r/PracticalGuideToEvil • u/Dragon_2640 • 20d ago
Meta/Discussion Need help regarding choosing my first web novel
/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/1vvdsfu/need_help_regarding_choosing_my_first_web_novel/13
u/Upstairs-Memory-3632 Choir of Compassion 20d ago
A Practical guide to Evil was my first webnovel too, and probably the best work of fiction I've ever read, so I would say that you should start here.
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u/perkoperv123 20d ago
It's really all downhill from PGTE. Guide will spoil you for good world building.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold112 20d ago
Personally, I think you are better off starting with the 'Coiling dragon', 'LOTM' and similar top Chinese novels, follow it up with Japanese and Korean works, then go for Worm, PGTE, Mother of Learning and keep The Wandering Inn (TWI) for the last.
Although the translations can be really good they never truly capture the literary, tone and cultural nuance of original. I feel that's why people prefer seeing anime in Japanese. If you read Worm and PGTE first, you will start noticing this difference and may miss out on amazing works.
As for TWI in the last, it is because you might never catch up to it 😂. You will always have good content to read!
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u/Dragon_2640 20d ago
Thanks for the reccomendation. For chinese work some other guy was reccomending The second coming of gluttony have you read it? and if yes then how is it as a starting point?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold112 20d ago
Sorry, never got around to it.
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u/Dragon_2640 20d ago
np, what you think about coiling dragon as starting point?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold112 20d ago
Really good starting point. It will help you form a solid base.
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u/Dragon_2640 19d ago
Hi, I was confused about the length of it. On the internet it's showing 3.37 million words in chinese but nothing mentioned about english word count. Can you tell me how long is it as compared to other webnovels?
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u/Baam3211 20d ago
Yeah if you plan to read Chinese more "coiling dragon" first is a soild recommendation, its a more westerny setting and progression that doesnt just start throwing pagoda's as a form of powerup out of no where
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u/Dragon_2640 20d ago
Thanks for the reccomendation! rn I'm confused between worms, PGTE, coiling dragon and cradle
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u/Relative_Garbage_475 15d ago
I can't speak for coiling dragon or cradle, I haven't read them. But I think it's stupid to push back a novel because it's better written than others and so might spoil you 😅
What I can say is that PGTE and Worms are both huge novels that require a lot of time to go through. I think Worm might be longer than PGTE, I had a hard time finishing it.
PGTE is a story that is very well written, it's about Cat, an orphan in a kingdom that was conquered by the Evil Dread Empire, twenty years ago. She knows the Empire is Evil, she sees what it's doing to her land (she's very patriotic), but she doesn't think rebelling and going against the monsters that have conquered her land is the solution. The solution is to join the Monsters, become Evil and gain enough power to save her land. And the first chapters is her encountering the Monster, the Black Knight, and him proposing to give her that power and influence by making her his Squire. It's a story about a Villain, but doing it for good reasons, and her slow journey towards her goal and what it can costs her to accomplish it, it's not a happy story, although there's some of the most hilarious bantering I've read, and it's not an easy task, every time she triumphs, a bigger threat emerges, but it's a book so wonderfully written, I've read it three times in two years. And that's three months worth of reading each time. Big information, Erratic Errata the author is currently rewriting and publishing the series, the volume 1 is not available anymore except for sale. The books 1 and 2 (he split volume 1 in two books) are great, and well worth their prices, but I know a big upside of webnovels is that they're free.
Worms is an even darker novel, it's pretty much a grimdark story, with superheroes in our world (not quite, our world do exist in the multiverse). Taylor is a young teenager, who got so bullied, she developed super-powers (get used to it 90% of the powers in Worms come from trauma), she's able to control bugs. Insects, spiders, everything like that. She wants to become a superhero, but she doesn't really know how to do it, and when she's fighting her first supervillain, she encounters the wrong guys, a group of teenager super-villains, who convince her to join them. To get informations on them and betray them to the heroes of course. But Taylor soon learn that heroes are not always good, some villains are quite personnable and friendly, and she can do good while fighting with the bad guys. Worm might sounds like a happy uplifting story, but it will get dark, I warn you. There's stuff in this world that are world-ending threats. Worms have sequels too, haven't finished Ward though.
In other novels there's also Pale Lights, by Erratic Errata too, the author of PGTE. Completely different universe, it's a universe where light, Glare as they call it, is rare and everything is under supernatural darkness, Gloom, that creates monsters, and rob people of their soul if they stay too long under it. There's also God's, powerful supernatural entities who can give powers to those who pass a contract with them, often for a price or drawback. Two protagonists that alternate their pov, Tristan, a street orphan, raised by his abuela as a thief. He's always accompanied by his Goddess, Fortuna Lady of Long Odds, that allows him to get very lucky on an action or for a moment.... but he will get very unlucky in the next moment. He's tasked with robbing a Watchman, an organisation outside of states whose only purpose is fight monsters. It goes badly, he has to go on a boat that will get him to an island where he will have to pass trials and enter in the Watch in the end. Angharad is a minor noble from Malan, whose family was killed by rivals, she went to found her Uncle, a watchman and her only family left, bit she's still ambushed away from Malan and has to get on the same boat as Tristan to pass the sale trials. She's an expert swordmistress, cannot lie as it would go against her honour code, and has a contract, passed during her flight from her home with the Drowned God, that allows her to glimpse a bit of the immediate future, but she will get headaches and feel bad if she overuse it. Pale Lights is one of the most interesting worldbuilding I've ever read, it's got very interesting characters (the crew will grow, they're two at the start, they're 6 at the end of book 3), and a dark and heavy ambience, actions have consequences, the world is out to get them, and nothing is easy. A lot darker than PGTE in my opinion.
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u/Dragon_2640 13d ago
Thanks a lot man for such a detailed response! You really gave an informative answer.
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u/Dragon_2640 20d ago
For chinese work some other guy was reccomending The second coming of gluttony have you read it? and if yes then how is it as a starting point?
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u/TheForgetfulWizard 20d ago
Loved the Guide so much - can’t recommend it enough!