, and that he has to eat, sleep, take care of himself in real life, his task will (presumably) be interrupted. He does not yet know how the game will respond to that process. Will objects like rocks be reset in their position? Will he spawn back where he left or in town? Or is he able to avoid logging off for a much longer session? What consequences might his real world body suffer if he chooses to do so? What will he do if/when the younger wolves find him? Leo doesn't consider these questions.

It seems that even someone named Leo Skyshard (aka The Boss) can recognize terrible naming sense. Again, Leo's thoughts and actions are divorced from his circumstances. He feels relaxed, glad he is not 'in the real world' and yet he will literally die if he does not succeed in the game. He entertains his slap-stick idea to dress an NPC in a meat suit for about 1/10 of the chapter, which is entirely irrelevant to the situation. Then he assures the NPC's that they should attack tomorrow and he will have a plan, despite knowing next to nothing about the wolves or combat in this game. He just says that he will have a plan. If this guy is so smart, why doesn't he do or say smart things? If his actions are indeed smart, and not the result of MC plot armor, why can't they be explained in a way that makes sense in the context of the story? Also, no one 'inadvertently' pulls out a weapon when confronted by the possibility of violence. That's a word for when one makes a clumsy mistake without thinking. Like pouring coffee over a cup with a tea bag. Or uploading your chapter without running it by an editor.

The S-Rank Hate Reader has little to add. I could copy-paste my last comment and it would still be relevant. When Leo thinks about how determined he is to get rewards and not run away, that would be a standard MC motivation except... he will literally be killed if he doesn't complete his quest. That line of thinking implies he has a choice and that he has made such a choice. Another thing, why exactly is he spending money to go to the virtual tavern and eat virtual food? I'm not saying this is unreasonable, people do that in MMO's all the time, but Leo (and by extension, readers) don't know enough about the game to expect any particular benefit from doing so. There's also no requirement, at least one that has be explained thus far. If he's so smart, shouldn't he be mulling over risks and opportunities? His life is at stake! There's no room for sub-optimal choices. What if he would be better off saving his money for items or hiring help? Or maybe in-game currency has uses on the colony ship in real life? He's just casually exploring as if there are no stakes and this is a game he chose to play. More Shangri-La Frontier than SAO. I want to like this and it's frustrating to see these inconsistencies.

I feel like the story is improving, I'm glad we're getting more information about the world. But it can only be regarded as good if we discard information from prior chapters. Why are wolves on this representation of an alien planet? Why do these aliens have seasonal terrestrial mining operations when they are technologically advanced enough to move between solar systems? Or rather, why is this game depicting a much older society than the one the human refugees will be integrated into? Why isn't Leo, one of the smartest people on the ship, thinking about these obvious questions?

Like the previous chapter, I feel like this one is also lacking questions and information. But I want to focus on a different problem. Leo's actions and behavior don't make sense. It's as if he is playing an MMO game without real life stakes. He doesn't have much of an emotional response to the threat to his life posed by quest failure. which is strange considering he was crying a few chapters ago when his mother sold her own kidney. He should have some kind of emotions and complex thoughts that the reader can see.

I fear the S Rank Hate Reader may fail his quest today. I have no specific complaints about this chapter. It's short, I would feel annoyed if I had spent coins to unlock it, but it's free so it's fine. In a different MMO genre story, this would be a good introduction to the world of the game. The problems with the chapter relate more to what's been established by previous chapters of TNO. If this game, Terra Nova Online, is supposed to be a virtual representation of the alien planet Terra Nova, which is the destination of 1 billion refugees from Earth, why are these virtual villages populated with human NPCs? Why is Leo so incurious about this discrepancy? None of the characters are really asking enough questions, it's like the author is eager to write the MMO side of the story and was unprepared to describe the real-world premise and stakes. Once that MMO story develops, I think I might genuinely enjoy it, but every chapter before this one needs a solid rewrite.

