This is long, so table of contents:
- The Origin of LitRPG
- The Inheritance and how is it different
- What is happening with other series
- A recommendation for a cute comic.
The Origin of LitRPG
As everyone knows by now, I’m a massive Solo Leveling fan. I’ve read the manhwa before the anime was ever announced and then reread it several times. Right now, with the anime release on Crunchyroll (we are up to 2 seasons), it is enjoying unprecedented popularity and some people credit it with starting the Hunter subgenre of LitRPG.
The premise of LitRPG is that somehow the protagonist enters a game world, usually loosely based on an MMO structure. In Massively Multiplayer Online games, players usually must choose a class that defines how they play the game. For example, tanks have heavy shields and armor. They are hard to kill so they taunt the enemy and bear the brunt of the attack while DPS (Damage per second) classes deal damage, and healers cast restorative spells. Players organize into guilds with strict hierarchy.
In the Hunter subgenre of LitRPG our world becomes a video game. Portals open in random locations, leading to dungeons, which, unless conquered in time, will unleash monsters upon the world. Some people mysteriously awaken to magic powers. They are usually called Hunters and they are ranked according to their ability. Hunters band into guilds, and guilds assault the dungeons. It’s World of Warcraft in real life, complete with a system window that announces when you go up a level and shows you your numeric stats like Strength and Agility.
As much as I love Solo Leveling, it didn’t originate the term “hunters.” The first mention of this system in comics actually comes to us from 2012 manhwa called I Am A Noble.
Sorry, Sung Jin-woo, you are not the first. Just the most handsome.
Unfortunately, there are no legitimate translations of I Am A Noble – please do not link pirate sites with machine translations – but there are plenty of other manhwa titles that fall into this genre. Here are some of them in no particular order. I have read all of these, and some are good, some I liked less. You can find them at your usual manhwa places like Webtoon, Tapas, Tappytoon, etc.
- Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint
- Kill the Hero
- The Druid of Seoul Station
- The World After the Fall
- The Worn and Torn Newbie
- The Player Who Can’t Level Up
- Hoarding in Hell
I’m going to link a list here: Hunter/Dungeon/Gates, but there are others, more comprehensive ones.
But the question is, where did this set up originate? What inspired it? Well, World of Warcraft is obviously one of the ingredients. The game came out in 2004, and at its peak, in 2010, had over 12 million subscribers. It also spawned an entire generation of successors. But what else happened near that 2012 mark?
On August 16, 2011 Ready Player One came out. This book was everywhere. NPR, USA Today, CNN, Entertainment Weekly, translated into 37 languages, available in 58 countries… It was a global phenomenon. If you somehow missed it, it’s about an 18 year old kid whose life is awful, so he chooses to live a completely different life in an online game. This book hit like a meteorite. Although, it is not a strict LitRPG in a sense of classes and quests, it was, without a doubt, the driving force behind the development of the genre.
When Ready Player One came out, LitRPG did not exist as a sub-category. So when did LitRPG became a thing? Who originated this term?
The term LitRPG was coined by… a bunch of Russians. I present to you Magic Dome Books. LitRPG is their bread and butter.
From their website:
LitRPG is a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy which describes the hero’s adventures within an online computer game. LitRPG books merge traditional book-style narration with elements of a gaming experience, describing various quests, achievements and other events typical of a video game.
The defining feature that sets LitRPG fiction apart from traditional portal fantasy is its use of interactive gaming language, such as the inclusion of various system messages, players’ stats, items’ characteristics and other elements appreciated by gamers. The narration in a LitRPG novel has to abide by the rules of a game while filling it with conflict and drama as the hero tries to survive in this new environment.This “book meets game” experience proved to be exactly what many gamers-turned-readers were looking for in a novel.
LitRPG books are not the same as traditional game novelizations. As a rule, LitRPG books are set in fictional game worlds which are entirely their authors’ invention, such as D. Rus’ AlterWorld or V. Mahanenko’s Barliona. Also, their use of gaming elements and attributes sets them apart from traditionally penned game novelizations.
Initially unrecognized by traditional publishing, the genre kept growing, gaining a truly insatiable readership that devoured such cult series as Sword Art Online, Ready Player One and The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. In 2012, Russia became the first country in the world where the genre was officially recognized, receiving its current name – LitRPG – and its own place in libraries and book shops. Since then, dozens of new game-set novels have been published in Russia, some of them national bestsellers such as Play to Live by D. Rus and the Way of the Shaman by V. Mahanenko.
So they tell us right here what these writers were inspired by. Sword Art Online is a series of Japanese light novels that began as a webnovel in 2001, which was picked up for publication in Japan in 2009. This is one of those “overnight successes” a decade in the making. SAO didn’t get an English translation until 2014, but really gained in popularity when the anime adaptation came out. The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor began as a South Korean webnovel from Kakao, which began in 2007 and ran until 2019. It is a massively popular series, which spawned a comic adaptation and its own mobile game.
Both series featured virtual reality. In SAO people were playing a multiplayer game and found that they were unable to log off and in LMS a poor Korean student plays a popular new game to earn some money for his grandmother and ends creating a lot of beautiful art and eventually becomes a central figure in a power struggle over the game.
The third title mentioned is again Ready Player One, which was inspired by arcade games of 1980s. If we were to dig deeper into 1980s, we find…
Well, yes, technically, it is similar. But we are looking for something else. Something where people went through a portal and ended up in a game with specific classes and quests… Something with the portals…
And there you go. The first true expression of LitRPG on screen in 1983. Why Cavalier? Why not a Paladin? Never understood that.
Okay, fine, that was a screen adaptation. But what about the literary equivalent?
This is a tougher call, because again, we are looking for very specific things: classes, portal, game setting, quests, and so on.
I’m going to say Quag Keep by Andre Norton.
In early 1970s Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were working on a new game called Dungeons and Dragons and they couldn’t find anyone to publish it. So in 1974 Gary Gygax partnered with Don Kaye and formed TSR, which published Dungeons and Dragons in that same year.
Two years later, Gary Gygax invited Andre Norton for a session in the new setting he was developing called Greyhawk. Quag Keep was the result of that session. It came out in 1978.
I had to grab the description from Wikipedia, because the one on Amazon is terrible.
Martin, a player in a game of D&D, touches a figurine of a warrior, and is unwillingly transported into the body of Milo Jagon, a warrior in the city of Greyhawk. Milo/Martin gradually meets others likewise transported to this world. Bound together by forces they do not understand, the players struggle to trust each other. Under the compulsion of a geas, everyone is forced to go on a quest. They eventually confront the one controlling them, the Gamemaster, and battle with him to regain control of their lives. Although they win, they find that they cannot return to “reality”, and must remain in Greyhawk. Rather than splitting up, they realize they make a good team and decide to continue their adventures together.
We do not have the literal system windows of the online game. Other than that, this hits all the points: players are portaled, they have classes, they must accomplish quests, and they band into a party.
But what about Dragonlance Chronicles? Nope, that doesn’t fit. First, it was commissioned by TSR in 1983 to promote the new campaign setting, so Quag Keep predates it, and second, it’s a novel set in Dragonlance with characters original to that world. There are no players.
Sadly, Quag Keep bombed. The critics disliked it, so it is one of the lesser known Andre Norton’s works.
But what about the portal fantasy? When did that start?
I love you, please don’t make me pull Lewis Caroll out. That is another post.
Here is a list from Goodreads. It’s pretty comprehensive, but it doesn’t include pseudo portals like H.G. Wells’ Time Machine or Edward Bellamy’s 1887 Looking Backward 2000-1887. Fun fact: Bellamy was the first to introduce the concept of credit cards in fiction.
When we market books, we have to hit the here and now references. While we might phrase things like “this work will appeal to fans of isekai” or “this work will appeal to fans of hunter LitRPG,” we are doing this to appeal to a new generation of readers because saying things like “This is like Chronicles of Narnia and Princess Bride made a baby with Game of Thrones and then gave it to Locke Lamora to raise” is confusing.
So what about the Inheritance? How is it different?
There are things that bug me about the Hunter subgenre specifically in its current LitRPG iteration. If we really dissect it, a lot of the genre deals with existing within a static system. Your class is set. Your abilities are set. You can get new abilities but only within the system parameters.
Sometimes you gain levels, but only in your class. Sometimes you can game the system and unlock something unexpected due to prior knowledge or chance. Sometimes you cannot improve at all. In Solo Leveling, Sung Jin-woo is the only person able to level up. In that world, if you “awakened” to your powers as Rank B, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you will stay Rank B. He is the only exception.
LitRPGs generally fall into two categories: either succeed within the system and be the best at playing the class you’ve chosen or disrupt the system and become the best badass there is who answers to no one, while the rest of the people remain in their assigned roles. There is a simplicity in it: you can earn experience, have tangible progress in levels, and be assigned a course of action by the system.
If you were coming from an environment where generations of people have given up on upward mobility without inherited wealth, or a country where the government exerts pressure to keep you in your lane and your designated role, this type of system might be familiar and appealing, in part because sometimes it carries a subversive message.
