I do not understand what that means. I will however read the story.

 

Ah, it's probably an American thing. Got it. The story looks good so far.

 

So it's been a moment since I dropped this in For Review. Unfortunately, I'll also be dropping my estimation of the fic.

Ever since we entered "book 2", BoC has been spinning its wheels. Progression of the plot points has slowed to a crawl as the author strives but fails to give every character "something to do". Xiulan's PTSD could, in theory, be a gripping plot arc, but in practice it feels like a side arc (Xiulan's emotional struggles over the deaths of people she knows) to a side arc ( Xiulan trying and failing to learn from Jin because she can't communicate what she wants effectively) to a side arc (Xiulan preparing for the tournament, which feels like it's always both five minutes and five months away.)

The charm's just kind of worn off. By now, Jin's got his farm and his farmwife, his animals and his food; everything's going great for him. Lovely, but something needs to shake up this "everything goes well" because it's starting to feel an awful lot like tedium.

 

Should you do that? I mean i'm speaking as someone that didnt care much about any of the story lol. But do we now get to like, put half stories up for review for the library and say ignore the other half when you rate? If so there's some stories i'd have handled differently.

I mean its a good warning but im not sure its fair in terms of considering the library quality of a fic to be able to go 'review only X percent of it"

 

It is going up as a light novel on amazon, and the marriage is the end of "book 1" officially. That's part of what all the commissioned art was for, the light novel.

 

I agree with what's said here; Book 1 was an incredibly charming Harvest Moon like story with Xianxia trappings. Book 2 just lacks any sort of underpinning structure or momentum, with actively bad parts like the whole fish/turtle segments

 

Yeah, I have agree the second book has been a letdown so far though I admit that my experience/opinion probably is also coloured by the fact that I was able to read book one practically all at once which makes in my opinion for generally better reading. What certainly hasn't helped though is how the cast is ever growing and how the author feels the need to make them all "MC's", in my opinion less is more in this case.

 

The author is taking this week off to take a break and do some longer term planning, which will hopefully help. He also seems to be aware of the issues, for example lampshading the issue of the cast growth by pointing out that none of the cows have (at least as of yet) turned into spiritual beasts. The issue with having a small cast though is that Jin just wants to farm in peace, so the conflict has to come from the secondary cast or external factors. Maybe that'll change at some point, but I assumed the purpose of building up Xiulan and the brothers from the village was to use them as a way to get Jin involved with that big tournament? The carp is definitely kinda useless though, and it's about time to properly kick the plot into gear.

 

Yeah, taking the week to plot is a good thing. I think the book could have worked a lot better if he basically cut everything down to "get bees" as the driver, using that to push to Tigger and Xiulan growing (and getting smacked by the world spirit) and the latter dealing with PTSD. That's half the words cut already and lets you move to the greater plot of the Tournament arc

 

Another thing that's been bothering me is coming from the interlude that started book two.
We learned that the old grandfatherly figure that was mentioned a few times is apparantly this big shot that's just found out the kid he taught went and ran off instead of cultivating. It's a good hook and I was looking forward to that starting off the second book, after maybe two or three chapters of idyllic farming life suddenly being interrupted by the Cloud (something something) Sect knocking at his door. Instead it kind of drags on from where book one left off with little of the energy it had there.

Also, Washy is starting to feel superfluous. His first role as a kind of dumber comic relief was better filled by Chunky, and his current role as arrogant cultivator aiming to become a dragon is a lot better filled by Tigger as the 'Young Mistress' trope. Tigger's plan of trying to become more humanlike and Washy's plan of becoming a dragon even mirror eachother. It just feels like Washy's cast place, character and development time is wasted mirroring the others who do it better.

If Washy really needed a place in the cast I would've preferred if Casualfarmer would've played with tropes again and made Washy a shounen protagonist to contrast the Young Mistress in Tigger. In the myths carps become dragons after swimming up a waterfall and reaching the end through hard work and perseverance, which fits shounen a lot I'd think.

Anyway, let's hope this week off fixes some of Casualfarmer's issues and that maybe he'll rewrite the start of book two at a later date before he officially releases it for sale. I feel like this constant updating of his made the writing of the first book suffer too, where I felt that the cast needed just a bit more time and words to fully flesh them out.

 

I think he just needs to largely abandon the PoV changes, or at least massively limit them. It's too much hopping around, too much splitting the focus, and it often just goes back to the same joke of Him the wise sect master vs Jin the lovable goof

 

So yeah, after the update yesterday I am really done with this story because the "revelation" that the original person still exists as a separate and cognitive entity not only goes against pretty much all he has written before but is also one of my least favourite tropes of SI/Isekai fiction and I do not see anything positive come out of this...

 

Heh if I could share a potentially controversial observation. I think most of the problems people are talking about in book 2... were also problems in book 1. They were just lightly wall papered over by some novel ideas and an amusing gimick or two. But for all those saying now in book two its spinning its wheels... all I can say is what the heck actually occurred plot wise or even character development wise (outside maybe the chicken) in book one? Nothing. The more I read both this fic and people's reactions to it, tbh the more I become convinced book one was as poor as book two in terms of an actual story, but just had a funny concept and a joke or two.