Savage Divinity

Over the past few years, I've seen stories on RR come and (unfortunately) go, meaning I attempt not to get too attached to them. I've also noticed patterns about how and why some stories enter the Top Weekly/Monthly Fiction lists, top weekly review lists, etc. and this story has me baffled. Savage Divinity has the quality, quantity and update speed (still somehow daily, warning: author may be a robot) to qualify it both for the latter and, despite my best intentions, the former. 

The characters are so fleshed out and individualistic they are beautiful in their imperfections, the power structure cleanly and clearly laid out, the MC strong-ish but by no means "OP," the world-building unique (which I want to emphasize how shocking it was to me given how many stories I've read), the main enemies (minus one hilarious encounter) nowhere close to caricatures (the "enemy's" reason for fighting is so sad I actually empathize with them in their plight, if not their means - we've only had one or two snippets of their POV but it's heart-breaking in-between the lines), the plot organic and believable, and finally, it has DAILY UPDATES.

If this story isn't #1 on the Top Monthly and somewhere in the top 20 for the Best Rated soon, I don't understand anymore. Help this story get the exposure it deserves so the author knows how good it truly is. I hesitate to hope for this given I've seen authors scared away by rude and uncouth commentators, but this story is good enough that I want others to read it for the author's sake.

TL;DR: Story is gold, read it.

This is one of the more well written story's on RRL, and I would put it slightly behind Emerilia in terms of writing quality.

My only serious complaint with the story is with the MCs ridiculous self-recriminations about nearly everything. He is depressed, he is perpetually unsure and his personality more closely resembles one of those small naked dogs than a competent warrior.

All that said, his caracterization would be fine if not for the entire chapters dedicated to his depressive ramblings. The MC get an amazing power or defeats a powerful foe, better dedicate a chapter to how self-conscious and insecure the MC is. Save a village of people, better find a way to blame himself for something or other. 

We spend so much time listening to this, it boggles the mind the MC can do anything other than curl into the fetal position and suck his own thumb.

When the author gets out of his own way, and lets the characters and story work, it's great, but then he feels compelled to scream "MY CHARACTER IS NOT A MARRY SUE! SEE!" with the next chapter ripped straight from an emo goth teen's diary.

EDIT:

The more I read this story, the less I like it. This is through Ch. 274 and I have lost interest. I loved it in the first hundred or so chapters, like it up until the Sanshu Arc ended, and now I am kinda meh about the story. The whiny MC is just too much. There is no reason he should still be doing the whiny self recriminations into ch 246 but he is. And now its gotten old.

Everything else I'm reading feels bland compared to this. It is an emotional carousel, I'm crying, I'm laughing, I'm worried. 

I haven't found a story (or I don't remember about it) that uses perspectives so artfully, they feel like natural transitions.

All characters make sense, their background relates to their personalities, their actions relate to their personalities.

An Interesting take on politics in a fantasy setting.Makes sense!

I am loving the pace!

A wonderful story. I hate it though, I had to put all my Xianxia reading list on a break xD. 

To all those out there questioning whether Savage Divinity is worth the read, question no longer. What I originally thought to be "just another reincarnation story" has turned into so much more. It can't be classified as reincarnation, xianxia or anything else. The story lives. It sounds cliche, but this story is thriving, growing (almost every day. thank you ruffwriter) into one of the best character driven pieces I've read. Not just on RRL, I'm talking anywhere. 

The characters are everything in this story. The author transitions brilliantly between all of them, making for a world with as much depth as anyone could hope for. Characters laugh and they cry. They argue and compromise. They have hopes, dreams and fears. There is no "cut-out" character that feels flat or disruptive within the story. 

If there was ANY reason a person may want to pass this story, it would have to be a dislike of gore. But the gore isn't simply for the sake of gore. The world of Savage Divinity is dark. It immerses you in a way most stories will never be able to. You FEAR for a character's well being. It's often a kill or be killed world, and by god you don't want these characters to die.

Yet even among the darkness of the world the author has ways to legitimately insert comedic relief into the story! I have laughed, OUT LOUD, several times throughout these first 53 chapters.

All in all, I cannot find a true flaw with this story. The grammar is damn near perfect. The chapters had started somewhat short which scared me at first, but (even with almost daily updates) the chapters have only gotten LONGER! It is a definite must read, and I can hardly wait for the next chapter.

This story is a really good read though, admittidly, hard to get into. The generic name doesn't help (Savage Divinity? bleh) and also the first 20 odd chapters are more a prologue than anything else.

Once you do make it past that though, the story is engaging. A long, interesting, fantasy story. With a very gradual power progression for the main character, and many non copy paste situations and fights. Which was a welcome change from a lot of other novels in the genre.

Also, it has pets. Adorable pets. In fact I think the various animals/mounts in this story have better charactization than the humans.

On the bad side, it does derail a bit later on, though. There is one arc in particular that is pretty awful and knocked at least half a star off all catagories. In fact, if I ever reread this I'm going to skip from chapter 136 to 159.

Thankfully it now seems to be recovering to where it was beforehand. A definite recommend to anyone who likes long stories.

