Vagabond Treehouse ~ [Fall 2025: World of Chains #1-3 (Wayward Bard) | The Perfect Run 1-3 (alternating)] Showing 451-500 of 2,531

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Officially caught up through January 7th-ish (wherever I left off, when I did my first week of 2024 reviews, before Goodreads started doing alot of site maintenance and breaking the site, and I paused)...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I almost regret how much MORE I'm reading this year... means even more work for me :D

2 month, but still 100 books to rate/review/add...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

1 down, 1 to go... caught up through February 1st...

Been taking my Spring Cleaning seriously, this year... deleted 9600 emails over the weekend, and been doing these reviews...

Also unsubscribed to a bunch of automated emails, and fixed the goodreads settings that were causing some of the emails...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Did another 30 reviews... 40 left and I'm all caught up...

I've been really happy with GR's CAPTCHA changes... even when I trigger them, these days, it tends to just be a checkbox, for awhile, and only need to do the pictures once every 10 reviews or so... it ramps up after awhile, tho... after 3-4 days and 150-200 reviews, it started asking me for pictures every review, and sometimes 2-3, especially if it wasn't happy with my answer...

Otherwise, I'd just try to finish today...

[Narilka]

Caught up until you finish 6 more books today :)

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Pretty much... but I'm not sure the last time I was caught up... March 2022 or 2021...

[Narilka]

I wrapped up The Case of the Felonious Faire today. It was a lot of fun! The ending is left with a hook for more so I'm glad it seems Hayes will be continuing this series.

I'm debating my next audio book. I think it might be time for Dungeon Crawler Carl.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Woo

I hope to get to Felonious Faire, sooner than later... might save it for Drew Hayes BR later this year / next year, tho... we'll see...

[Nirkatze]

Grats on catching up on those reviews Iain! I need to take inspiration from that and get on top of mine... maybe this weekend...

Also good news on the Elliott Kay front! I don't remember where I left off in Poor Man's Fight, but I definitely also need to finish that series... wouldn't even mind rereading from the start at this point...

[Tonari no Emily]

Nirkatze wrote: "Grats on catching up on those reviews Iain! I need to take inspiration from that and get on top of mine... maybe this weekend...

Also good news on the Elliott Kay front! I don't remember where I l..."
Same!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I'm on a bit of a LitRPG odyssey, in my spare time...

Instead of just continuing with Cinnamon Bun 3/4/5, this past month, after reading Cinnamon Bun 2, I've read:

Sporemageddon -- MC was surprisingly young... started at birth, and she was like 10-12 by the end of the story... volume 2 probably gets through teen years...

Love Crafted -- standalone 2nd person story, with OP eldritch god familiar MC... was fun... tentacle horrors just want hugs and head pats :D (the climax of the story was (view spoiler)[the MC whacking the inquisition on the head with a newspaper like a bad dog, until they agreed to stop trying to banish her back to the space between dimensions (hide spoiler)])...

About to try Stray Cat Strut: A Young Lady's Journey to Becoming a Pop-Up Samurai

And have my eye on The Daily Grind: A Slice-of-Life LitRPG

Basically exploring alot of cozy LitRPGs... best case scenario, it's research for them Cozy LitRPG BR slots I mentioned in the Vigor Mortis thread for August/October/December...

[Narilka]

Dungeon Crawler Carl through ch 4 (view spoiler)[Interesting blend of standard litrpg and some Hunger Games with the whole sponsors sending gifts thing. I'm still waiting for the cat to start talking though perhaps she needs a coupe levels and some int boosts? (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Narilka wrote: "Dungeon Crawler Carl through ch 4 [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[

1) I compared it to Running Man, the Stephen King/Bachman book turned into an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie in the 80s

2) The gifting is also a thing in Awaken Online, if I remember correctly...

3) Just need to get past the first battle and get the first achievement chest reward, to accidentally upgrade Princess Donut into an intelligent talking cat :D (whenever Carl gets the high tier pet food pellet) (hide spoiler)]

[Narilka]

Ahh, I've not seen that movie nor read that book. I also stalled out on your #2 and don't remember that from the earlier parts of the series anyway. It's also possible I just don't remember since it's been a few years :) I bet that feature is a trope or will become one if it isn't yet.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I might be mixing my memories a bit, too... the more I think about it, the more it might have just been a streamer mechanic, to earn money to live off of playing the game, in Awaken online... I've read to #3 in that series, I think... I didn't like the real world plotline and didn't 100% like the villainous turn the game was pushing the game plotline in... so never made time to keep a decent pace on it, and almost feel like I need to restart if I continue for a 3rd/4th time... it's a pretty longrunning series, at this point, with like 8 books, side quests following alot of the supporting characters (1 between each book), and then a Tarot trilogy in a desert area of the game world that is supposed to be important enough to read around book 6-8, for the overlaps...