Well now that I know the author is giving us a bonus chapter for every ten reviews, I fear I may have doomed us all. The special class, S ranked Hate Reader apologizes to everyone in advance if these comments count towards such a thing. I'm glad that someone named Luke Skyshard is concerned about original names. He should be. I'm just not sure Skylion is such an original name. Also what's up with him choosing 'lion' when his brother's name is Leo? It's such a lazy choice. I'd like to think people 118 years in the future are sophisticated enough to pick usernames like PeachyEggplant42069 but it seems that society has regressed. And then there's The Boss. If Leo feels stupidly evil for picking that name, it's because the author is evil and I am stupid for reading it. Isn't this guy supposed to be the smartest guy on the ship? Why did he pick something boring?! That's all I have to say about this chapter. If you are enjoying these reviews, you should click the little thumbs up button. But not at 100x the speed of sound. You might die in the ensuing explosion. No taking the easy way out! You have to read this and suffer with me.

Because I am still petty and trying to grind my head bashing stats, I am giving another chapter review. This chapter is better than all the ones that preceded it. It is short and not much happens, but what does happen is mostly given enough detail. You can imagine the scene and see Leo in it, but that's a low bar. He's just in a blank white space. The pivot to Leo's PoV feels random. Nothing significant has happened to Leo that hasn't happened to Luke. We don't even know how the rest of Luke's test went. Is Leo just the MC now? Also, the last name Skyshard is a bit silly. I should have said something earlier but I forgot about it until now. The reason why names like Skywalker work in Star Wars is that humanity has already traveled through space for thousands of years. Even in Star Wars, it was a bit pretentious, but people overlooked that for the special effects and you don't hear the name very often until later trilogies where Star Wars was already established as iconic pop culture. If Luke Skyshard is someone who was born 100 years from now, he should have a last name that a real person would have today. That said, this ok-ish quality chapter has inspired me to keep reading. Maybe I will review that next chapter too. But only once I get my system reward for head-bashing.

Well I'm feeling petty and I made a mistake in my last chapter review, so now is my chance to correct it. They are moving at 100 times the speed of sound, not light. And this fact was stated in this chapter, not the previous one. I was apparently sloppy with my note taking and forgot to leave a chapter marker between this one and the last one. There's a lot of holes in this story. The first one should be in the atmosphere, for moving at an absurd 100x the speed of sound. For those of you who remember high school physics, you might remember that air interacts with extremely fast objects differently than they do with slower ones. The amount of friction from four ships big enough to hold 250 million people going that fast should have wrecked the atmosphere. The second hole in this story is what's left of the Earth below them. The author doesn't tell us exactly what happens when four spaceships bigger than the entire city of Beijing take off at 100x the speed of sound. Maybe he doesn't know. I certainly don't. But I think it's safe to say that Mom has bigger problems than earthquakes right now. The third hole in the story is the one in the ship directly below where Luke and Leo used to be. They are both now a fine slurry of red goo, if not burned to a cloud of powdery ash and charcoal. Accelerating to 100x times the speed of sound in less than five minutes should not leave anyone intact as something resembling a human, let alone alive. Perhaps there is some portal in spacetime these aliens that everyone forgot about jerry-rigged. I don't know. But no one seems particularly concerned about it. Is basic knowledge of physics one of those 100+ measures that the govt considered before letting you on the ship? If so, it's a good thing Luke and Leo bribed their way on board. In the meantime, I am tempted to bash my head into a wall at a similar speed, just from reading this story. As it happens, I am an S rank head-to-wall basher. Maybe I'll write another chapter review.

I got my fast pass! So this will be my last chapter review, unless I'm feeling petty. The new setting is disappointing and a poor execution of the trope. I like settings with a tightly stratified class society for the poorest MC to rebel against, but this is just silly. How does his deck look just like the slums? Everyone just got there! And then there's the alliterative names for each deck, which again does not make sense considering everyone involved, from the planning of this ship to actually living on it, is an adult. The document where only just now everyone finds out they have no rights is especially silly. Even the most oppressive regimes, in their own words, assure their most oppressed class that they have rights. In fact, such governments will tell you you have more rights than everyone else in those other countries. Maybe if we're going 100x light speed we don't have time for vaguely realistic politics. I certainly don't have time to read this trash anymore.

