Title: Worth the Candle
Author: cthulhuraejepsen
Rating: T
Genre: litRPG, Adventure
Status: Complete
Fandom: Original work.
Summary: It's a self-insert litRPG portal fantasy, loosely based on my personal experience of falling into a portal to another world and discovering that I had a character sheet attached to my soul.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249?view_full_work=true
Mirror: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25137/worth-the-candle

So while the summary is factually correct, it does the work little justice. Making it seem a whole lot worse and low-effort then it really is.

The reasons I like it:

We're finding out about the other world at the same time as the MC, and there are things to find out. The world functions differently with it's own biases and traditions, which we find out when the MC runs afoul of them. Like the fact that souls are proven the exist and make a nifty power source, which as you might imagine trips the MC up a bit. And it's interesting to find out why the other world uses souls and why morality doesn't even enter into the discussion.

There's also the plot of that while the world is exiting and new, it's not completely unfamiliar, bearing uncomfortable similarities with campaigns the MC has run as a DM. Which is kinda bad news because they weren't the happiest of campaigns and the things in them would be horrible to actually meet.

And the "character sheet" thing is being played refreshingly straight, which does have the fridge horror elements cropping up. As an example that I haven't seen elsewhere is the level up mechanic, mainly that it feels good. And it continues to feel even better each successive time, to the point where dealing with how good it's starting to feel and how everything else is starting to pale in comparison is becoming it's own little sub plot. Which is but one of the things I find neat about the ability and how the author is handling it.

 

Just finished this weekend and couldn't put it down. The story has been amazing so far and the potential for a long, gratifying plotline is looking promising. Cherry on the top: the author's update schedule is obscenely fast.

I was going to jump into the highlights, but the review above just rubs me the wrong way.

@Halt - give me a fucking break. Your review is so full of unsubstantiated opinion, it's close to slander.

1. Have you ever read a litrpg? This has some of the least awkward infodumping in any litrpg. To date, I don't think I've come across a single "infodump" that wasn't relevant to the situation at hand or was just, as the author calls it, "masturbatory worldbuilding".

2. I thought the numbered lists were great as a stylistic choice. Uncommon but effective at cutting down on bullshit monologue padding between ideas.

3. [spoilers] I have no idea if we're reading the same story, but there is absolutely zero evidence that this beautiful girl - who seems tailor-made to cater exactly to the MC's taste (any warning bells ringing? cause literally every time he looks at her, he feels like something is fucked up) - has any romantic interest in him. Conversely, every interaction suggests she's ready to exploit him as a tool.

4. I can't say whether it won't turn into harem shenanigans, but there is absolutely zero evidence (see a pattern?) of any harem right now. You're literally judging it before it even happens and your review reflects how scared/disgusted you are that it's even possible, with more than 50% of your review about the nonexistent harem. Frankly I'm getting a completely different feeling that the harem is being teased but will never happen because group drama is actually a thing.

5. [spoilers] The dwarf is about as much of a female as a male mountain gorilla without a penis.

[EDIT] [spoilers] Speak of the devil. Latest chapter (40) did give us the first hint of romance with the out-of-his-league girl, even if it is drug induced and out of clinical pity. Point still stands. A little teeth action ≠ power wank fantasy. Also note that wish fulfillment is everywhere in media. I don't care as long as it's executed well.


So now for the highlights:

1. The plot has been riveting. A lot of litrpgs/portal fantasies have a problem with throwing characters into artificial situations and then being unable to realistically portray their reactions and actions in the new world. Not so here. The MC has an interesting backstory that's slowly revealed and later the backstory gains a life of its own with one of the most unique implementations of flashbacks I've seen. They're a personal favorite because they manage to be these emotional/funny/entertaining narratives that provide thoughtful commentary parallel to the main plot.

2. Worldbuilding is solid, where solid means I'm interested in learning more about it. The game mechanics are kept to a tasteful minimum. There's suspense in the disconnect between what the MC thinks he knows about the world he created and how the world turns out to be. The overall execution suggests the author has put a lot of thought into this world - which he should have since it's apparently based off his real life D&D campaigns.