[Narilka]

I didn't like the RL story line much either. I've debated revisiting if he ever completes the series though I don't know :)

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Narilka wrote: "I didn't like the RL story line much either. I've debated revisiting if he ever completes the series though I don't know :)"

Now that I'm back in the LitRPG genre after a multi-year break, I'm tempted... when I stop doing all these cozies/etc...

I'm 25% into The Daily Grind: A Slice-of-Life LitRPG... it's an interestingly random story... I'm curious if the MCs will ever gain useful skills... 1-2 have been slightly useful, so far...

Things are getting scarier (printer that prints actual human limbs when an MC accidentally touches it while fleeing)... humanoid non-human drone cubicle worker with a coffee cup and soulless eyes... and I think (view spoiler)[collecting skill orbs & killing monsters in the Cubicle Dungeon is causing coworkers in the office to disappear... I wonder if that's where they're getting the skills from... random life skills of other Earther humans? (hide spoiler)]

So far there's still only 2 main characters and an office manager that appeared once when the story still included outside-dungeon content (been awhile)... they tried to recruit a 3rd/4th character, but something subliminal & weird nightmares keep stopping them...

[Nirkatze]

Ooh, glad that you're joining us in the Dungeon Crawler Carl madness, Narilka!

Also glad to see your LitRPG notes, @Iain... happy to let you pioneer those, and let us know what's worth getting...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Sharing notes is the Soo method :D

But, with LitRPGs, I doubt I'll be as willing to do re-reads, especially so soon... more likely to get you guys to join me for re-reads of older stuff I want to try again like Completionist Chronicles / Dakota Krout, or Awaken Online...

I want to finish System Apocalypse, too, but I probably just want to continue where I left off with books 10-12, instead of re-reading 1-10...

[Narilka]

Timelord Iain wrote: "Narilka wrote: "Dungeon Crawler Carl through ch 4 [spoilers removed]"..."

I just got past your #3 and omg it was even better than I hoped for lol

[Narilka]

Nirkatze wrote: "Ooh, glad that you're joining us in the Dungeon Crawler Carl madness, Narilka!

Also glad to see your LitRPG notes, @Iain... happy to let you pioneer those, and let us know what's worth getting..."

I wanted to join sooner but other books needed attention first. I'm glad I did get started, this is so funny! Spoilers for through Ch 7. (view spoiler)[The snark and mixing in our world references in the game notifications are hilarious. And now that Princess Doughnut can talk and donned the crown making her part of a royal family that she'll have to kill later on... lololol Carl the Royal Bodyguard indeed. And his magic toe ring lol

Iain, the snarky in game notifications is one of that Awaken Online did too if I remember right. They were funny there also. (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Narilka wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "Ooh, glad that you're joining us in the Dungeon Crawler Carl madness, Narilka!

Also glad to see your LitRPG notes, @Iain... happy to let you pioneer those, and let us know what's ..."

The AI clearly has a problem/fetish :D

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The weirder the dungeon gets (in MY LitRPG), the more interesting it gets... Mobius / non-Euclidean hallways... blue orbs that give rewards that break causality (speeding up an Amazon order that hasn't even been ordered yet, to save them in the dungeon)...

The non-dungeon plotline has returned a bit... clearly the MC's boss is also visiting the dungeon...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Anesh (the roommate, 2nd adventurer) names all the Cubicle Dungeon monsters punny names...

My favorite is the tumblefeed... a tumbleweed of computer cables...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Finished Daily Grind #1... gonna jump right into #2... #1 is too much of a cliffhanger for me to pause (semi-typical of web serials that weren't really intended to be broken up)...

From what I understand, volumes 2-3+ are better structured for being turned into books, with climaxes and epilogues on Royal Road...

I'd definitely recommend this series, based on what I've read so far... and Nirkatze seemed interested in what little I mentioned in the Vigor Mortis thread...

