Solomon's Crucible

A masterclass in doing nothing. 50k words of story for 'book' one and we have seen a dungeon with a handful of fights and had a grand total of one day and one hour pass - 47 chapters in.

I'm sorry, but when you can look at an entire 20 chapter span of this and see a couple of fights and mostly filler I think you may have a problem. Props on keeping me reading without thinking about it for a couple weeks, but I'm thoroughly disappointed in myself for thinking something would change.

The story has an interesting premise and setting. It is the kind of story that is nice to binge on. Unfortunately there isn't much behind the characters or the world that keeps you coming back to the story with every chapter. That might be subjective or not ~~!

Our protagonist loses an arm, which is compensated by big advantages in the game system thing.

Except he is somehow never inconvenienced by not having an arm. He starts out with a boar spear (2H weapon), and uses it together with a shield. Then does it while climbing a tree, and throwing bombs in-between swings. It's never indicated, but the only way I would be able to make sense of the fights is if he has a prehensile dick.

 The idea is good  and the grammar is good. There are no other characters developed rigth now and everything evolves around the main MC. 

The problem is the writer. The chapters are super short and inconsequential.  As an example, in chapter X, the MC enters a house and ask for a lemonade [end of the chapter] in chapter X+1, the MC drinks his lemonade and says that he will go to Z. [End of the chapter]. 

It is just ridiculous.  Dropped. 

you don't get a special title. You don't get extra skills or gridpoints.

The system apocalypse has arrived and Earth is on a few hours of gracetimer. Now unlike most MCs in such a position our protagonist isn't getting an immediate advantage. He's not the first to kill a monster, he doesn't get a training time chamber in a dungeon, he doesn't even get a bonus for having to cripple himself to get out of a trap.

Meanwhile the grid based system seems to be a bit of a ripoff. The grace timer is incredibly short, and the protagonist needs to spend grid points to finish the tutorial and unlock basic system functions.

The story hasn't progressed much so far, but I'm pretty excited for this one. How will a hardass protagonist do who isn't immediately OP? How much of a hellscape will Earth actually become? What's the rest of humanity going to do?

Another addition to the system based genre, this time featuring a grid/point/skill tree levelling scheme. Nothing particularly remarkable about the writing style, either positively or negatively.

Overall, a good semi-mindless read if you enjoy the endorphin rush of levelling up and fights, that gets better about 30 chapters in. If you find yourself having difficulty with suspension of disbelief during the combat, drop it and move on because that aspect fails to improve. For me, the latter is a damning weakness; 2/5.

I really like the Author's other works, but this is not great. The new Gamers system, while unique, is slightly confusing and not original enough to be interesting. The main character is boring, and the shopkeeper has barely any personality. There ares no other characters. This is mainly carried by the tech development and prose, but both aren't enough to get me to continue reading.

Definitely the most disruptive system I have seen to date, and a believable reaction to it.  My suspension of disbelief remained strong, nor did I ever think that the protagonist was acting in a stupid manner given the limited information available.  

theres hardly any story at all. its just about a guy that gains skills and gets upgrades. very boring. if your new to litrpg you might like it. but its more of the same. very average

Spoilers for up to chapter 4 (though thats like 20 minutes of reading so it isn't much)

I think the best way to sum up why this story is different and interesting is simple.  One of the selling points of this story is the protagonist doesn't get a bunch of free shit early.  In a way thats true, but not entirely.  See, our protagonist does get a bunch of resources super early.  How, you may ask?  Simple, he cuts off his hand.  Not first to kill a monster, or to unlock a rare skill through chance.  Nope, the poor guy has to cut off his hand.  If you want a story with a smart protagonist where he works for his results (and so far nothing has been nearly as punishing as that first hurtle so it isn't just suffering for the sake of suffering) then I highly recommend this.