3. Characters are rational (r/rational subreddit definition). Dialogue is natural and even clever at times. There's not enough chemistry so far that makes me feel extremely attached, but one character has been standing out.

4. For a litrpg, a major plus is that the story doesn't shy away from the existential questions of being transported into a game that affects your very being. It's not a "oh new world, time to have a carefree adventure".



I can't even count up to one hand the number of gamer stories of this caliber. Definitely worth the candle.

5/5 if generous, 4.5/5 if I'm being stingy about the sparsity of memorable characters thus far.

 

HTADDB is not a litrpg. Its tagline kinda markets it as one, but it's closer to a portal fantasy. And if we’re comparing them in terms of infodumping, it's conceptually different: the characters don't care about the world beyond the immediate situation. There's no spur to worldbuild.

This brings up your great point that we're not measuring "info dumps" in the same way. Info dumps are a narrative necessity in fantasy – you don’t create an original world without them. I did not read Old Man's War, but IIRC Red Rising was a massive info dump in the first book. LOTR was the mother of all info dumps.

Masturbatory worldbuilding actually sums up the difference between unnecessary and appropriate worldbuilding. We are dipping into subjective territory of what we consider egregious infodumping. I didn’t feel there was anything blatantly infodumpy, but then that just comes down to opinion.

I didn’t say lists replace monologues – how could they, in a 1st person POV? I’m just saying there isn’t anything inherently wrong with numbered lists as a mechanic. Modern writing includes a whole host of techniques that depart from tradition. Better for some, worse for others: it’s just a matter of taste. I feel they’re beneficial when your story has a certain type of narrative voice and pacing. I skimmed over the first few lists I could find and none of them came across as facts that had to be memorized.

Fitting all your information into dialogue doesn’t work in a 1st person POV. Dialogue as a medium is wonderful when done right, but there’s just too much in the stream of consciousness. It ruins the pacing.

It doesn’t prove anything. Firstly your review was written before there was anything. Second, this recent development was hardly romantic in the sense you meant and reviewed (princess falling for average Joe at first sight). There’s no reason to overreact to “smoke”, and supposing this is one of those stories where the guy gets the 10, the only thing that matters in the end is the execution/road there.

That’s a plain contradiction. Every member a girl? Hairy effectively-male dwarf? I’d honestly like to see the author with the balls to make a harem including a gay dwarf.

Going by the old adage, two does not make a pattern. Part of my issue with your review is you’re jumping to conclusions without actually knowing what will happen. I realize reading fanfiction and the ubiquitous power wank fantasies make one cynical, but two people being interested in the same person does not make it a harem or wank fantasy when it commonly occurs in real life.

You hate harems or teasing harems: I get it. I don't know what will happen but I have noticed that these types of meta stories habitually deconstruct tropes and clichés.

I found the writing (not in fact because I’m not speaking as a Distinguished Professor of Literature) way above average for a fantasy – even more so for original web fiction. Not some literary masterpiece but extremely readable. But again, I can’t tell what your real complaint is: the harem vibes? The technical writing? The characters not being terrible interesting?

P.S. I liked HTADDB and Colin as well. However, he’s a caricature of the jaded antihero. It’s easy to make and find him interesting if you enjoy that kind of perspective. Taking things to extremes is the easiest way to make a character memorable.

 

Tolkien

 

This story isn't for everyone.

1.) The author updates at a superb pace. The story was started in July this year and it's already close to 300,000 words. And we're not even halfway through the story. What all this means is that the writing isn't tight or careful or novel-like. It's written like any other good web serial. But this less than excellent writing does counter what the author is trying to do.

2.) Deconstruction - I hate to use that word because I don't think it's fair at all or what the author is doing. But, deconstruction conjures up a better description for what the story is than self-insert litrpg. When you think SI litrpg with gamer elements you automatically think of the worst stories possible. This is a deconstruction of those stories. Okay, it isn't. But it is closer to a deconstruction of those elements than it is to those awful stories. It brings those elements to light and then tries to subvert them. Tries.