Setting the social implications aside, if you look at the list of the manhwa I linked above or at Magic Dome Books, you can note something interesting. In the word of Cordelia Cupp, “What’s with all the dudes?”
This genre usually features a male protagonist, typically between 17 and 25. There are occasional older protagonists, but again mostly male. There are occasional exceptions, as always, and there are more women in books than in manhwa, but in general they are harder to find. Recently I stumbled on a LitRPG manhwa, which had a female protagonist. She had the housekeeping talent. I’m sure it was meant to be just part of the current trend exploring the cozier side of LitRPG, but the hero is kicking butt left and right because he is the best hunter who ever lived and our girl is making his bed so he can nap.
A couple of months ago, I saw a tutorial video, where two women were having an awesome time trying to nuke the Matron of Glennwood in the Enshrouded. (If you are interested, here is the link to the video.) I very much enjoyed watching them try to kill her. It kind of confirmed my theory that most of the time inspiration is accidental.
For these reasons, The Inheritance is not a true Hunter LitRPG in the strictest sense of the word.
A Little Housekeeping
Unfortunately, not every story is suitable for the online serialization. Serialized stories need to be fast paced and tightly focused so people don’t get lost. This is why serializing Hugh 2 was very difficult. It was complex and required revisions as it was being written due to the layered motivations of the protagonists. None of the projects we have currently sketched out for our existing worlds would work for serialization.
The Inheritance was conceived and structured specifically for online reading. It was meant to be a serial from the start. We are about 2/3 of the way through, so it’s mostly written. It’s our gift to you this spring because there will be very little content on the blog as we dig into our massive workload.
The Inheritance will be posted probably twice a week and in its entirety. It connects to nothing, it requires no prior reading, and it will likely be a one-off, so there probably won’t be a sequel.
There are no Easter eggs. We would never troll the BDH. Trust us.
After its run, The Inheritance will be available for sale for you to keep, probably as part of Small Magics 2, which will be collecting various free fiction from the website.
We understand that some of you are upset because you would like the free stories to be available in ebook format faster. It takes effort and time to put it all together into a cohesive anthology, and we have to have enough content to justify the price and especially the audio edition. We do not want to short-change those of you who are visually impaired or who prefer your fiction as an audio adaptation. It is difficult to book an audio narrator just for a novella-length work. There has to be significant word count for it to be worth their while. We would want to have the narrator at least booked before the ebook comes out, so we can give you an ETA.
PS. ModR suggested adding recipes our characters cook at the end of Small Magics 2. Is it weird to have recipes from our books in an anthology? It feels kind of weird.
The Top Dungeon Farmer
In conclusion, thank you for sitting through my TED talk. To make up for it, I thought I would show you my current manhwa Hunter favorite. Behold the unbearable cuteness.
The Top Dungeon Farmer. Yes, it is that adorable. Look at those bunnies! He gets a killer monster bear later and it is also adorable. I must say, I don’t care for the cat. Anyway, there are 80+ episodes, most of them free on Webtoons. If you need a distraction where nothing super horrible happens, this might do the trick.
PS. It should really go above where we talked about our world turning into a video game. There is, apparently, a real life condition called Game Transfer Phenomenon. BBC explains more. So who knows, perhaps we will start assigning classes to ourselves some time in the future.
Hurrah
thank you for the gift of The Inheritance to come!
This reminds of a series by Tony Corden, The Stork Tower, that has virtual world component. Great reading though the series is incomplete.
First?
Happy Friday!
Whoohoo! I’m so excited! A new story!
Thanks for the education too, I’ve heard all those terms and sort of understood them but I get it now so yay.
Oh well, I typed as fast as I could! It’s been a productive week. I got the tomato seedlings started inside. It’s still freezing outside at night but maybe in a couple weeks I can get them into the ground.
I highly recommend Magical Girl Gunslinger, on Royal Road. (royalroad.com)
Love that on so much!
Lots of great bangers on Royal Road (also soooo many awful ones… Sturgeon’s Law at work). But if LitRPG (or the more general “Progression Fantasy”) intrigues you, it’s a great place to start.
Oh god, yes, I found A Practical Guide to Sorcery (progression fantasy) on there and it completely absorbed me.
The writing just gets better as it goes on. It scratched something in my brain the same way the HA books do. I was not expecting to be blown away like that by free fiction. I ended up buying all the books 😂
I thank god for royalroad website. It has enabled my reading for years know its a great original free stories online. I read and am still reading so many great stories there. I strongly recomend. You can find almost all your favorite genres there… well romance and classic hight epic fantasy is kind rare but still have some good stories there. You can find urban fantasy victorian era vimpire stories isekai stories portal/rift/dungeon stories scifi stories fantasy AU stories a lot of post Apocalipse of the sistem tipe stories xianxia like wuxia like and some cosy fantasy… and thats just my reading list lol. Yes there are bad writen stories there some toxic comenters and self insert smut fufilijg fantasy there to so it as all in universe it isnt perfect but some Yin mixed on the Yang. Worth the time spent there.
RoyalRoad is amazing
I’m addicted to “He Who Fights Monsters’ by shirtaloon
Started on RoyalRoad and now is available on Kindle.
House Andrew is correct about online serials needing editing when transitioning to novel format.
This was really cool to read! I loved the movie Ready Player 1. When I read the blurb yesterday my reaction was WOW! The comment about “it’s like the Princess Bride…” is hilarious. A lot of the kids movies now have nods to old movies. When I start laughing, my grandkids just look at me like “well, it’s funny to HER anyway.” Afterwards I’ll explain why I laughed and they’re like, that was in another movie about a nun (Minecraft movie)?
Thanks for all of your explanations and stories!!
What a wonderful gift <3
So grateful!
Thank you for our gift. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds! I do enjoy being spoiled !
Thank you!!
Thank you! When I was reading the post, my first thought was Tron. When I scrolled down…there it was in its poster glory. The second Tron movie was so boring, I almost fell asleep watching it.
It’s interesting how one book can change the course of the gaming industry. I think Ready Player One got a lot of people into gaming who may not have gotten into it all that much.
My video gaming skills were thanks to Mario Brothers and Pac Man. 😀
When you talked about the characters not being allowed to change categories, I thought of Brian May. I recently saw a picture describing him as a rock icon and astrophysicist. The comment was something like Wizard Multiclasses as a Bard. For those unfamiliar with Dr. May, he’s a guitarist for Queen and worked on the New Horizons probe to Pluto. A true renaissance man. We all have more than one story in us.
I had thought of Brian May too – love that he paused his PhD thesis to join a rock group (Smile) before becoming part of the Queen phenomenon.
“Is it weird to have recipes from our books in an anthology?”
no.
Doesn’t Small Magic 1 have a grocery shopping list? Recipes are a great follow up.
thanks for the intro, I’m not a gamer so this is all new to me.
+ 1 for the recipes!
+1! I love recipes in books, so not weird to me! 😊
Also, not a gamer so this post was very informative. Thanks for that! 🤗
Thank you for all the wonderful stories you bring us. I’ve only started to read one book that is LitRPG, The Wandering Inn by Pirate Aba, and I’ve found it to be curiously addictive.
I too read this. I have for years. “A World About Levels, where the only rule is No Killing Goblins” There are very few plot holes, I like that sex isn’t the focus; it is talked about sometimes but not platformed in scenes, the fighting and battle scenes are impactful, and the character and story arcs are multitude and creative.
This used to be on Royal Road, but has since moved its entire bulk to a dedicated website where the author typically releases a chapter 3 weeks out of the month.
I highly recommend this series. Especially for those prolific readers who devour words like black holes.
I share your Wandering Inn addiction and recommend your recommendation 😉 Pirateaba’s weekly web serial helps me semi-patiently w@it for the next House Andrews production.
Recipes would not be weird and would be very welcome!
Hi ! I am a real life farmer with corsican bees so I had a little laugh with the last pictures. If a bee rush on you, it’s not a hug, it’s the first warning before the sting !
And my husband sets up the fence against rabbits !
It’s cozy but so unrealistic, there isn’t any real lesson of life less than it’s a plot to fatten the rabbits and eat them. Mouaaahhaahhhaaa !!!!
Those are magical farmer white rabbits. 🙂
Let’s hope that they drink only carrot juice and not almost every coffee beans of the house like the students of my husband when they planted the orange trees yesterday. My husband looked so mournful this morning when he made his coffee cup. 🙂
I’m not really into LitRPG, I prefer the fantastic literature like Druss, the legend, The daughter of the Drow , the Disc world (so funny, so team Mémé Ciredutemps) and for cosy, I love the Amaranthine Saga of Forthright with so many moving characters.
The wolf Children ( japanese animation film) is the story of a mum with two young werewolf children ( Ame and Yuki) who relocate in rural japan to raise her children more secretly. It’s a vision a little bit more realistic of farm work without mechanic equipment. We watch the children grow up to become adults and make their choices of life.
Thanks for the recommendations!
For anyone not sure about LitRPG, my first foray into it was Dungeon Crawler Carl – I’m on book 3 now and thoroughly enjoying it. Warning: you may become a charter member of the Court of Princess Donut.