[Narilka]

Dungeon Crawler Carl through Ch 11 (view spoiler)[That first boss fight was pretty horrific even with the humor. Does anyone speak Spanish? I think she was asking for him to end it? (hide spoiler)]

[Choko]

Boy, miss couple of months visiting here, and I feel like there have been a thousand posts i have to catch up on... Very intimidating...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Sry, yea... Soo was chatty for awhile... and I've been logging like a diary lately :D

[Nirkatze]

@Narilka--OMG yes, everything is so much more fun once Donut goes full talking Princess mode... she's such a fun character!!

And y'know, I somehow totally miss all of the foot-fetish stuff... maybe my mind just glazes over all those things... proactive censorship...

@Iain--sometimes you just read the first one and then try to get us all to join you too. ^^ Or at the very least, your positive endorsement is a hint on what to look for in sales... I picked up Ravensdagger on your recs, though I haven't read yet.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Woo...

I've totally fallen down a rabbithole with these Daily Grind books... good thing I have a gap in my BR schedule and I'm not really falling behind on anything...

I'm tempted to continue to book 3, and be caught up waiting for book 4...

Things just keep happening, and the world and concepts keep expanding...

They rescued the roommate they forgot existed before the series began, due to mind manipulation that's a common theme of the books, and found evidence that other dungeons exist...

And defeated the Office Dungeon Boss: KAREN... lol...

And yea... that's half the BRs in this thread... me talking you guys into tagging along on something... Poor Man's Fight, Beware of Chicken, etc...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

As much as I want to continue with Daily Grind 3, I think I need to get back to scheduled BRs tomorrow... I'm technically behind on Discworld/Sourcery... 4 new BRs tomorrow... 3 more through Thursday, then 4 more on Friday... then things slow down... 14 more BRs the rest of the month including 2 book club books...

12 BRs in the next 7 days, 14 in the following 15 days...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

It would be so much easier to pause Daily Grind, if I hadn't read the epilogue, full of so many plot hooks for the next book...

(view spoiler)[time jump... support group for all the people rescued from KAREN... cross-country trips to search for other dungeons... intercontinental trips to try and leak dungeon tech into the real world (memory sharing/downloading)... 2 Aneshes using the tech to take double the college courses and sync memories... the detective investigating the missing roommate turning up lost in a hospital, after spending a few months with amnesia and being forgotten about by the police department... and the POV of the Dungeon they've been exploring, that was being suppressed by KAREN and is finally awake again...

So many questions... also, a bit earlier in the book it's implied by the missing roommate, in her own POV, that she was actually exploring the dungeon with the MCs, before she disappeared and they had their memory wiped... so there's alot of flashbackstory to explore, as well, and possible suppressed skills... (hide spoiler)]

[Choko]

Random conversation fill in...

My Audible library says I have 2568 books... That is a wake up call - I have spent thousands of dollars on audiobooks!!!! What was I thinking?!?!?

I am very interested in reading The Lucky Bride is Pretty and Delicate now! And of course dogs fight evil ghosts!:) But it's horrible that they were being sacrificed for their blood to word off evil...

I need to get to Orphan X one day, when I have some unscheduled time...

I am not a Schwab fan...

Absolutely LOVE Neil Degrasse T! I can listen to him for hours and never get bored!

Narilka, your experience with the breathing and meditation techniques sounds awesome!!! I am medically trained, I used to be an RN for a long time, and I have learned that whatever works for you, you should be doing it. Your brain and the way you perceive the benefits of your approach, is your biggest weapon in the fight for well-being!

Iain, I hate the nerve tests for neuropathy! When they start sticking you with those long needles and hook them to electric source! Ghhhrrr!!! I never thought that compression wear would help with the pain thought... Good to know.

I love the David Eddings books! I am one of those who can separate the personal lives of the artists/authors/performers from their art...

Monika, challah and cinnamon buns! Yummmm!!!


Hahaha! I guess Amazon has been so saturated with Fantasy, that it now considers it a real part of our history:))) Historical Fiction indeed! :)))

Because of you guys I have now added a bunch of books I would want to read... And just like Iain, I am finding LotRPGs very calming right now... Addictive!

Narilka, Dungeon Crawler Carl and Donut are awesome!

Ok, I am all caught up now! Yay! I finally feel like I am back home!

[Nirkatze]

LOL Welcome back Choko!! I love how reading your conversation reply is like a little Vagabond summary... though you're making me want to read Orphan X and David Eddings too... and I am afraid to look at my Audible Library... I have a feeling it's nearing your numbers, and I've only had membership for two years....

