It's like the author had a certain amount of humour/jokes and it got stretched out further and further as they introduced more animals. I may be biased as I always found the animals obnoxious, with the exception of some amusement for Washi, but now they're all unfunny.

It always rubbed me the wrong way that the author was using copious amounts of animal POVs to write a stereotypical xianxia story despite the story's basic premise. But now it's not even funny anymore, so I can't excuse it.

 

100% agree. I just suppose it makes me wonder if all a story had going for it was a little humor that then ran dry if it should have been getting four or five stars. IF all these other problems existed before. Though of course everyones review is subjective and for themselves. But I think thats the disconnect with this fic I had lol. Which may just say something by me (im also the guy that has taken to filtering out all 'comedy' categories on royal road because almost always I find comedy focused stories tend to then be poorly written plot or character wise)

 

So Book One was definitely much more focused, if only because there were just so many less PoV characters and much more emphasis on the main character. But also it didn't really overstay its welcome, and while there's plenty of places for Book 2 to go based on plot threads set up in Book 1 it just kind of hasn't, instead settling into a weird perspective hopping sitcom where nobody has enough oxygen to comfortably breathe

 

I mean, the first book definitely had a plot and kept things moving at a somewhat decent pace toward the end. Basic summary of the plot is "potential cultivator renounces the life and settles into a backwood in the ass end of nowhere", and that's exactly what it was about. There were a couple places where it dragged a little bit, mostly with tangents following the xianxia animals, but by and large it kept decently focused on that plot and progressing things to the climax (that is, Jin's wedding to a local village girl, signifying he'd properly settled in).

The problem with book 2, primarily, is that there isn't a plot anymore. The author laid the groundwork for 3-4 potential plots, but has thus far consistently refused to actually pursue any of them; he lays one out, and then in the next update abandons it entirely and throws out another, entirely new one 2-3 updates later. The complete lack of movement is what kills the story IMO; it gives the readers the time and space to notice the holes other folks have brought up above.

 

The author anounced that Book 1 will now be avaiable on Kindle and as Audiobook with 20k added words on. The release date is May 24th for both

More relevantly, he mentioned that Book 1 will be taken off the sites he previously published on, as part of the agreement he made, which will happen on May 10th.

Here is the message he posted on Spacebattle.

Spoiler: Author Announcement

 

I wonder how much having a huge Patreon plays into this. I’ve noticed that once a story reaches a certain amount of $$ the author starts to slow down plot progression.

 

I personally think that definitely happened, but maybe less explicitly because of that, but more because he just couldn't really keep up with the update schedule of two chapters a week, but tried forcing himself too, which resulted in him posting late and taking breaks more often than he apparently planned to. It's understandable that it could make the proper planning of the plot progession harder. And slowing down the update schedule(to 6 chapters a month, rather than 8), like he announced at the start of the month, will probably make an impact on his patreon, which would motivate him against it.

 

That's pretty much it.

Book one was such a success that he felt pressured to just go straight into book two at the same pace and the start suffered for it, for what it's worth I think book two definitely got better and has a satisfying end, after which he took a break to spend more time planning out book three.

 

sadly he decided to split it in 2, meaning the slower first half is a book on it's own, which I dont think works by itself.

 

The big weakness of post-book 1 is that the cast got too big, which is probably because it's easier to expand outwards than keep a story focused. Couple that with "every must pair up" syndrome and it's kind of annoying to see how aimless the story can feel even when it's trying to focus on a single event.