Seconding this recommendation! Dungeon Crawler Carl is really good, and it generally appeals to both litRPG fans, and to more traditional fantasy fans. The series as a whole also does a good job of avoiding some of Ilona’s problems with the genre (it takes a few books to get there, but its been building the whole time). Also, it’s hilarious and completely unhinged!
Thirded! Not really a word, but you get the idea! Carl and Donut are awesome and even more fun to listen to than read!!!
lol, I’m currently listening to the 4th book and unhinged and hilarious is an apt description. If you like audio books they have a fantastic narrator (well pair of narrators really). The plot gets a little bit complex and challenging to follow at times, but I like the characters a lot. Princess Donut is a gem
Can’t wait for next book in DCC series, what a cliffhanger, goodness me.
Finished He who fights monsters, argh another not completed series but still good.
Tried another LitRPG, nope, didn’t even finish 1st in series of 15, smh I was not compatible.
So yep off I go into the five books of Daily Grind by Argus (an RR offering?), need more yet another cliffhanger.
Read all of the above, now on hold for next fix from anyone of those authors.
As I fill the gap between Ilona Andrews books 😬 help, help. Oh and many thanks for background on type of books I’m currently reading.
Who doesn’t love Princess Donut! We r currently w*iting for the next one. All I’ll say for those currently mid-series is that each book seems somehow, impossibly, MORE unhinged than the last. But in a good way. Mostly. I had a fun time when my husband was reading, not answering his questions. Or finding truthful answers that amused me and yet conveyed no spoilers to him. Carl’s mantra (as developed over several books), has the same spirit as the title of the upcoming Maggie book.
Thanks to HA and Mod. R! Looking forward to whatever y’all choose to share with us!
I was coming to recommend DCC and how it avoids some of the pitfalls Ilona outlines. While the main protagonist is a man, he is surrounded by fully fleshed out female characters, with Ellie being my personal favorite. #teamdonutholes
I agree with the reviewers. Quag Keep started well, but didn’t quite understand the mechanics and the ending was contrived. However, I wish I had kept my copy
awesome! this is exciting! for anyone hesitant about LitRPG, if you’ve seen any Tron or Jumanji film, you probably are going to enjoy this.
thanks for sharing the history of LitRPG. I loved the old D&D cartoon growing up in the 70s. excited to read your take on the Genre.
Many, many years ago, I learned that I was not cut out to be a gamer. The Physics Department got a new computer with a game on it called “Lunar Landing” or something like that, with the objective of using your energy units to go the distance for a soft landing on the moon. (Yes I am that old.) My result? “Welcome to the land of zero population growth.” Feeling bad, I decided that games were not for me. I felt a little bit better when I found out that my Organic Chemistry prof received “Tennis anyone?” as her response.
Wow, thanks for a really great post. I am not familiar with most of the titles mentioned so will probably reread a few times. oh, the punishment! 😀
… and – recipes from your books? YES! I have been wishing for this. Also, if your targeted audience includes younger gen, they don’t know cooking but are very interested. COVID and our current precarious financial situations have them searching to find ways to feed themselves on a budget, and those older appreciate the extension of our favourite characters and world into our kitchens.
Doooooo iiiiiiiit! Pretty please?
So many links to check. So many ideas to turn. A new serial to look forward to. Thank you! Light in the darkness.
I love recipes! I don’t think it is weird at all to add recipes, since so many of your characters cook.
So fascinating. Thanks for the context and history. My kid was just asking about Solo-leveling yesterday as she is trying to talk me into a Crunchyroll subscription; impeccable timing! As always, looking forward to the serial and good luck with your beastly workload!
Solo Leveling is teen appropriate; there is violence and that is scary, but there is very little sexual content. Korean laws are much stricter so you won’t get a lot of sexualized “fan service” like you would find in anime.
solo levelling is lots of fun. if you are getting the Crunchyroll subscription other possibles are My hero Academia and Black Clover. for more grown up kids, Assassination Classroom, Hunter Hunter and Demon Slayer are well done. then there’s the sports animes – my favourites are Haikyuu, kuroko’s basketball, Yuri on Ice and a running one i can’t remember the name of. Enjoy!
I’m not a gamer but I was educated by your post so thank you!
I was introduced to manwha thanks to Tapas putting out Clean Sweep and many of your recommendations. Solo Leveling was definitely one of my favorites.
Just wanted to pop in and recommend Victor of Tucson. It’s a great isekai LitRPG novel series by Plum Parrot. A half-Mexican teen gets teleported to another world and is immediately enslaved and sold to a gladiator ring. But as a star wrestler, he’s got a couple skills that keep him alive while he figures himself out.
It starts a little rough, as I think it started as a self published series, but it gets better as the author improves.
I’d also like plug the System Apocalypse subgenre, which is if the Magic Shift from Kate Daniels was a LitRPG. Lots of good books in that area, to include Apocalypse Tamer, Primal Hunter, The Transcendent Green, The Fortifier and many others.
ah, interesting read! thank you for going into detail. I’m not a gamer and assumed I wasn’t going to be a good audience for LitRPG but after looking at the GR list of portal fantasy, I’m realizing that was folly. there are quite a few books I’ve really enjoyed on it, plus I read and really liked Phil Tucker’s LitRPG, Death March.
looking forward to more of your serial while I wait for Kingdom <3
Recipes would be most welcome!
Thank you for the serial to come.
Dungeon Crawler Carl was my first litrpg. I love it.
Description: Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas.
Info : The series is not finish but there 7 books done and it’s only on Amazon.
There are different options for the book format. The audiobooks on Audible are great, and Ace is releasing hardcovers versions right now! So not just Amazon anymore.
thank you!
so interesting
all the recepies please!
Oh, sooo looking forward to it!
Also, no, I don’t think it’s weird to add recipes that the characters cook. One of my favorite books from my very early teens had recipes that the main character cooked throughout the story (fictional, accidental spy in the world war 2 era), and it was probably the reason I liked it so much. It made the whole story feel more tangible, more real. I loved it. Haven’t seen the concept since, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing it again!
I got into SciFi through the fabulous Andre Norton and read all her books. The Beastmaster and Witch World Series were my favourites. Thank you for bringing up Quag Keep and reminding me about her. (I remember that cover!)
And thank you especially for the Ted Talk bc I never got into gaming or LitRPG — I am waiting for Maggie to start.
Ditto, Andre Norton’s Witch World series was my gateway drug to fantasy. Absorbing stories and with many strong female characters, too.
I was primed for that by all the Andrew Lang Fairy Tales (Blue Book of, Green Book of, etc) and mythology stories I read in elementary school.
An easy entry to LitRPG is the Second Age of Retha novels by K.K. Shea. It’s an online multiplayer fantasy game where the best players get transported into the game and can’t get out until they achieve a quest. There’s “grinding” where one has to repeat tasks to gain character points to be able to do the quest. They are light reading, with a female main character
I’m excited to read any and all things you write. and of course buy when available. thank you so much for being my favorite author!
Fascinating. This old fogy has barely dipped his toes into LitRPG, so this is new information to me. Thank you. Regarding recipes, I’d love to see them. I can’t guarantee I’ll try them, but I’d love to see them.
I love a bunch of the works you mentioned, but i didn’t see one of my favorites on your list. The “Double Blind” series just came out with its third novel. if you like LitRPG, check it out.
Count me in for recipes. Yay!
Also if Martha felt like contributing a honey muffin recipe, that would be doubly awesome.
+1 Pls share Martha’s honey muffin recipe! Imagine rereads w a batch just out of the oven! (Cute cat eyes)
I am pro-recipe.
Excited to have a serial and a book to buy this year ❤️
Wow!! Super exciting things to come!! Thank you!!! Can’t wait to read this!
Thanks for the Ted Talk on LitRPG. I have been seeing that term all over and I didn’t understand it. Also the term “romantacy”. It doesn’t compute.
Looking forward to reading whatever you’re writing regardless of whether it’s free or not. My attention span doesn’t support serials, so I’ll be lined up for an ebook or the fully posted book. Exciting!
Have a great weekend!
Romantasy as a genre label usually means is a romance story set in a fantasy world. Usually the protagonists are on the younger side, 18-25. The love interests are frequently fae or shifters, like dragon shifters, for example. The setting is typically lush, with a lot of traditional historical elements like swordfights and balls, and there is typically a high level of heat. Sex tends to be frequent and explicit.
I love that they say there won’t be a sequel. Everything House Andrews writes is so popular, it ends up spawning into a a full book then morphs into a series 🙂
Well…we are extremely cute and fluffy, so let’s see, shall we? 🤣 The Horde armed with puppy dog eyes might get the impossible, we’ve done it before.
Yep. We can be chalant, and very persuasive by just looking cute, adoring, and saying “no rush. Do what you need to do. However….” 😀
This reminds me of the comment of Grace’s that she was writing a short story, which morphed into a novella, then 2 books, and now 6 books. We’ll just have to wait and see if this is a “standalone”. (and yes, those were “air quotes”) 😄
I look forward to whatever stories House Andrews tells. I found the history of LitRPG interesting, because I have only known it as written novels. I tried Melissa McShane’s foray, figuring if I was going to give a chance to a genre that didn’t sound very… erm. good… I’d go with a writer I trusted. Now that I know the origin was in graphic novel form, it makes a LOT more sense.
