I’ve mostly watched anime for the past two years and got a craving for a book.
I’m mostly watching comedy and battle shounen, but I’m also enjoying Orb: On the Movements of the Earth this season. The last series I’ve been reading is Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive (don’t worry, I know about Mistborn, I’ll get into it during holidays).
Horror bores me, and I dislike romance in general. I can tolerate it as a side plot, but will cringe anyway. And if I see a love triangle or the MC going on and on about the butterflies in their stomach…
It would be nice to see a hard system world mid or post-industrial revolution, but it’s not a must. I also prefer a more masculine PoV, because I’m more used to it.
I’m currently thinking about getting The Powder Mage trilogy or Discworld, but I’ve been out of the loop for so long (if you consider regular visits at the library as being in the loop) that I want to see if I’m missing something more up my alley.
Originally I wanted to get Dungeon Crawler Carl, but it’s not translated, so I’ll wait. I’ve tried reading a book in English, forgot the title, but I had to drop it because it was too mentally demanding for me.
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Sufficiently Advanced Magic - World has magic dungeons. People can get different magical abilities by risking their lives in the dungeons. Main character is male and entirely disinterested in romance, so no worries there. Not sure I’d call it mid/post industrial revolution; society kind of developed around the dungeons and they have their own version of magical technology instead. Really dives in deep into how the magical systems and technology work. I really enjoyed watching the MC learn his abilities and invent new magical items.
The Aeronauts Windlass - Full-on magical steampunk, very unique world. The surface is incredibly deadly so all of humanity lives in these massive, mile high spires, with each spire being like a nation and each floor of the spire being it’s own small city/town. To travel and defend themselves from other spires, they use airships. And they are some of the coolest damn airships ever. POV switches a bunch so it’s male and female, and while there are some romance plots, they are few and far between.
The Dresden Files - Fantasy in modern times. Main character is a wizard private detective living in Chicago. The first couple books aren’t terrific, they read like old dimeback noir novels. You could honestly probably skip the first 2-3 and not miss much. The author really finds his groove after that though and ho-ly crap the story really takes off and turns into something amazing. Not a lot of romance, whole lotta action and intrigue.
Others have mentioned the Mistborn series, specifically the Wax and Wayne ones which are set in early-to-mid industrial revolution. If you liked Stormlight Archives you’ll definitely love more Sanderson.
I will shill my favorite series: “Ascendance of a bookworm”
hard magic ✅
early industrial revolution ✅
no romance ✅
female mc
isekai so it would be right your alley
for the word of warning, It’s very slow.hop on to !lightnovels@ani.social if you want more japanese stuff
TBH I’ve never read a light novel, partially due to trash isekai stigma.
I’ve already heard about it due to anime adaptation. I’ll probably watch it after Dr. Stone ends, since I’ve heard they are quite similar, Honzuki being more realistic of the two.
Yeah I could count non trash isekai on the finger of one hand.
Edit: The anime is really low budget so the quality isn’t the best sadly.
Random fact: I can count to twelve with one hand
Edit: I didn’t have any problem watching Detroit Metal City, and that one feels like it had the budget of a pack of cup noodles per episode
random fact: I can count to 31 on one hand but 11 is really hard to pull off, I also can count to 12 on one hand and dozenal system is clearly superior than decimal system.
I’ll throw another Sanderson title in case you’re not aware: Steelheart. Set in a not-too-distant future setting.
Similarly, the Mistborn saga has an industrial revolution set of novels as well. I actually like them more than the original trilogy, quite well written.
I wasn’t aware of it, thank you
Just a warning for the steelheart series, mc does spend quite a bit of the series pining over a girl
Tap for spoiler
That tries to kill him constantly
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The Last Horizon sounds really interesting (unfortunately, this one isn’t translated, too)
The Aeronaut’s Windlass and Temeraire - not so much, but I’ll definitely add them to my “to read” list
