- #1
This novel is a brave attempt by the author to craft a complicated story with lots of moving parts, but it is just that. An attempt.The core aspect - the setting itself and the background narrative are a success, but everything beside that falls flat disastrously.So, the author has a story in mind, how does it progress? It doesn't.STORY DOES NOT PROGRESS.MC is an incompetent, hateful prick, who can be described as a spoiled and cruel child at best. He could fail even while picking his nose, how can you even talk about navigating himself through an unfamiliar world.But the story need to move forward... BAM!! DEUS EX MACHINA! Now MC knows how to fight with a sword... BAM!! DEUS EX MACHINA! Now MC knows everything about nobles and can act like one perfectly... BAM!! DEUS EX MACHINA! Now MC can find any person's location at any given moment, etc, etc...But the only consequence for breaking any semblance of immersion and adding more and more instant chats arbitrarily is that MC keeps failing at greater and greater scale. It only highlights how incompetent he is. But there's more!Not only is he useless and insufferable, there is another thing that brings him down even further.Fundamental flaw of any possession story. Pointless drama about the original owner of the body still being around. It is already bad as is, but the author just adds more problems and complications into this conflict out of nowhere.EVERY bit of progress is a result of author's arbitrary decision to add one cheat or another. Then, not to get to bored, author decides to add some convoluted complications for no reason at all. Wow. Such great drama.This simply does not function as "a story" at all.