There is no writer/writing team I trust more today than Ilona Andrews. I am VERY excited now.
As a former EverQuest turned World of Warcraft player, and so on, I’m here for this. I liked Sword Art Online but the maleness of the genre has been my biggest hang up. I was drawn to the games because building your character meant I could be a badass and be a woman. This post is making me crazy nostalgic for those days when I spent way too much time grinding levels and attending raids.
I’m so excited for this serial. Thanks for the gifts that keeps on giving.
Thank you for the research exploration and the kind gift of Inheritance. I hope that all goes well.
After a long time reading these kind of manwhas but not knowing their origin; I learned a lot about LitRPG and this genre thanks to this post.
Thank you for taking the time to explain it 🙂
““This is like Chronicles of Narnia and Princess Bride made a baby with Game of Thrones and then gave it to Locke Lamora to raise” is confusing.”
Uhm. While I would definitely be incredibly intrigued, I read Martin and Lynch when they were first released and grew up with Narnia & the Princess Bride, and I find this description confusing. I can’t imagine what this would look like.
I also think recipes don’t sound weird at all, especially given that writers put playlists at the end of their books. Recipes are much more practical. For me, anyway.
My take on this is this is that we’re getting a female protagonist in an awesome litrpg and I am ecstatic. Will probably wait for publication as usual and regarding recipes in that, I have to admit to neutrality – I’ll read them and enjoy them if they’re there but won’t miss them if they’re not.
I have no problem with recipes in an anthology. There are recipes assigned to specific characters in the various series, and it would be very cute to have a recipe for Hidden Legacy, for Innkeeper, and for Kate Daniels listed in the collection. I think the BDH would love it. Even your own recipes, which make the BDH feel closer to you, would be welcome.
I remember some of us making book-inspired foods to go along with a book launch or other event as a way to make it more celebratory.
Anyway, it sounds like a great idea to me.
These are all terms I’ve seen around and never really understood. Not completely sure I understand them yet, but I’m looking forward to next Friday!
LitRPG is my current genre obsession. I’m so excited to see my favourite authors dipping their toe in. If you are looking for some female MC litRPG books/series that I have enjoyed – Tower of Somnus, Azarinth Healer, Beneath the Dragon’s Eye Moons, This Trilogy is Broken, The Whim of the Gods, A Touch of Power, and The Calamitous Bob. Most of them are on KU as well.
Some spoilery info about one of the most sucessufull stories on RR.
Azarinth for those that dont know is first big hit of a female mc on RR and have been called the Dragon Ball of the isekai genre. Very popular and it is a very long series that is focused on a meathead combat obessessive mc that keep getting stronger and fighting stronger people as the stories go until the main plot ends. She also eats like Goku so take that as you will. The mc is a isekaied female non pro pugilist that gain lost and rare arcane healing class but isntead of going the classic suport healer mage role becomes a frontline unkilling fighting machine that has 2 big obsessions food and fighting stronger oponents sapient or not. The author more than once breack some tropes in a good way. Its a good read overall.
PS the author of The Calamitous Bob is great and have other great series. Bob doesnt start great but if you overlook the begining and follow the main character its gonna be a very great time. Quality humor great combat scenes realistic characters that have their own voice great plot development full out quality world building. Worning content about some dark themes about french speaking war war crimes rape genocide (dead children as an exemple on scenes we see as exemple) politics are touched opun but not the focus of the story so it isnt full grimdark actualy its more of grimbright story.
Loved seeing so many of my favorite manhwa mentioned! Solo Leveling and ORV were one thing but I was shocked to see LMS mentioned, I hadn’t thought about that one in forever.
A lot of the ones named are the male protag ones but have you checked out the female protag ones? More Otome Isekai/Transmigration than LitRPG but they’re two sides of the same coin in my opinion. Like Perks of being an S-Class Heroine is lowkey ORV but in a shojo genre lol.
Also, YES, of course we want recipes!!!! Your food descriptions are so evocative and I know the BDH has asked for recipes many times, so please include them.
(insert BDH puppy dog eyes here)
Wow that sounds like an awesome gift to the Horde. I’ve never read LitRPG, but I really loved the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg, which was basically an early version of the genre. A group of tabletop roleplayers get sucked into their game world in the bodies of their characters.
I’ve been digging into litrpg a bit over the last couple of years
I think it’s a bit wider range than people might think from the description
Basically the defining feature is that the characters (or at least some of them) have stats, skills and other game like things and they know about it, often they can prioritise and decide how they advance
There are a lot which involve people entering computer games but there’s a heap of other types of examples
There’s a lot of System Invasion examples where the world gets assimilated into a system where people get classes with powers and a huge amount of monsters come in, typically this is a mass casualty event (commonly well over 90% fatalities for the human population)
Examples of that are the series The System Apocalpyse, Alpha Physics, Phase Shift
Another common plot is somebody from earth gets pulled into some other world or universe where the world functions differently examples are
Oh, Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer: A LitRPG Adventure: (Unorthodox Farming) – a human gets reincarnated into a world where everyone has classes, he gets farmer rather than something offensive and comes up with a way of leveling and gaining power
Crysalis – Anthony dies and gets reincarnated as a giant ant in a world where humans (and other main races) get classes while monsters spawn randomly and there’s a multi-level underworld where different levels have all sorts of different creatures
Then there’s ones set in worlds or a future of earth where people somehow have the ability to gain abilities and get a representation of them like a character sheet in an ttrpg or crpg, examples are
The Iron Prince – science fiction world where there are limited amounts of upgrades available that grant superhuman powers to fight strange enemies
Book of the Dead – a fantasy world where everybody gets a class at 16 (I think) and people with combat classes typically fight creatures coming out of rifts. The main character gets Necromancer, an illegal class but rather than having it scrubbed out he decides to use it for good
+1 to The Iron Prince & Fire and Song (Warformed: Stormweaver) by Bryce O’Connor. Really great Progression SciFi.
Book of the dead is great dark fantasy. We follow the fall of an young and naive mc going from young hero mentality into antihero and finally full villainous lead. The world building is very good. The characters well defined if a little cliche. Theres good humor but not great. Worth reading.
+ 1 “I Was Reincarnated As A Farmer”!
ahh!!! as a Korean gal who has been riding the tower-hunter-turned otome isekai-turned sentinel-universes for years, everything abt this post fills me w/ nerd happiness! i commented abt 던전 안의 살림꾼 (Housekeeper of the Dungeon) here the other day and am so glad that House Andrews is getting a dopamine boost from mold-killing power boosts and a money-hungry snail :3c
“I Stole the First Ranker’s Soul” is also a good Webtoons read for anyone curious about female-led hunter-verses! Not as cute as 혼자 농사 AKA Top Dungeon Farmer with fluffy bunnies, but lots of overpowered LitRPG system disruption and funny twists on skills! (iykyk but i’ve never found a bug to be so cute XD)
excited to see how Inheritance plays out!! No worries about lack of blogging after the spring (Mod R gives so many goodies) or ebook formatting delays. Thank you for giving BDH a new world to escape to in the first place 🙂
The snail is a hoot. When they got the apartment and his feelings got so hurt, omg.
yes! My manga + manhwa taste is 88% fantasy and I love when authors go out of the box for absurd/unique animal companions! (Er, I am still otome isekai / power fantasy trash at heart, so I will likely never get tired of fluffy Tuna-esque beasts or hyper intelligent dragons either like the S-Classes I raised/Lout of the Count’s family, respectively.)
Fun fact: when 오색 AKA Poly is telling Huina his feelings, it literally cries its mostly H2O mollusk body out in her hands. ㅠㅠ Poly was very upset!! I use Kakao’s KR translations of manhwa to brush up on my Korean spelling and I was so confused by scene at first. Rather than using typical “crying” sounds (“heukheuk”, “eungeung”), the sound effects were the kind of onomatopoeia associated with drain pipes LOL. I almost misread the scene to have 껄껄 (a LOL sound) rather than 콸콸 (the sound of flooding pipes), so I learned a good vocab lesson thanks to poor Poly’s heartbreak!
hmm I have no idea if my fun fact actually reads as funny now that I’ve wrote it out? Either way, I am glad you are having a hoot with Huina’s capitalistic-yet-cute home administrator! I’m currently reading a story about a girl whose apartment is haunted by ghost doggos * and both of them makes me wish that my landlord could sometimes be a friendly critter too. (U^U)
*Shiba Inu Rooms for anyone curious. MANGA Plus has hidden gems and lots of free official Shonen Jump chapters!
Omg, S Class I Raised mentioned. This one is one of my new favorites, everything about it is just so good.
It is not weird to have recipes, there is a huge boom in the cooking sector and a lot of influencers are making cookbooks now.
I just took a recipe editing class because two of my current clients are going to write cookbooks and I want to know what to look for!
You have posted recipes before and they are tasty. It would be cool to have some inspired by the characters. 😀 As a longtime fan I am here for it!