3.) Theme - I think the number one thing that separates this from from other si litrpg gamer powerwank harem fics is that the story isn't about any of that. Ultimately, the protagonist has a purpose that isn't getting a harem or saving the world or even going back to his own! The story is ultimately about the protagonist's inner conflict. And every aspect of the story mirrors that. The setting resembles the worlds he made for DnD but not exactly. The story subverts the tropes of its genre more and more as it progresses. These two aspects are very important because they mirror what the protagonist is going through.

But, all that said, this story still isn't for everyone. If you are the sort who regularly reads long fanfiction and gamer fics then you can read this story. I'm a hundred percent certain that we didn't need 300,000 words to be where we are right now in the story. Ultimately, in my opinion, this is a very good web serial. I went into it expecting it to be a good web serial. So I'm perfectly happy.

On what Halt said -
Technical : I read the story word for word and never found it boring. Every detail was something I appreciated. But if you're the sort who can't read a story with "infodumps" then don't read this.

Wankery : Not a harem fic. If you dropped it before the subversion then yeah, that's what you would've thought. But it's not a harem.

Interest: I found the story very compelling. I've loved it throughout.

 

I've read about 270k words of this now and I've got to say, while I find some aspects of the story enjoyable, I'm getting some serious fatigue from reading this. It feels like every chapter the main character has to have an internal infodumping monologue about the science behind the velocity of an unladen swallow or something.

It's not even infodumping about the new world he's in but about every damn thing on his mind, as if the author is trying to say "Look at all of these concepts I understand! Aren't I just amazing?"

It also bothers me that every main character always appears to be some highly intelligent, perfectly rational and logical being that is capable of recognizing their own flaws and uncovering ridiculous plot lines like "the greatest king of the world, Uniter of lands from 500 years ago was actually from another dimension we don't believe is real and every action he ever took was dictated by his inherent belief that his life had to make a good story."

That would make a GREAT end of book reveal or something, but instead it's written off as obvious to the characters because they had an overnight brainstorming session or something.

 

I've enjoyed and subscribed to the story, because it's certainly pretty good. There's a decentish array of characters that do differ from each other, there's conflict within the party, a plot, metaplot, and the starts of genre-savviness. The main character is called Juniper, which (maybe because of Pokemon), I'd always thought was female name, but I don't actually know anyone with it, so it doesn't strain belief too much.

The author also seems to be touching on things often left alone in gamer style stories - increasing intelligence on your character sheet might well change who you are as a person, the potential omnipotent power that's watching every move you make, and so on. It's mildly refreshing. But at the same time, the author's posting the story on r/rational, which can cause... issues. It's been mentioned above, about all the characters acting rational all the time, and whilst I disagree with the specific instance given (in-text, we're told it's a theory that people ignore because it's mildly uncomfortable, which means it doesn't get spread outside of specific circles), I do think there's issues with that.

There's also things I'd like more explanation over, because I'm not in the author's DnD group. The Colour Coteries sound interesting, and appear to have been around since the First Empire, if I intepreted the talk of the Black whatever's sneaking things into parliament correctly. But there's no real explanation given, which makes the story feel more like fanfiction than something original. In an Isekai story, especially, the main character doesn't know everything, and considering that these groups have been antagonists a time or two, further explanations wouldn't go amiss.

The harem shenanigans don't bother me. Firstly, because I don't dislike haremfics in general (although they're normally done badly). Secondly, because it doesn't appear to be going that way - the first girl doesn't appear to be actively interested yet, much less than I'd thought since browsing this thread (numerous times during the actual reading, I'd said to myself that the MC should stop chasing her, because she's just a little not great for him), and the second girl is actually fun, and isn't just set up as a sex-doll the party carries around. The dwarf (I'm pretty sure) isn't going to be entering into any harem business.
Whilst Juniper has had the starting steps of physicallity within his relationship, and the non-humanness is notable (and am I pervert for wondering how? If it's so noticeable that he can say her "genital topology" is way outside human norm, but not any of the strangest things he'd accept), he was grossed out by the description of human/dwarf sex.

