The Runesmith

I've been reading this story for a while now and it has a lot of potential to be one of the best stories on royal road. The updates are consistent, the grammar is good, the story is (for the most part) interesting, and the characters (for the most part) feel real. However, the author must step back and listen to the audience's criticism. 

One thing the readers of this story consistently criticize and warn others about is this story's pacing. Almost every good thing about this story is completely overshadowed by its terrible pacing. The author loves to fill their world with detail to make their story feel alive, and they succeed at that, but the pacing of the story suffers because of it.

As someone who loves to read optional lore in video games, it's fun to read about the tiny little details that go into the making and creating of magical weapons and armor and the culture that goes into making battles and encounters tense for the character, but there is just too much. This, coming from a guy who read every single book written in the Skyrim game for fun, is saying something. 

While these details give the reader a greater understanding of the world around them but are completely unnecessary. All they serve to do is stretch a story that appears to be a little over 100 chapters well beyond that.

Most chapters and story arcs can be completely skipped and you will still understand what's going on. (I'll have it marked as spoilers just in case but there shouldn't be any) For example:

Those story arcs were so tedious and boring that I stopped reading for almost 3 months (for each arc) before returning to the story because they killed any motivation I had to read them. You could condense the first story arc I mentioned into 1 long chapter and the second one into two or three, it wouldn't be hard to do either. 

One thing that is very difficult for authors of all levels of skill to do is to know when to stop adding detail that's why proofreaders can give us their opinions on what to keep and what to get rid of. Kuropon either has bad proofreaders who won't tell them what to get rid of, or doesn't listen to their proofreaders about anything outside grammar.

Speaking of grammar, it's very good. Considering that the author's first language isn't English and yet they still write better than 90% of native English speakers is a skill deserving of respect even if you don't like Kuropons stories. It's clear a lot of time goes into making this story as easy to read as possible from a grammar standpoint. I just wish that same dedication went into other aspects.

One aspect I wish the author would focus on more is the characters. Most of the interesting characters were found at the start of the story. There was clear direction in writing the personality of those characters, that direction isn't present anymore. It feels like Kuropon is slapping personality traits together and throwing them at us to see what sticks. 

The characters that stick are kept around and the ones that aren't are normally relegated to the sidelines. There are no characters that I dislike in the story so far (non that were around for very long at least, good work Kuropon) and the villains are dislikable enough so that the audience dislikes them but doesn't find them unbearable (for the most part).

However, Kuropon, like many RR authors, suffers from the inability to kill off main or fan-favorite characters. I cannot even begin to describe how unbearably frustrating that is. (Spoiler alert coming up don't click if you don't wanna know).

With that little rant of mine out of the way I'm going to describe my final piece of criticism, the bloated chapters. We don't need to hear about how Roland walked down the street in one chapter, opened a door and walked into a building in the next chapter, and talked to a guy for 20 seconds in the one after. I wish this was an exaggeration but it isn't. 

Anyway, the TLDR of this review is:

Good:

Story ideas

Grammar

Most characters

Bad:

Pacing

Any new characters introduced

Death/Near Death character fakeouts

The story is bloated

I will try to be short and to the point.

The story here is a good one. I like it. I do not recommend it.

It drags so much in places that it is unreadable. 

Extendedi if you want to know more.

The MC introduction and the situation leading to being reborn is weird and 198 chapters in and still no explanation for that weirdness.

The way the world works is interesting and how the MC tackles his problems in creative literally. The other characters are fun and varied. 

There are areas where you can skim or even skip chapters and miss nothing. The story grinds to a halt several times and for several chapters. This is bad enough in a normal paced story but this work is pretty slow paced normally.

Reading this is like being is slow flowing traffic that deadlocks periodically. It is so bad it seems the author is deliberately stretching scenes so they can have more chapters. Honesty I feel there is allot of wasted potential here.

The crafting bits have become W A Y to long where I am and I am ready to stop reading till this completes I suggest interested readers do the same. That way you can skip the fluff that this is packed with.

I think when this work is done the author should make an abridged version.