I can’t see a downside to adding recipes. It’s not like you’re forcing anyone to read them, and they will make lots of readers happy even if they never use them.
_Dream Park_ by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes is more a super LARP, but made an impression when I first read it
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My wife’s favorite anime is _Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense_ but not only because it was entertaining, but she has been Maple -Just having fun while stumbling across game breaking bugs-for several mobile games (while I was often Sally) and been tuckerized in game as a result
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For current Web Serials LitRPG
_Super Supportive_ by Sleyca is a Slice of Life with the slowest pacing I have ever read, while also being very popular ($25k+ per month on Patreon) Very interesting world building
_The Legend of William Oh_ by Macronomicon is a fast paced Tower Climb LitRPG
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Actually used Quag Keep for inspiration when creating one of my TTRPG worlds (Yes I am that old, but to be fair, there weren’t a lot of options)
There are several Dream Park books. The villain in The California Voodoo Game made me want to ask Steve what he had done to piss Larry off, because there were definite resemblances. Apparently the character was based on somebody who went out of his way to make himself unpopular. And the similarity in personal interests was enough to account for the resemblance to Steve.
Yes, I do know Steve Barnes and Larry Niven. Haven’t seen either one of them for years; but they would recognize me if they saw me today. I met Steve in college, and Larry after he started mentoring Steve.
Supersuportive is wonderfull if very slow pacing slice of life superhero origin story series. It happens in an AU version of Earth were a more advanced alien civilisation makes contact with Earth on the last century and integrate in its society but they dont only have more advanced tech they actualy have magic and actualy prefer magic than tech and thats how some humans on Earth gain powers and the superhero and suoervilains come from. We follow the teen gaining powers and decide to become superhero plot just it happens the teen already had a tragic past backstory and gaining powers didnt help it actualy make thongs worse in new traumatic ways that just keep coming. You wont see such abused main character since Harry Dresden. Some of us reading have considered calling the cops on the author on cruel and unusual treatment of main character.
So my birthday is the 17th. I’m still calling The Inheritance a birthday present. Thank you!
Thank you for the updates, I’m looking forward to reading more in your Inheritance series.
I admit, those bunnies have me almost convinced…
This is fascinating — I confess to knowing nothing about the subgenre so your novella will be my foray into LitRPG. I gravitate toward books with female protagonists so I completely understand your frustration with the (relative) lack of options.
Also: if you’re not wanting to title the next collection as SMALL MAGICS, VOL. 2, might I suggest something like SMALL LEGACIES or SMALL SWEEPS or SMALL MAGGIES? Maybe not the last two but I do think SMALL LEGACIES has some merit. 😂
That’s a great idea – I would love recipes in Small Magics 2!! That doesn’t seem weird at all to me 😊
Yes please for the recipes. I always enjoy it when authors do that.
Question about LitRPG: the series I tried on my son’s recommendation was very literal to a gaming system. Imagine FMC needs to jump across a space between buildings. There is an internal dialogue about dice rolls and what her score must be. Is that how these books usually work?
Not at all. You can definitely find ones that don’t do the stats and point updates.
There is a significant portion of LitRPGs that do, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the only way!
Thank you!
Thank you for always considering the BDH and for free! No complaints here. Looking forward to The Inheritance.
If you’re looking for a strong (literally) female lead, I would recommend “I May Be a Guild Receptionist, But I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time”. I had fun watching the anime!
Loved learning a little bit about the origin of LitRPG. It doesn’t always match my exact tastes, but when it does BOY am I obsessed!!
For female led LitRPG, I can’t recommend I Stole the Number One Ranker’s Soul enough! She IS the OP character who goes from zero to hero and becomes a BOSS. AND the manhwa recently finished.
Thank you for the gift ☺️
Looking forward to The Inheritance! As a side question and if allowed, what would this group recommend for a book club made up of 60 and 70 year old women who do not understand LitRPG, anime, or manwha to read to start broadening our horizons? A couple of us have read Ready Player One but most have read nothing along these lines. Thank you.
My grandmother-in-law laughed uproariously at Beware of Chicken – which is pretty universally beloved as well. Maybe that could work? ☺️
Another royalroad original classic. Also very sucessfull. Had lots of fun reading it.
I am 56 and I started with Threadbare by Andrew Seiple, LitRPG about the teddy bear of a little girl who comes to life to find her, it’s a great introduction to LitRPG because the teddy bear has to figure out what the system is and that clues a clueless reader in as well. I agree with Beware of Chicken that Mod R recommends, it’s a “cozy” or slice-of-life LitRPG, nothing bad really happens, and I also liked Dungeon Crawler Carl but that one is not a cozy, bad things do happen. His sidekick is his ex-girlfriend’s Persian cat who becomes sentient in the dungeon and I love her. This one is very thought provoking and lots of action and ethical dilemmas. There is a reason ACE bought his books and it hit the NYT bestseller list. That said, if I had to do it over, I’d still start with Threadbare, I love those and it was such a good introduction.
Thank you both for recommendations!
LitRPG has never interested me before, but I will try anything you write and probably like it. (Sorry, BDH, I am old – deal with it.)
Thanks for all the upfront info. I am sure I will need it and info will help…
Wow, I just learned so much! Thanks. Also, I remember when Ready, Player One came out. My mind was blown and it opened a new world. I’m looking forward to this new serial!
to answer the why cavalier and not paladin question : paladin class includes being part of a religion and avoiding discussion of religion and D&D in the 80’s was kinda key.
I was going to say that a Paladin had to be Lawful Good, and let’s be honest Eric was more Chaotic. He could be heroic when they needed him, but he was a selfish little comic-relief character for most of the show. He was getting Better, like the episode where Dungeon Master let him take over, but he was still far from Paladin material.
It could also just have been for the alliteration try googling cowardly cavalier Eric comes up top of the list at least on my search. The characters were all very much sterotypes as you would expect for the 80s especially in TV aimed at children.
Plus how many children watching Saturday morning TV then would have known what a paladin was, heck I’m pretty sure that many adults that don’t read history or fantasy would be a bit vague on the nature of a paladin the cartoon was aimed at the general population as we only had 4 channels then (at least in the uk) no si-fi of fantasy channels.
For books I’d sugest the series Beware of the chicken, The magic in this otherworld is too far behind and The worlds fastest level up though I suspect only the last one is LitRPG the first two probably count as Isekai?
While a good answer, it’s likely that TSR was setting up 1985’s AD&D Unearthed Arcana book. That book introduced the Barbarian (Bobby), Thief-Acrobat (Diana), and Cavalier (Eric) classes.
Those classes started appearing in Dragon Magazine between July 1982 (#63) and April 1983 (#72).
Given that I would have been 7 at the time I’ll defer to the more experienced. 😺
For reference my first encounter with the term paladin was a fantasy book when I was about 12 somthing about a magic kingdom for sale? I had to look up the definition.
I did not hear about dungeons and dragons for a good few years later my high school could not even manage to keep a chess club running due to lack of adults willing to supervise. No local model shops and the library was having difficulty with staffing as well.
So not much oportunity there though I will flip that over and say the local city has a fully intact Norman castle which houses a museum. It was a reasonably cheep day out so I got to run round a real castle multiple times and of course they had real dungeons open to the public. No multi head dragons or corrupted adventurers on winged horses unfortunately.
Yes, most LitRPG is sorta boring due to being so formulaic. Fortunately there area a few that break the mold. Surprisingly, or not, mostly written by women with female protagonists.
I especially recommend: Primer for the Apocalypse (Available on Amazon in multiple forms, including paperback.)
Another title worth mentioning is on Royal Road – a free website for budding (and professional) authors. Most titles there are poorly written or so full of testosterone it’s painful, but there are occasional ones that are anywhere from charming to incredibly good.
Give this a try for something different. (A hint: It involves a magical bookstore, a cat, and an occasional visiting dragon.)
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/69298/meow-magical-emporium-of-wares-a-cozy-slice-of-life
I enjoyed reading this post very much. I’m currently enjoying Villains Are Destined To Die and Under The Oak Tree. I also like My Farm By the Palace. Cozy countryside vibes for the win! All are very different manhwa but very addicting. I don’t think I’ve read any of the hunter LitRPG. I dabbled in Solo Leveling. Saw the appeal but I wasn’t interested. Maybe I’ll try again. The art is amazing.
I’m looking forward to the Inheritance. What a gift you are giving us. Thank you!
The Inheritance!! Small Magics 2!! Recipes!! Recipes not at all weird!!
This post is proof that you would be a dynamite college literature professor. And yes, unless someone invents a “time stretcher”, there simply aren’t enough hours in a day, but still.
Re: audio for a novella – I would volunteer to come to Austin, pay my own expenses, stay in a hotel, etc. to narrate a novella for HA. Unfortunately, I sound like Minnie Mouse on speed in voice recordings….