I also quite like that the characters all seem to have agency. They don't act perfectly in line with Juniper's desires, and that has caused minor screw-ups a few times. Nothing major yet, and I haven't seen anything to say that the author really will cause irreversable horrible bad things to happen to characters we actually care about, but it could still happen.

Also, it does feel like the story is made up of the different campaigns they've played through with their DnD group, with some of the flashback conversations quite possibly having come up at the table, although embellished for the sake of story. I wouldn't be completely surprised if this was something in line with All Guardsman Party, and was a re-telling of an actual campaign they had played through. I don't think it is, but I could accept it.


Enjoyable story, interesting world and characters, although I feel it's lacking the details to make it perfect. Currently a 4/5, although I could see myself revising that upwards depending on later chapters.

 

I had mixed feelings about this work, pros and cons that balanced each other out. I don't particularly like the Portal Fantasy/LitRPG genre, and this story, while decent on its own merits and much better than other LitRPG serials I've read in the past (How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis, Delvers LLC, etc), is still a LitRPG. It embraces the common LitRPG tropes: stat sheets, meta-narrative pop cultural awareness, power-leveling and munchkinry. If you can't stand those, there's no reason why you should read this story, let alone write a 1-star review about why you hate the tropes. But as I can stand them, I'll skip over complaining about them because it's pointless and has already been covered by other people.


Things I liked:
The prose is polished, a few typos and misplaced apostrophes, but it was only a handful of times across half a million words. Much better writing than your average serial, pop culture references were infrequent and when they were used, it usually had some relation to a plot point or backstory. At a more thorough look, I found the prose overall to be serviceable. Not stellar, as the fight scenes and stat sheet descriptions and later game interface sections were clearly written to do a job -- conveying the action. If you want to read literary prose that flows like poetry, this isn't the story for you. However, the character interaction scenes were more thoughtfully written, introspective and a better demonstration in terms of displaying writing skill than everything else.

Chapter 53
This is better internal dialogue than the info lists or number crunching stat sheets. But it's also much less frequent.

The character interactions were the best part of this story, and is what separates this story from the average LitRPG fic. Juniper's flashbacks to his old life in Kansas, and his gaming sessions with the group allow him and his quest to have more depth than just doing stuff because "The game told me to do it". It's an interesting stylistic choice to flip back and forth between timelines, and although it cuts into the pacing when used during suspenseful chapters, it's an effective way to explain the workings of the Aerb universe and characterize Juniper outside the RPG Hero lens. I've seen other stories where the MC's are dumped into the fantasy world with their Earth memories completely wiped (with the exception of a handful of plot convenient skills and jarring pop cultural reference drops because "harhar I know that thing of which you speak")... and that's generic as fuck. Your protagonist is supposed to be a person, not a NPC. I want to see that.

There were some imaginative ideas in worldbuilding, namely the list of Exclusion Zones and the Unicorn. The Exclusion Zones are unique encounters/dungeons, with unique enemies, and their existence affects the universe at large by sealing off game breaking magic. The backstory behind the Unicorn's creation was interesting, and its parallel universe manipulation powers allowed for a creative fight. In rational stories, I prefer protagonists to find creative ways to solve their problems than min-max their stats so they end up one level higher than their opponents, whereupon they facepunch them to death.

If you are tired of Generic Medieval Low-Tech Setting tropes in LitRPG or Xianxia, then Worth the Candle avoids the worst of them.



Things I didn't like:
I dropped this story for a long while because the first couple of chapters were very rough. They were the most generic, and worst, parts of the story. Dumped into the Noob Dungeon with no explanation, no weapons, and no idea what is going on. Watch as someone innocent is killed in front of your eyes by the Level One Monster, loot cool stuff, existential crisis about the nature of reality, rinse and repeat. This is the standard story start in these kinds of stories, and I hated it. I thought it was a shitty Maze Runner-style ripoff at first, and wouldn't have continued on without positive commentary on the later chapters of the story.