[Choko]

We need to schedule a BR for us, who have to start Orphan X from the beginning, but I have no idea when... I am so horribly behind on everything, I am barely keeping up... But as always, I am not giving up:)))

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Yea... the February thriller BR developed between me & Soo & Brian, because one year I went down a thriller rabbithole and read both series, and they were already caught up and waiting for new releases, so we just started reading the new ones together 2-3 years ago... 1-5/10 in the series were read solo...

If you guys read the series, it'll be great to have more fans waiting for new releases...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I forgot about the clock change today, until noon when I saw my microwave clock :D

[Narilka]

Dungeon Crawler Carl through Ch 16 (view spoiler)[Princess Donut just talked goblins into making Carl some kind of transport that should last him a while lol Charisma +1! (hide spoiler)]

[Nirkatze]

@Narilka--LOL OMG, high Charisma is the best... I love getting in to shenanigans with a high Charisma... though I haven't played D&D that much, some of my favorite memories are of those kind of shenanigans...

[Nirkatze]

@Choko--yes, we do!! I kind of want to revisit this idea in June, first half of the year is definitely BR heavy right now... I don't mind the deluge though, keeps me happy.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "@Narilka--LOL OMG, high Charisma is the best... I love getting in to shenanigans with a high Charisma... though I haven't played D&D that much, some of my favorite memories are of those kind of she..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm46O...

I love this youtuber that reads D&D Greentexts...

[Nirkatze]

Oh that video was great! Thanks for sharing!

[Virginie]

Hi guys. I was sent here by Iain; something something about this being the place to be to talk about litRPG and/or Cultivation stories :D

(Soo, I blame you for introducing me to those genres and then enabling my obsession with them btw)

[Choko]

We are totally addicted to them too, Virginie, so welcome to the club:)))

[Nirkatze]

I blame Soo & Iain for that too, Virginie! Have you read Dungeon Crawler Carl yet? We're currently thoroughly enamored of that series...

[Virginie]

Nirkatze wrote: "I blame Soo & Iain for that too, Virginie! Have you read Dungeon Crawler Carl yet? We're currently thoroughly enamored of that series..."

No, I haven't. Iain told me about it as well, on my TBR it goes. I just spend 2 hours removing books I added back around 2018-2020 that I'm no longer interested in, taking it from around 500 to 375. It's at 383 already xD

I'm planning on listening to Legends & Latte 'cause I'm in the mood for a cozy read. Iain recommended Alexander Kane, so I'll give the Andrea Vernon series a try.

I also want to do a re-read of Threadbare (the first 3) and Small Medium so I can get to the rest of the books in that universe that were released during my hiatus. I know Threadbare and Small Medium are narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds, I hope the rest is too. He's, by far, my favorite audiobook narrator. The way he voices sarcastic characters is particularly good imo.

[Nirkatze]

Haven't read Threadbare yet, though I keep hearing about it! Would love to BR that some time.

Dittoing the Alexander Kane rec--I haven't read all of his works like Iain has, but everything I have read has had me splitting sides with laughter. Dragon Heist was one of my favorite reads from last year.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Virginie wrote: "Hi guys. I was sent here by Iain; something something about this being the place to be to talk about litRPG and/or Cultivation stories :D

(Soo, I blame you for introducing me to those genres and t..."

Soo is responsible for everything... she got me to read Threadbare... she got me to read System Apocalypse... she got me to read Cradle... few years before she got everyone else on board... created 2 new favorite occasional genres...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Virginie wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "I blame Soo & Iain for that too, Virginie! Have you read Dungeon Crawler Carl yet? We're currently thoroughly enamored of that series..."

No, I haven't. Iain told me about it as w..."

Legends & Lattes is great... Bookshops and Bonedusts was a great revisit prequel... looking forward to a sequel at some point... I think he's writing a new IP right now, tho... I could be wrong, but the wording of his 3 book deal sounded like it...

Dragon Heist was awesome...

Last November I tried Cursed Cocktails, and thought it was a nice alcohol-version of Legends and Lattes with slightly higher stakes...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Virginie wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "I blame Soo & Iain for that too, Virginie! Have you read Dungeon Crawler Carl yet? We're currently thoroughly enamored of that series..."

No, I haven't. Iain told me about it as w..."

We've been talking about redoing all the Threadbares... some of us did Threadbare 1-3, and failed to continue with Small Medium, Blasphemy Online (prequel same dungeon world), and Threadbare 4-6... got overbooked with other things... but it's definitely something we wanted to get to... maybe you can be the impetus...