If Ilona and/or Gordon became college professors, the classes would be full in a heartbeat, and the wait list would be in years for someone to get in. 😎
Yes! But hoping that the BDH would get preference in class sign-ups!! 📚
I think Andre Norton may have the first LitRPG book with Quag Keep in 2006. Not her best work but one with LitRPG classic elements. Gamers who find themselves in a fantasy world. I think they had dice attached to their wrists. It was based on old school TSR AD&D roleplaying rather than on line gaming
Tells you how old I am – I became an RPGA member the year it firmed
I hadn’t heard of lit RPG much and when I came across and you know it was explaining you know gamer system and levels. I said to myself that’s not a real book! and looked right over the genre. then sometime ago you made a post about some lit RPG. which made me give it a second look because if my favorite author likes some of it maybe I should give it a try right?
and I enjoy it. now I have to laugh at myself and remove that judgemental phrase my brain of that’s not a real book. thank you guys for always being excellent and expanding my horizons and revealing biases I didn’t even know I had.I
Shame on me I should have read further. Quag Keep is already referenced! I am not worthy! Hangs head in shame! In my defense it is not a well known book by this author
Great post! Thanks so much for all the education and recommendations. I’ve started to dabble a little with LitRPG but haven’t gotten very far…can’t wait to see what I think of Inheritance. What am I saying! It will be HA and I will love it!! 🙂 Thank you so much for finding something to tide us over this crazy year.
Have to say that GA is definitely helping. Shout out for Nevada and family on GA two weeks from today! Yea!!
Oh, and recipes? Yes, please. There is a certain Apple Cake that is a fav of mine!
Thank you for a very enjoyable Ted talk! I knew most of the info already being very olllllllld!!!!!! But I had dates wrong and I am more Manga than Manhwa.
Love reading your blog I learn so much. I am starting to watch more Chinese and Korean vids on line because of your posts. I am enjoying them so thanks
Thanks for the post.
I feel like you referred to Welcome to the Dungeon Hotel on Tapas, which I am enjoying so far, but that’s a really good point. They tend to be all male main characters. The kickass female characters tend to be reborn or transported to another work sometimes a game or book. Now I am on a quest to find one.
I am reading Welcome to the Dungeon Hotel, too (and am enjoying it, as well). However, the tropes are ripe for a revolution (or a maturation?). I hope The Inheritance does all that (no pressure, though!).
I have been really into litrpg books lately. I am do not read the anime/sword art online type.
I am more of a He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon, Primal Hunter by Zogarth or Beware of Chicken by CasualFarmer reader.
I am really excited to read your litrpg.
I was wondering if anyone was going to mention He who fights with monsters and Primal hunter. They were my first LitRGP novels and hold a special place in my heart, but I don’t know if they represent “good” LitRGP, I still love them though.
Jason Asano isnt for everybody. You hate or love him there is no middle ground there. He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon is another very popular very sucessfull story original from royalroad. The main character is… complicated. Far far far from perfect he has some moral code that you can respect and agree even if you can not always can woth his actions. Great humor relief himself if you like the author humor. Opnioneted young man that seriously need professional help gets isekaid into an isolated mansion on a desert full of canibal cult and at least one world invading eldrig god cultist you like one does. From there he goes on adventures and gain first magic and more. Some people found the humor repetitive and tiresome as the series goes.
Please. I need one of Martha’s honey muffins.
I read Quag Keep! My neighbor back in the 90’s was a friend of Norton’s and I have several signed books by her.
I loved Quag Keep. I recommended it to many students in our school when they were forced to pick a library book for a class. I would ask what they liked to do and if they said “Video Games” I said Quag Keep!
Mod R is MERCIFUL! Mod R is WISE! Listen to Mod R!
Recipes are not weird, we want recipes! Passion cones! I’m running out of exclamation points, but yes please! So looking forward to new adventures and all of it!
🤣 “Mod R thinks with her stomach”
This is why the BDH is my tribe. I have been wondering about passion cones ever since I read Silent Blade.
+10000000000000000000000000! Glad I’m not the only one that is obsessed with the idea of passion cones! Even tried to find a recipe, but haven’t gone as far as trying to make my own recipe yet. If someone has made a recipe or found one, please share it! 🤞🏻
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🍽🍽🍽🍽
Thank you thank you thank you!
YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY I have loved LitRPG ever since I stumbled upon Threadbare, a LitRPG starring a little girl and her sentient teddy bear. Then I found Dungeon Crawler Carl and Princess Donut hooked me. Then I discovered cozy LitRPG, and Beware of Chicken. Hmmm, I seem to have a theme…. CANNNOT wait for my favorite author’s LitRPG!!!!
Thank you! A gift to look forward to every week!💖
I agree with the few females comment. The basic idea does seem more geared to guys, as it’s a power fantasy where you grow stronger and are able to protect the world in some capacity.
If you want a female protagonist, I’d recommend “I stole the First Ranker’s Soul” on Webtoon. It starts off with her just having a special “gathering” power, but she is able to get stronger through it.
And it’s not technically LitRPG (more like Gamelit), and in book form, but I liked Sorcerer’s Quest by L.E. Carter. A female lead, and while she’s not stuck in a game world, the outside world is a wasteland, so there isn’t much else desirable to do than to go into the high tech game world.
Yes to recipes! I don’t think you have quite enough for a whole cookbook and I’m fine with it being added to your fiction collection.
I think there are two mango salsa recipes–the fresh salsa and the one in the book that Catalina gave cooking instructions for as she left after Alessandro’s unfortunate hell pepper encounter.
I got into web rooms bc of the Clean Sweep adaptation and now I am addicted, especially to the iskei subgenre. I have been reading Om scent Reader’s Viwepoint and clearly recognized your description of a new favorite webtoon, Housekeeper of the Dungeon!
Just one small Easter egg? pretty please? 🙏 BDH will be good we promise!
One tiny hidden shout out or in joke?
Jumanji….
I adore Top Dungeon Farmer.
Recipes, please!
Have you seen Dungeon Hotel yet?
Foolish optimism. You must know that the BDH will find Easter eggs where none existed before.
everything on the blog is icing, and I thank you for that.
i would loooove recipes! I think that was one of my suggestions a couple of months ago.
the description you gave for LitRPG makes me think of a government employee. you are stuck in your classification/rank until you test out or reach the pinnacle of your mediocrity.
That used to be called the Peter Principle, and it’s true of every kind of employee except for nepo types.
A couple of my favorite recipes (just made the carnitas last weekend, actually, as well as the associated spaghetti sauce made from the fond left in the carnitas pan) come from the back of a Cleo Coyle coffeeshop mystery book, so I am a big fan of recipes at the end of books. I feel like cooking recipes mentioned in stories gives me another way to enjoy and experience the stories, too.
(This is my opinion only. I don’t think any authors should be pressured into including anything in their books they’re not on board with.)
My first thought when I saw the comic panels was something like Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki?
I likes Quag Keep at the time it came out.Anthea Sharp has severl good series in this genre that started around 2010. its got the gaming, magic and faries ( traditional, not nice).
Lovely update on The Inheritance, look forward to reading it , thankyou .
Enjoyable and informative as I sit with a little insomnia. Will look up Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll. I miss Saturday morning cartoons.
I would love to have recipes at the end of an anthology. Perhaps some from other series as well? Jim’s Beef Wellington, Kate’s apple pie although no one needs another apple pie recipe. Oh, and crepes suzette, mousse au chocolat, pithivier. All I remember are the sweets obviously. Is someone cooking something in the edge? Is there a nice and cozy stew recipe to have? I could gift you with a world class Michelin chef’s potato gratin recipe which I could lure out of him.
Looking forward to this gift! I’ve been reading more progression fantasy lately so it is intriguing to get more into this side of things. I don’t think recipes would be weird. I see it as adding to the experience!
I squueeed so hard with this post. Hearing my favourite author loves all the same anime and manhwa I do made me jump up and down with excitement. I’m reading omniscient reader right now. I loved finding out how LitRPG genre came to be. And I now have a list of great recommendations to read through! Looking forward to Inheritance so much!
I find very few Lit RPG hit the sweet spot of reading for me, and what tends to catch my interest is more on the D&D side or Cultivation side, they don’t fit the video game world. I recommend Cradle by Wil Wight, Beware of Chicken by Causual Farmer, NPC and Roverpowered by Drew Hayes
I backed the Cradle animation pilot on kickstarter, I hope someone picks it up. I can’t wait to see Eithan’s hair in all it’s glory (lol)
Recipes?
Yes!
I have long wished for this.
A writer who almost only write LitRPG is Daniel Schinhofen.
8+ different series, some finished, some ongoing.
Different settings, Sci-Fi, alt western, dungeon-crawl.
And one that is more or less a “full immersion VR” setting, WoW style.
Most(all) are harem style books, varying level of sex description.
most people won’t remember this, but .hack came out in the early 00s on the ps2. amazing game. I wish they would rerelease them, the second part of the series is available on ps4/5, but it only gives hints of the original anime and game. If you like trapped in the game situations, it’s worth tracking down.
Western litrpgs are starting to get the webtoon treatment too. I’m excited to see Dungeon Crawler Carl in all it’s 2d glory. I’m so happy litrpg has become so big.
Yes to recipes! I love it. We have recipes in our collected writings of our seniors writing group.