Whitebread default "Most Generic Man Alive" as the MC meets super hot Princess-Needs-Your-Help plot set-up in the early chapters felt like blatant self-insert, pandering nonsense, like this genre's male version of Bella Swan from Twilight. Yes, you want your MC to be relatable and sympathetic from the beginning if you want to keep readers reading, but this was so generic and uninteresting. Frankly, I would have liked it better if Juniper had been a female MC because I have seen so many Whitebread Male Protagonists in LitRPG, but never a female one. It would have shaken up the trope expectations and status quos associated with the genre, and made worldbuilding and NPC interactions a lot more engaging. I actually thought Juniper was a girl in Chapter 1 because I've always understood "Juniper" to be a woman's name, and now that I've read to the latest update, I firmly believe a female MC would have improved this story. It would have given the Arthur-Juniper relationship another layer worth contemplating.

The trope expectations I'm talking about, if I am to be blunt about it, is the Harem aspect. The MC is self aware, but it's still there and doesn't add much to the story. 79 chapters published as of now, and the MC's party has 4.5 female members out of the total count of 5 companions. He has a rich exiled warrior princess, a half-elf archer, and a devil girl all wanting to jump his bones. Meanwhile, as of the latest chapter, the MC still pines over his lost Earth girlfriend. I like character conflict in stories, but does it have to be from a harem romance angle?

Chapter 79
What the fuck, please stop this mess. The "Meeting the DM" element too. We don't need this.


The story has good things and bad things, but it also has a fast updating schedule which means it may redeem itself at short notice, or it may plunge further into harem pandering. We'll see where it goes from. Right now, the prose is good, but the story itself feels like it's falling into a slump of meta-plotting.

My rating: 3.75/10.

 

So... The last two sets of updates...

I was not a fan of Fell Seed, either the Aerb or Earth versions. We knew the Juniper was a degenerate edgey shitlord back on Earth, but it was uncomfortable to read, purely for the sake of being uncomfy for readers. Which I get, and which makes sense on a meta-level, to get under our skin like Juniper gets under the skin of his players, but that doesn't make it something I enjoyed reading.

This most recent one, as well, annoys me for two reasons. The first is the timeskip. I understand it had to happen, especially if we're going for an endgame, rather than just a perpetual story, but it means we'll have to either have a lot of missed ground, or an infodump.

Secondly, there didn't seem to be any confirmation between Juniper and anyone else that (keeping it spoiler free) things were as they seemed. Given what we know, it doesn't seem out of character that things could appear as Juniper's described, but then the curtain pulled back. I was waiting the entire time for that to happen, as Juniper specifically didn't make a mention of checking.

I know I'm paranoid, and haven't let go of my childhood dreams, but I have a time-travel password that I have retained, and never communicated. It seems *very* out of character for Juniper to not have had some way of verifying Lisi or Grak are really here.

 

I’m still pretty early into this. They’re just getting to the sentient prison to talk to the soul magic elf. Does Joon continue being an absolute cunt rag or does he become better later on? He’s an unpleasant main character. Probably the least interesting of all the characters.

 

I read something like 120 chapters of this or so. Not entirely sure on the number but it was sometime after they all got a house and the druid came back from her soul-searching. This reads like... well, like a loose collection of every idea had for every campaign thrown together exhibition style with a loose excuse for a plot tying it all together. A lot of those ideas are really cool, a few manage to be good, and even most of the ones that are stupid as shit are funny on purpose. If this were just an ao3 of the worldbuilding notes I would actually really like it.

It's just... holy shit is the plot insufferable. Even before we get to the parts that are squicky (Which, to be fair, the author at least always takes seriously), the plot is just so up its own ass. I hate the 'Big Reveal' and everything it does to the story. Weirdly, I would probably like this a lot more if the main character was just a standard self-insert harem protagonist like the first few arcs were presented.