Been on and of on following this story since chapter 30, I can't say it is bad, it really isn't, but it is so damn disappointing to see a story being abandoned because of lack of interest from the author, the updates are so slow that you let the story go for months and come back to find it in the same ark and not even close to its end..... that's all I need to say here

If you come seeking a deep explored rune system, exciting battles and or crafting, turn away now.

The protagonist has no hobbies, no people he cares about deeply, je works all day and forges no meaningful relationships and never expresses any strong emotions beyond the author saying "he was angry".

All this is bad enough but oh boyyy the world is barren, this is a crafting based novel which means the rune and magic systems are well developed right? NOPE. I read to chapter 100 sporadically, and can firmly say the runes never get explored, we know what each rune does but never research the why. As the crux of the novel i expected more emphasis on it but nothing is there, the world itself has nothing too, no political intrigue, no great mysteries, just bare bones magical creatures and dungeons.

The worst thing is the protagonist has no mitivation, he doesn't enjoy crafting and does it only as a job but has nothing he does outside of it.

He works to live and livea to work, never having fun or facing challenges. This is a bland novel that is a drag to get through.

Its pretty good over all. The story is decent, the concept is great. There are certain parts that get a bit repetitive and could be summarized a bit more succinctly but it doesnt drown the story. Feels like it could use a bit more direction, and less like we are sort pf wondering through this guys life. Its worth your time to check it out, and im pretty sure im going to read all of it at this point.

If this book isn't finished or you don't mind shelving a book for months at a time to build up chapters I wouldn't was time reading this. The Grammer and spelling is near perfect and the biggest pitfall of this book is its pacing and restating of the something in multiple ways in the same or consecutive chapters with no advancement in the story, and actions that prove contrary to what the MC wants or is trying to do. The characters are generally fleshed out and although makes stupid decisions  that hinder instead of helping seems like the author is forcing the story in an unnatural way. Allan all I wouldn't recommend at all if it's not done due to the stringing along that is done across multiple chapters in a row in what feels like a bid to sell patreon or something.  

This is a very poorly constructed narrative.

It seems that the author only wants to advance the story by having non-stop, never ending 0.000001% occurrences take place, instead of actually constructing a narrative where one event leads into the next in an internally consistent and "realistic" fashion.

At the end of the day I'd say that this novel is well written from a technical standpoint, but does not manage to counter balance a narrative so poorly constructed that it's downright insulting to read.

Furthermore the LitRPG/progression aspect of the novel leaves many things to be desired. For one, instaed of actually seeing any advancement, the major power ups often happen during time skips. The skill system is not that interesting to boot.

To add insult to insury all the women are portrayed in a very sexist fashion, as either deeply subservient or just straight up maids. (Besides one who instaed perverse)

Later the MC also decides to start a relationship ship with his employee which is pretty much always a disgusting thing to do.

It seems a lot like the author is a very young man or simply have never met any people on his life, since he insists on only writing weak caricatures

All in all I'd give this a rating of "save yourself the trouble and frustration" out of ten.

The idea as well as the concept of the story was what urged me to read this particular story. Besides some character and plot inconsistencies that doesn't make... sense, it was overall good. Not the best but certainly better than most reincarnation stories that I have read.

The only other issues that I noticed were grammar as well as the mind jarring info about the mechanics of the runes — it was good and all at the start, but the writing structure as well as the explanations makes it hard to really get into it

the runsmithing and the magic systems are amazing but please stop making it so slice of life and keep to what the title was RUNESMITHING. Up untill about the 95th chapeter it was great but then it started leaving the main theme of the story and went entierly into slice of life i dont mind a bit of slice of life but only every 20 chapters or so not a whole 20 chapters of just slice of life and prety much nothing else. so in conclusion keep it to the main theme of the story

It Started out Great but the further the story progresses the more the very same problem apears.

The Authors Tells us what happens, he doesnt show us.
There is also repeat use of the same detail.
When the MC chalanges himself in his craft its nice to read about.
But we really dont need to know ho he crafts every little thing in extrem detail.
We also dont need to know how some side characters toes look like.

More then half the words are needless fillers thanks to that.

Word of advice.
Either finish the story first and redo it or redo it first.
The story itself is fine but the way you wrote it is not.