I read Quag Keep and thoroughly enjoyed it. I still have a copy somewhere. I thought of it when you made your post. You are correct about the description on Goodreads being a poor summary of the book. It is available on Kindle Unlimited for anyone who is interested.
It is not weird to have a recipe section in Small Magics 2. Perhaps you could ask members of the BDH to comment on recipes in the books they especially liked or found helpful. Your oven baked bacon certainly changed my cooking habits.
That’s because this talk is not about bestselling works in the genre but the origins of it. 😊
I got into watching kdramas because of a House Andrews blog post that mentioned Alchemy of Souls. Does this mean I’m about to get into manhwas? haha!
Excited to read the new serial! Thank you as always for thinking of the BDH’s BDing needs. 🙏🏼
Thank you so much for opening the door to this world for me! I read and loved Solo Leveling on Tapas at your recommendation back when we were waiting for Innkeeper on Tapas, but now I know about LitRPG, Crunchyroll, that Solo Leveling is now anime! Plus, I’m heading off to read Ready Player One! Thank you for opening these doors for me! I’m so grateful! Looking forward to Inheritance!!!
@Ilona Everyone has the flu so I pulled the trigger on a Crunchyroll subscription and binged Solo Leveling in 2 days and Saturday is now my favorite day of the week.
What else should I watch? Not necessarily LitRPG. What are the must-watch series in your opinion? Dubbed preferably, but ADHD really struggles with subbed. The main page has a lot of familiar names from my old Adult Swim days but I don’t know where to start on the non-household names.
::cracks knuckles:: You didn’t say what your preferences are, so this is going to be a long list. I am aiming for less big boobies and more funnies and action in this list. Let me know what you like after you try some of these and I will get you more specific recommendations.
Funny:
Spy x Family – a little girls with telepathic powers gets adopted by a spy and an assassin in a pseudo cold-war Europe. Double over funny.
Relatively Light:
Campfire Cooking in Another World – our dude was summoned to be a hero, but they cut him loose because he has cooking skill. Sweet and cozy. Awesome animal companions.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime – guy dies, becomes a slime in a fantasy world. A long series, relatively light and funny.
The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent – a woman is pulled into a fantasy world and promptly shunned. Turns out she is the saint – cozy. There is romance but very slow. The first season is great, the second less so.
So I am a Spider, so what? – a woman becomes a spider. Violent but endearing.
A Little Heavier:
Ancient Magus Bride – a remarkable anime, steeped in Celtic folklore. Magical, cozy, but a little heavy. The heroine is a special kind of human who has a very close ties to magic and it makes her life very difficult. Her mother tries to kill her when she is a child, and at the age of 15, she is about to step off the roof of a building, when a curator of a magic auction approaches her and suggests that she should sell herself at auction. She does and a monster mage buys her. He calls her his bride, but he doesn’t really understand what bride means and she becomes his apprentice and finds joy in life and magic. Both seasons are excellent.
The Apothecary Diaries – a servant girl enters the palace and solves mysteries in a fantasy version of Ancient China. Really good, but does address heavy themes.
Frieren – very sad, will make you cry, but poignant and a beautiful anime. 50 years after a party goes on to defeat a demonic lord in the fantasy world, the surviving elf, who is long lived, revisits her old comrades and in some cases, their tombstones.
Frieren and the Ancient Magus Bride are my favorites and a recommendation that I always make!! For some reason both series feel me with a sense of hope and peace, after the emotional rollercoasters.
I’m going to watch of the recommendations!!!
I have some of these and I sm now off to watch the rest. thank you for the variety Ilona!
Thank you for your explanation of LitRPG. I have to say I knew very little about it. I have read some of the Portal Fantasy books because I enjoy Fantasy and SciFi. I’m looking forward to The Inheritance. I am most grateful for the time you take to entertain (and enlighten) us. ❤️
I am sorry. I am totally lost. Maybe I need a primer for the primer?
The limit of my personal experience in “multiplayer” games is Elvenar. I understand the concept of multiplayer games for those known as gamers. But that’s as far as I go.
I do admit the bunnies and bees are too cute!
You are right that almost all of LitRPG has male protagonists. I am tired of male protagonists in any form of fantasy stories. One female protagonist that came to mind while I was reading this was the one in Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story available on Webtoon. It isn’t a RPG exactly, the protagonist is sucked into an online novel but finds she has limitations on what she can say or do placed on her by the author. How she interacts with her goals and limitations does have a bit of a RPG feel. The story is almost complete on Webtoon, and it is the only female protagonist “almost LitRPG” story I’ve kept reading and haven’t dropped.
I haven’t read much litRPG but one of my favorite authors wrote one that I loved: The Second Age of Retha series by A.M. Sohma. AND it has a female fighter as a main protagonist. Several in her team are female actually.
+1000 – I love this series too!
I’ll be looking forward to reading it! And I must be a weirdo, because I loved Quag Keep and read it several times as a kid.
My favorite of all the “trapped in a video game” type books I’ve read is Tad Wiliams’ Otherland series. It’s half fantasy (the VR worlds) and half sci fi (reality), with really icky bad guys and complex plotting. The characters of Rene, !Xabbu, Martine, and Orlando are some of Tad’s best creations.
Wow, I had no idea all that was out there, and I love knowing you go so hard with this hobby.
Thank you for this, there’s so much here that I knew nothing about!
Looking fwd to all the Hugh 2 and other stories when they’re ready ♡
I stumbled upon Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt D about a year ago and discovered litRPG. I have been reading books every day for 50 years and was surprised to find a genre I never knew existed ! Now I am a bit obsessed… Currently listening to Jake’s Magical Market…
Milena, DCC was my first introduction to litRPG as well, a couple years ago. That, “He Who Fights With Monsters” and “Primal Hunter” were the first three series that I introduced my hubby to. Then I went digging for some female protagonist ones for him (and I’ve listed them in a post a ways down the comments section.)
There are so many droolworthy descriptions of foods in the various HA universes. Having recipes for even some of them would make my day!
I love SAO! This whole genre sounds very fun, and wow at the research behind this blog post! Thank you for the recommendations! And… I am relatively new to the BDH. I read my first House Andrews book last summer & have devoured everything I could get my hands on since, just recently finishing the last of your published works. (Now I am re-reading the Innkeeper series and my mind was BLOWN when I realized the connections to On The Edge!!!) I just wanted to say how much fun this community is & how amazed I am at the care you (Ilona & Gordon) take with & of us. I know some of it is good business, keeping your audience engaged, but it feels like there is more to it than that. I think you see what your stories mean to us and I think you are very special people. Anyway, thank you! And I’m looking forward to the reads!
Thank you for the explanation – I had wondered what this LitRPG thing was that kept popping up as tags on books I was interested in. I like the “Ilona Andrews explains something so that Matt can now understand it” series of posts that get posted every so often.
I actually got into writing LitRPG after reading AlterWorld by D. Rus and enjoying it, but finding there to be so much room for a different (and maybe better) story. Rus vacillates between nationalistic Russophilia and a world weary criticism of his own country which is so intriguing it’s almost an entire second story within his novel. It is off-putting for some–not to mention his treatment of women in the book–but the world building is so damn good, I found myself pushing through the entire series to see if it pays off.
Two books that you don’t mention but that fill in some of the gap between Gygax and Norton and Ready Player One is the Sleeping Dragon series by Joel Rosenberg (1983) and Killobyte by Piers Anthony (1993). Neither really fits the litRPG genre quite as neatly as the more proximate Japanese and Korean forerunners, but they do stand alongside Tron and Gygax and Norton.
I’m absolutely thrilled you will be working on an Isekai and a LitRPG flavor series and am salivating alongside the rest of the BDH to get at them.
-Robert Hinshaw (Asgard’s Fall)
‘In the word of Cordelia Cupp, “What’s with all the dudes?”’
Aha, I loved Residence.
Since we did stray over into Portal Fantasy a little bit, just a reminder that the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, “Lord Foul’s Bane”, written by Stephen R. Donaldson was published in 1977.
I had all of the 6 original paperbacks that I bought as a tween/teen in the early 80s (Donaldson put out another 4 books in the series in the ’00s), and my ex-husband took them. Grrr.
Such a good series, but so damn grim. I always felt Donaldson had read all the other portal fantasies by Piers Anthony and other contemporaries and had a “hold my beer” moment where he just writes this emotionally brutal masterpiece.
I’m so old, I remember when editors said DO NOT write a book where characters get stuck in a video game. /sigh
Does Snow Crash fit in anywhere?
Thank you for this post. It was so informative and interesting! And for the recommendation. And now the comments are also full of great recommendations. I’m definitely going to have to try Dungeon Crawler Carl – the title alone sounds fun.
I always wondered what Litprg was, exactly, and now I know.
Btw, for those who finished Beware of Chicken on Kindle Unlimited, the next two books are still free on Royal Road and probably will be until the author has to pull them to publish due to the KU rules.
Second comment: I always love recipes. Trying new things is fun!
My favorite cake recipe came from an anthology. Go for it! Anything serialized on the blog will be appreciated.