Amaryllis is actually great, she might even be the only character the author didn't convince me to hate. I'm not a huge fan of her romance arc (every character has their own romance plot with the mc), but the way it ended (from my perspective) was one of the few bright spots in a long series of particularly awful chapters. I don't like how it felt like her aceness was being presented as a character flaw? I don't think that was authorial intent it just seemed like that's how it was presented. Also, I'm still not sure if she was aro/ace before the story starts or if she was just goal-oriented and ace? Specifically, I'm thinking about a chapter where she was psyching herself up to seduce the mc after she realized he was probably her best shot at actually taking the throne. The aceness was explicit but it wasn't entirely clear if she felt no romantic tendency or if she just wasn't romantically interested in him? Regardless, the way she realized she could "fix" being ace with soul magic and turned off the romantic feelings she had for the mc instead was boss. She's the only character worth a damn in the whole story.

The best anyone else gets is 'neat'.

2/5 because the dead zones are legitimately rad, Actual Cannibal Shia LeBeouf, and the story was gearing up to be real good when Amaryllis was the protagonist and the mc merely the view point. Maybe if you just read through the desert adventure and just pretend it ends there it's a solid 4/5. Everything after that slowly gets worse until it nosedives with at 'the big reveal'.

Edit: No. Juniper never gets better as far as I read but at least everyone in story hates him too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

What, and I cannot stress this enough, the actual fuck?

Spoiler

stories over, and feels like an absolute cop-out. Since going to the hells, the story feels like it has accelerated, and not for the better. I didn't like the Stairs, and I really didn't like this last chapter.

 

I feel like I am banging on a theme in here, the PGtE and Prince of Slytherin threads, so will keep it brief (edit - this failed clearly I am big mad).

This story is paradigmatic of the problems of a semi-regularly updated webserial with an uncritical audience, no editor, and any global theme overridden by the authors whims. The work degenerates into a series of loosely connected arcs each dependent the author's mood, often aimed get them out of a plot hole, or to amuse a hooting and hollering crowd of readers. You can almost smell the desperation to pull it all into something coherent at the end.

Other canonical examples are the later 2/3rds of Methods of Rationality, books 4+5 of PGtE, books 3+ of PoS, Wildbow throughout Pact, middle of Twig, etc etc. And tragically these are some of the better long web serials (at their high points, when the author is having a good day).

Authors, for the love of god, decide what your story is there to do, stop playing to the comment sections, and get some kind of editing or productive criticism to keep things on track.

I don't think most authors even enjoy writing a story that has become so large and messy, which is why so many of them start peppering their updates with interludes less weighed down with the spiraling baggage of the main plot (usually further distracting from the theme of course). Credit to AW for avoiding that pithole, but the impression of burnout has still been there for me since the Angelcynn chapters.

The sheep/goat separator for me at this point really has to be whether a story is even attempting global thematic coherence (Pith, KSBD, LSiSuzhou thank you for letting me keep the faith). If not, I will not be moved to care and the story will not be breaching the 3/5 "oh huh, it updated, what was going on here again" waterline.

2.5/5 rounding down to 2/5, for writiting 1,606,599 words of which maybe 20,000 genuinely did something for the reader as opposed to an extended therapy for the author.

 

Binged the first 10% or so but ended up DNFing because I grew bored.

First, the good - the intensity and pacing at the beginning was excellent, and it really sucked me in (from the wastelands to the tower to the desert city to cache and then Amaryllis getting kidnapped and having to be rescued). Prose wasn't great, but not so bad I couldn't get into initially.

Next, the bad - the intensity and pacing eventually got worse, and one didn't feel like there were stakes. There was also an increasing tendency to do the standard rationalist fic thing of trying to having the characters engage in genius deduction and the like, which never works - I'm a big fan of battles of wit and brilliant characters trying to outsmart each other, but rationalist authors almost never pull it off (generally because they're poor authors, which in this particular case translates to an inability to convey character deductions in a clear way that doesn't detract from the pace and immersion).

Beyond this, there was a whole litany of stuff that wasn't great - worldbuilding felt flimsy and it never felt like a real world; characters weren't deep or compelling, and I say that as a fan of the arrogant princess archetype; and you couldn't find any sort of meaningful theme discussed or touched on, at least early on.

All in all, it just made it a slog and I didn't feel like pushing through - and perhaps that was the right decision, if all the negative reviews above indicate.