Title: Virtuous Sons
Author: Menace / Striker / Ya Boy
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure / Comedy
Status: WIP
Library Category: Original Fiction
Pairings: Sol x Lio (?) Lydia's Mom x Reader (?) Olive Oil x Everyone (!)
Summary:
The saying goes that when a man is born the Fates weave his destiny and swaddle him in it. Then one day the man dies, and the swaddle becomes a shroud. Heaven moves on.

It is audacity to question the Fates. Olympus is Olympus. The land of men is the land of men. To transgress that, to cross the line of divinity and scale Olympus Mons? To defy the Fates and cast off their threads?

That is hubris. It’s a mark that every philosopher bears plainly on their soul.

Link:
Royal Road | Spacebattles

This story hit 50k words today, and the prologue is at its official end. Many of you probably already know this from the Discord discussions.

Virtuous Sons is a xianxia story with an Antiquity Greco-Roman aesthetic. It's a bold and imaginative take on a genre that sorely needs it, and takes the time to seemlessly merge the typically Chinese concepts of xianxia into a new aesthetic, still being recognizably xianxia, but not just being a straight up copy paste with a shiny new skin. Menace has weaved a good balance here of acknowledging the roots while branching out into new paths.

It is, in my opinion, representative of the best of what the genre has to offer.

You have fun dynamics, cool fights, and a good dash of comedy between the characters. It doesn't try to overwhelm you with new names and concepts that all sound like jibberish, or stuff down half a hundred realms into your throat (each with increasingly ridiculous names all in an attempt to stretch out the story's length).

If that was all it did, I would whole-heartedly recommend it already, but it goes beyond that by curbing the worst excesses of modern xianxia, cutting out the excessive rape, misogyny, dog-eat-dog mindset that plagues many / most xianxia (and in some cases, elevates those attributes as somehow being good or acceptable).

The story is also rich with interesting ancient greek facts and customs that I didn't even know about going into the story, but their introduction never leaves one feeling lost or pulls one out. It just makes for some fun wikiwalking once the inevitable withdrawal systems hit as you furious click next chapter and find only the call of the void.

I think this writing may be one of Menace's best works.

5/5.

 

I gotta go with a 4/5 from me - and I can't figure out why.

On paper this looks like something I'd love. Added bonus for the bromance style protagonists, the sense of epicness, the combat, etc.

But I'm having trouble getting engaged with it. It's fantastic but I'm just not hooked?

Left 5/5 review on RR for you though. <3