I liked this - for original fiction of this nature, it's eventually able to ramp up to 4/5 for me.

Holy shit does it start out rough though. Most authors with this bad of a start go back and rewrite their first 10-20 chapters and this story could seriously benefit from that. I don't remember the last time I encountered this much blatant 'telling' instead of 'showing' in a story.

He was going to go and do the thing next. Doing the thing was important to him because of reasons, and he hoped that if he could make other happen then further easy-as-fuck-to-intuit reasons and things. Also here are some obvious things that anyone with the context-clue skills of a first grader would have noted without being told.

But it did get better and I do find it engaging. However I'd say that it ramps up to the same quality as Randidly Ghosthound eventually ramps up to - if you're into that one you have a good chance of being into this story too, and vice versa. But at the same time neither of them sports exceptional prose even at their best.

To me the main difference here is ultimately that Randidly has a lot of allies and acquaintances and underlings and connections, but ultimately it's a one-man show for him. He deliberately forgoes being the head of a town or taking too big a role in what Earth is doing as his goal is his own growth and he actively works to make Earth independent of him. Similarly he damn near never travels with friends - I'm not sure he really has comrades, honestly. Just people he is friendly with and allies and followers.

Zac in Defiance of the Fall takes a different route there. Ogras is my favorite character in this story and he plays the role of right-hand or even a friend/comrade. Granted it's possible he'd betray Zac at some point as he has a habit of that in his past, but those people hadn't had his back either and he seems to have genuinely hitched his star to Zac's and isn't holding back on his support.

Sure Zac is still a solo protagonist - this type of story almost always leads to that - and he's still having to do a lot of his growth himself and trek out on his own as the world's biggest badass. But he's often got people with him that he cares about. He started a town that is on it's way to becoming the World Capital. He manages it. He has friends and people who look to him for assistance and he provides it. They in turn have his back.

There's a quote somewhere about no man being an island, but Randidly tries to be one whereas Zac doesn't seem to be pushing for that nearly as hard. To me that's the biggest difference in these stories.

Yeah Defiance has "dao" and what appears to be a lot more tropes from Xianxia/Cultivation stories, but ultimately it plays a similar role to the "images" from Randidly.

Both have the character be around for the implementation of the 'system' and both end up with a series of lucky coincidences that might be (at least in part) calculated or intended by unknown forces. Said coincidences provide them early powerups that let them get ahead of the curve compared to the rest of the planet. There are issues to take care on the planet, after which they abscond to other places for basic training before returning to their planet to shore up remaining problems. Both end up being part of an ancient / greater universe of many (millions?) of planets that had previously been integrated. Said wider universe is populated with powerhouses that could rip our character apart, but lots of training opportunity! Both occasionally provide convenient 'oh time moves slower in your chosen training opportunity area' options. Both main characters run around barefoot, ffs.

They're very different stories and yet also very similar. I'm not sure which I prefer. I think some of the paths/upgrades/etc. in Randidly are a bit more interesting than some of the Dao, but I definitely prefer Zac having companions on some of his adventures (and again, Ogras cracks me up and I think he's great).

I think Randidly is probably the superior story but I prefer some (not all) of the characters from Defiance. The bits in Defiance with Ogras and Zac playing off each other are more fun to me than anything in Randidly. But a lot of the more minor characters in Defiance are haphazard and too many things are brushed over which can be frustrating (at one point in Defiance the author is like 'yeah this shit used to upset people more but I guess now that we have int and wis stats it's easier to just not get ptsd).

Anyway, yeah, that's my review.

 

Well alright then - two things. (1) You did everything correctly by putting this in a spoiler tag and (2) I just saw "most recent chapter" and missed the Patreon bit, so fuck you very much.

....But that's fantastic all around and I am pleased with where it is going for all that. Excited for when RR catches up to that.

For anyone deciding whether to read it or not I think it's my favorite story that I've found via RR. I prefer MoL but I read it on fictionpress and I think PGtE is superior but I didn't find it on RR either. I've stayed engaged as fuck with this story, mostly due to Ogras existing to provide an amusing comrade that so many of these power fantasies lack.

Edit: I have a question @Spanks

Spoiler

If Leandra has shown back up and it's clear she doesn't care about her kids - which I was already pretty sure of - does this mean that Kenzie realizes that finally? I had the impression that Leandra fucked with her head to make her want to seek her out later and with Zac to make him want to protect her. Kenzie has been frustrating to read about with what I assume is a purposefully ingrained blindness/obsession regarding her mother.