I have only ever read one litRPG series, Forever Fantasy Online by Rachel Aaron, and the main character who is most imposing in combat is female so I was unaware of the extreme gender imbalance in the genre. I liked the series, though not as much as I liked her Minimum Wage Magic books. That series, called the DFZ, is probably my favorite non Ilona Andrews urban fantasy series. Fun side facts: The FFO series specifically is also a husband-wife collaboration and i got turned on to Rachel Aaron in the first place because I liked a cover illustration by Luisa Pressler that was featured on this blog.
I know I’m late to the posting game, but I don’t think including recipes is weird at all. A romance author I read, Jenny Colgan, did that quite a bit in her earlier works since she was writing about bakeries and candy shops. It was fun to try making some of recipes. The were a little different than what I normally make, since all of her books are set in either England or Scotland.
i saw Solo leveling and I clicked so fast. I became fan of it this year when I saw a glimpse of second episode of season 2 and decided go devoured the manwa and later watch season 1 and caught up to season 2 mid way. I think I devoured the manwa in a week.
very interested in your take with this new project, I also didn’t like that other characters where stuck at their rank.
love it! and yes we want the recipes! pretty please!
Good job.
this is fantastic and I would love recipes in the anthology!
my introduction to litrpg was the dungeon Crawler Carl series. literally a washed up 30-something who gets dropped in to a dungeon with his cat Princess Donut. hilarious and the cat gets to ‘play’ (ie battle for existence) with him.
my husband and I listened to the soundcore audio adaptation and both now run around the house yelling “Go*damn it Donut!” Everytime things go comedically astray.
Yay! Thanks for this! I need to get into reading graphic novels- I’m working my way up to it, so this is a great push;)
I have a burning question that I hope someone from the BDH would very kindly answer. Lately, I’ve started watching more anime series (Apothecary Diaries on Netflix in specific). Could someone please explain what it means when the characters shift from their stately artistic form to a little and cute emotional form? Is it a device meant to show inner emotion? I figured this would be the place to ask. My household is more into fiery action films at the moment, so it’s nice to find a community with the same interests;) Thanks for your time and consideration!
These cutified characters are called chibis. Usage of chibis in comic books and anime usually indicates light-hearted or funny moments when a character is comically, overdramatically, upset.
It’s a type of superdeformation style, like emojis, coming from Japan. You can read more about it here 🙂 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibi_(style)
Thank you! I greatly appreciate both your time, and the information!
Also, I think recipes would be a fun addition to an anthology- especially if they come from established HA stories and have flair (quotes or snippets), or artwork (like a one or two page mini comic/graphic novel snippet of a character experiencing the recipe being featured.
I haven’t tried graphic novels (GN) yet, but if a snippet of a HA cooking scene from a GN story was included as a lead up to a recipe, it would be a great intro to a new story genre for us readers who haven’t gone there yet. That would be epically awesome! Like the Swedish Chef popping up on The Muppet Show! Always a surprise, but highly anticipated (Facebook keeps putting him on Reels spots for fun. Whimsy is wonderful;). Artwork of Orro would be great as well. Curran’s meal, Caldenia’s funion and Mello yellow fixation, etc. If unsure, could try putting in a few and see how people react.
As a librarian I have ordered loads of book related cookbooks for my students to enjoy. (Think Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh, etc.) I have long wished for a House Andrews Feeds The Horde type of cookbook with recipes from across your series.
Gaming! I am glad you have literature about what you love. I did like the book RPO. I like reading about different cultures.
I am much older and gaming is not something I got into, but I was of the generation that experience the start of computers, then personal computers. I enjoyed literature that reflected that since that was something I was learning at the time. So reading your comments reminded me of the Rick Cook series that stated with Wizard’s Bane. Thank you for peek into different genre.
Recipes? Yaaassssss please!!! ALL THE RECIPES!
OMG I would love recipes haha – Maybe when you are retired you can do an entire IA World’s Cook Book!
Would love recipes, would not be weird.
Yes please to recipes! I would absolutely read any and all your recipes with great delight, create and then eat with pleasure.
Just in case someone loves the Housekeeper as much as I do, and wants a recommendation for something similar (with female main character), Welcome to Dungeon Hotel is also pretty good…
First of all, thank you very much for all the hard work. I always look forward to your blogs and everything you write. I´m also a big fan of LitRpg and Manga/Manhwa in general.
A lot of the books in the genre I like have already been mentioned in the posts. But there are a few I haven’t seen yet that I also found very much worth reading—and they might serve as helpful recommendations for others who are looking for more.
My absolute favorite LitRpg at the moment and highly recommended. If you only take one recommendation away from this post, let it be this one:
“Bushido Online” Author Nikita Thorn
Other books I enjoyed:
“Awaken Online” Author Travis Bagwell
“The Grand Game” Author Tom Elliot (for fans of “The Primal Hunter”)
I will stop here. Less is more right ^^” and I wish everyone a nice and stress-free week. Stay healthy!
Yes, share the recipes! I love seeing them. I want to make Dinah’s cake one day.
If you are wanting to make Dina’s apple cake, you can find the recipe at the end of Sweep of the Heart.
If we are allowed to request a world, I would totally love the Hidden Legacy series as a RPG game… or any game really… but then again I would love Kate’s world or the Innkeeper… you know what, make whichever one you want as a video game… bc IF YOU MAKE IT, WE WILL COME
Both Ilona and Gordon have said that they will enthusiastically say yes if anyone approaches them with the offer to turn the series into video or even tabletop games!
I know a lot of readers have based DnD sessions on Kate and Innkeeper world as dungeon masters.
A couple of my favorite LitRPG book series with a female protagonist are “Azarinth Healer” by Rhaegar, which is up to book 5 in the series and several series by KT Hannah (who happens to be an avid MMORPG gamer who is an admitted fan of EverQuest and EverQuest2). KT’s books include “System Apocalypse: Australia” (series with Tao Wong, not yet finished series), Somnia Online, and the fabulous “Library System Reset” (book 4 due out at the end of this week.)
Please, Please, Please share recipes! Passion cones would be great. Also, Quag Keep was one of my favorite Andre Norton books outside of the Witch World and ignited my long standing love affair with D n D and Gen Con’s True Dungeon set in Greyhawk.
Though I do worry a bit that I actually got the reference of “This is like Chronicles of Narnia and Princess Bride made a baby with Game of Thrones and then gave it to Locke Lamora to raise” as opposed to isekai… LOL and thank you for all you do!
There is a really good comic book series called Die that draws on the whole D&D motif. Written by Kieron Gillen and art by Stephanie Hans. Kids get sucked in a board game and then reappear like a year later but cant say what happened. 10 years later they end up back in the game and you follow them through the world, learning about their first time in the game and how they deal with the fantasy world now. Its a brilliant read.
I am so happy you recommended Top Dungeon Farmer. It is so enthralling. I am going through the episodes to relax. Thank you so much. And I love Tron too. Such a great post. And all the book recommendations! I am going to start my husband on Kate! Wish me luck ⭐
Really interesting read. I miss my book/comic/anime friends.
Yes, please, to the recipes. All the recipes:)
Dunno why you mentioned Seoul Station Druid but not Seoul Station’s Necromancer, I’m CERTAIN it came out first. Personally not a big fan, finding out the MC literally ended the world he went to so he could go home was a huge turn-off.
Not weird! I would love recipes from characters!!!
❤️
The lit RPG genre is a new passion of mine and I love that IA are writing a serial for it too. But strong women in this genre are definitely the minority.
My current favourite lit RPG has a very good grasp of domestic vs deadly with their female characters. The nature priest can control plants to tangle enemies in battle, but can use that same skill to shape a bathtub. The deadly spider can trap or garotte enemies in her web, but can also weave hammocks/tents/clothes as she grows in skill.
No domestic damsels being dragged to combat zones for the males convenience for me, thankyou very much.
Character classes for the BDH? Yes, please!
@Ilona.It’s awesome that you’re loving Solo Leveling! I work at Crunchyroll (although I have little to do with the actual anime production etc). If you’re in Dallas, please let me know if you are ever want a tour of the office, studios, mixing rooms, etc. Всего хорошего!
Thank you so much! I will absolutely take you up on that extremely generous offer!
Ahh! Super exciting. I have literally no idea if you get my email when I post a comment but if you do, just message me (about 1 business day in advance), and I can make sure you’re admitted, and forms are filled out, and we get you some swag 🙂 I don’t work out if that office but some of my favorite people do, and I’ll make sure you’re set up. If you have any desire to come June 16/17, I can personally show you around. I can (mostly) promise I won’t fangirl.
I am so excited for Inheritance. I just read my first ever LitRPG (Red x Wolf – from the Damsels of Distress series which is an apparently rare female lead series) and while it was a bit of an adjustment, I did end up liking it. So timing is perfect both for this history lesson and Inheritance (I love the first 2 chapters).
The best female-led progression fantasy I have read is Apocalypse Parenting by Erin Ampersand. Started on RoyalRoad, now in ebook.
The MC is a mom of young kids and the choices she makes are ones I think an actual parent would make, not just for her own progression and ability to protect them, but for the kids’ growth as well.
Highly recommend.