Imagine this, someone starts drawing a well known shounen character. You perhaps know a great amount of said character, know a little bit about them, or know of them but never got into the anime/manga they are from. As you observe them draw you notice they take their time, build up a good foundation with slow strokes, but still hold your interest in watching them draw. Eventually you think to yourself, damn the drawing is probably as good as if the original artist drew it themselves if not better. Then they start adding detail. They already have a good drawing laid out for all to see, but it's not what the artist wants, the artist wants to add their own touches and make it more their own. So they start throwing shading and lighting to the picture, adding more cosmetics, even adding coloring. Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your view point) the coloring doesn't match the original and eventually the artist changes the looks of the character even further to emphasize their own originality. This isn't a bad thing, but for some like myself it feels disappointing. The detailing and coloring ended up making you like the picture less, you still like it, but not as much as you did before. That's what this novel has been to me.

The author took a widely used concept (MC reincarnation into another body and that MC has to struggle through the new world's rules to become strong and get what he wants)
Maybe you're familiar with this setup, reading tons of xianxia and wuxia novels, maybe you've read lots of fan fictions pertaining this style of setup, or maybe you're new to it.
It's been used over and over again and this novel doesn't do anything new besides being written better than most.
The author made a great start introducing the background and world building through a slower but interesting first 30 chapters or so
The writing has been consistent, allowing for a good flow from the start of a chapter to the finish, unfortunately some paragraphs are often repeated throughout chapters just worded differently
The grammar has been consistently good with only a couple of mistakes in each chapter
Eventually the author puts more and more of what they want into the story, which is fine, it's their story and they have all the reasons to do so, but that's the problem. It doesn't feel as good as it could be. Like the choices the author chooses to make are holding back the novel.

I'll give detailed and better explanation for my score but only through the spoiler as I will need to reference the novel to get my point across. I am currently up to date at chapter 216, so this will showcase what I've read so far.

This  story has probably the best start i have read in ages. It really  draws you in and gets you pumped up.

This story has humour, is well written, good paced and it's a bit way more belieavable than most reincarnation storys.

I like it very much (went later to sleep than I would like to admit and kept reading in spare time at work, it's that good).

There are occasional grammar mistakes, but they are easily forgiven because they are just small and never repeating.

I think I will throw some money at your face, you deserve it for your time.

For one, I wish this has a lot more chapters to read on. This has been one of the best reads I've had so far. The author was capable of providing such depth to the story. The elements are here. Each part of the story providing such details, leading to a greater plot. You may want to read the other reviews how this story is great, as I'm reviewing only one part of it.

The MC. As a 'reincarnation', we expect to have such person greater knowledge. As a summary, it was already said that the MC was a modern man, reincarnated as a slave. Although the beginning, it was said that the MC fails to recognize parts of his memory, such as his parents or family, he still has knowledge of modern society, as shown on his dreams. Therefore, we should have seen some of these knowledge to his advantage. It could be that he had done so unconsciously, with his adept knowledge about biology and healing. But then again, given a thick book of the anatomy of humans that was passed down by 'thousands' (mIght be exaggerating) of years of research, that might not be the case.

I was expecting reincarnated 'modern' humans to be well adept to logic, morality, or common sense. The MC got the morality right. His fear of killing others well suit his background as a modern man. Even better, the author had given a split personality (Theory of mine: That split persona is actually the original soul of the body that the MC had taken over, would be cool if there was further explanation during the story) that deals with this morality issue, fitting him better in the world he's living in.

Common sense may had been corrupted due to his slavery, and I can get that. Living in a comfortable society, then pushed to the bottom as a slave, treated as a tool and nothing else, it can really skew someone's sense of reality. So his unusual behavior can be explained properly by this traumatic experience. Logic on the other hand, had its perks at the beginning. Proper planning his escape, good use of his brains. But the MC loses it by the middle part of the story. It could be that he's adapting to his new environment, wherein action speaks louder than words. His instinct could have taken over him, from the ancestors and his other persona. But still, this makes his initial background worthless. You might as well just start out the story that the MC is a slave, and nothing would really matter along the way as it will just fit the overall story.

The only thing that 'fit' his background is his rather lack of 'common sense' about the current world. As portrayed by everyone's PoV, he had been shown to lack basic knowledge of things, and had asked a lot about it, even though they would have already known about it. But that's just a measly excuse in my opinion.

So I guess my complaint is that why the MC failed to REACT as a modern man, in a world of fantasy or in a medieval era(?). His profound knowledge about science, technology, medicine, politics, etc, wasted his potential upon living on instinct of the world. I would want to know how does such character will react - while the story portrayed one path, there could have been other ways to still retain his backstory and use that to his advantage.

I do hope that along the way, if he ever reaches his 'limit', he resorts to his own knowledge, improving his ability or everyone else's.

So yeah, Go Read this. It's WORTH your time.

Read only first 8 chapters so far, and it's more than enough to say, that this story is one of best in RR atleast. Also, there is possibility that i'll edit this review after reading all available chapters (but i doubt it). 

Characters: For me this is the most important part in the story, if author doesn't give enough background or doesn't do it good enough with the flaw of the story you will just find yourself not caring about characters in the story, but this story with first couple of chapters already made me care for the characters (and not only for MC). So, it's 5 star for characters.

Style: So far author has well-balanced style, it's defently not boring, but then again, i've just started reading so, possible in future chapters that can change (i hope for the best). And although in any other time i'd rate it 4 or 4.5, because i rate 5 onlt for perfect, but considering that author just started his story and needs more readers, i'm rating 5 for encouragment, but as i said, it has room for improvments.

Grammar: Now that i think about it, i haven't noticed any typeos, or grammar mistakes, or it was rare enough to not bother remembering, so yeah, it's 5.

Story: It's like style, can't say much either, need to read developments to judge it, so 5 for now.