I will be reviewing every chapter of TNO until I get my event all-works-fp for reading for five minutes. The stages of grief are a sloppy choice for describing the younger brother's emotional state if no one is dead and he doesn't actually go through the stages in order. And then there's the bit about the surgery. I guess it's nice that we get a technological explanation for instant surgery, but apparently cell phones and roads don't exist because the younger brother has to spend all day looking for his brother and is covered in mud for his troubles. when people say the future is stupid, they mostly mean that their book and their cigarette are competing for space to charge on the wall outlet, not that we will live like medieval peasants in 2152. And then there's the face slap. why does that need to be there? Why is domestic abuse depicted as a normal reaction to someone being sad? mom doesn't intervene to stop the MC, nor does his brother seem to think this is unreasonable. He promptly stops being sad. If it were a parody of a bad historical drama, I could accept this scenario, but it's played straight. Are we supposed to be rooting for this guy?! Still, I should withhold harsh criticism. This is one of the top-rated romance novels on the app. It can't be that bad at depicting emotional struggle. Surely the next chapter will involve a serious confrontation about the harm caused by domestic abuse.

I am reviewing each chapter of this story until I get my event bonus all-works-fp for reading for five minutes (it's been 30). I can appreciate that the author finally decided to actually describe things. That table is neat. I can believe that Windows still takes forever to boot 118 years in the future on ten-year-old hardware. That's even funny. The dialogue is trash though. Clicking through an application is not "in a desperate move." That kind of phrase belongs in a fight scene. They have been committed to this since the previous chapter. Elena's question to her sons about how to apply goes unanswered and everyone just acts like she never asked it, including Elena. Every sentence of dialogue gets a preamble that is longer than the sentence itself. It's clunky and hard to follow. Perhaps this is just a little awkward phase and things will get good when the author hits their stride. It can't all be like this.

I read eight chapters of this for an all-works-fp that I still can't claim and deeply regret my life choices. Until I get my pass, I will review each chapter of this thing. Too much of what happens in this chapter is described passively. There is a 4.2 magnitude earthquake, but the author can't tell us what that's like. It's just a thing that happened. Even if it's supposed to be mundane in this scenario, it deserves proper exposition. What a missed opportunity! I would have fun describing an earthquake as if it was boring! Another criticism I have is that the world building isn't believable. It makes RP1's first chapter sound good (it's not, RP1 caused the bad writing apocalypse). The job of high-rise window repair and maintenance doesn't make sense if earthquakes are a regular occurrence and most major cities no longer exist. Neither do underground bunkers. The real industry that should exist is building more low-level stable buildings and roads. If the author is trying to tell us that the wealthy people or government are incompetent and misallocating labor, there's no explanation of such or humor about it. The president randomly announcing alien contact and arc ships don't make sense either. There should be some kind of lead up, where information is released in small amounts. There should be speculation about who the aliens are, what they want, what this sanctuary planet is like. Instead the MC and his family just passively accept the situation and drop everything to apply early, like it's a new tax break. Surely, chapter two will be better.

I don't like where the plot is going. Why did no one, especially the clan head, correct Tie when she suggested a special physique could suppress a bamboo gentleman? Are we supposed to just accept that rare physiques can suppress gu by themselves? It's too convenient for the plot. Also Fang Zheng's sudden suicidal urge is inconsistent with his character this far. He didn't crack under pressure like this in previous confrontations with his brother. Someone so emotionally fragile should have had problems when his primeval stones were stolen or during his initial falling out with Fang Yuan. There's no build up, no foreshadowing he is just instantly suicidal. The world building to this series is great, as are Fang Yuan's philosophical and political monologues. It will be hard to take either seriously later in the series when his adversaries and his world lack consistency.

it's neat seeing all the layered foreshadowing from the first few chapters come back. I never realized how dense and important they really were