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.