Wolf of the Blood Moon: A Blood Magic Lycanthrope LitRPG (2023)

Well narrated, magical girl adventure

by InverseIota Thursday, March 9, 2023 6:50:46 PM

I'm a sucker for the magical girl/guardian genre so finding this story marked it as an instant try for me. Binging the first 15 chapters (all that's available for now), I'm very happy to say it delivers.

The first thing I noticed is the first-person present-tense style. I'm not reading many stories currently with that style so it already offers something fresh for me. Readers are treated to an almost stream of consciousness narration by the protagonist, Scarlet. Her thoughts in this manner really help with the world building without reading as too exposition-y. As other stories rely on character interaction with each other to unveil details about the world, this method works well given Scarlet's 'lone wolf' nature. In addition, the first-person style is great for unreliable narration, which can offer solid development when contrasted with other points of view.

The story itself, like I said in the intro, scratches my post-apocalyptic, magical defender-of-humanity itch. Protagonist's normal day thrown into chaos, check. Progression fantasy with a system, check. Well written combat with observable protagonist learning and growing, check. Nothing to complain about here.

Grammar is solid, couple of typos occasionally but nothing distracting.

As a first person narration, I'm happy to say the story is carried well by Scarlet. She's likable, thinks rationally, and her decisions and thoughts all make sense when we learn her reasoning. If there's any critique I would give, it's that sometimes when she makes a discovery or a secret is revealed, her reactions, especially her thoughts, seem muted and she's occasionally too quick to accept at face value. That could totally be just her personality coming through but it's something I took note of. Overall, still very early in the story and it will be exciting to see how she develops.

Report

It's good, but... why does everyone hate orphans?

by etheles Wednesday, March 29, 2023 1:50:17 PM

It's a good page-turner.

The style of the novel is simple: first person perspective that rarely switches, use of language is contemporary and uncomplicated, dialogue is modern / YA in style. Description and exposition are thankfully restrained. Battle scenes are short and intense, and the author is clearly going for high visual impact in making the protagonist do showy things (smashing a chandelier on a monster, knocking them into electrified fields, etc.), though I wasn't quite sold on the idea that these are the character's best option, or that the setup would be so simple.

The story's simple as well. 40 chapters in the plot has mainly involved the protagonist killing things to become stronger, and as there doesn't seem to be something like a grand story on the horizon, I expect that the rest of the novel will go on in this vein.There's nothing wrong with this approach if you can write each scene to be engaging, and the novel's been hard to put down. The only thing that's made me frown (repeatedly) is why so many people seem uniquely prejudiced against orphans.

[Edit: some rationale has been added to chapter 1 after I read it on people hating orphans due to changelings being a thing. It's something, I suppose, though it's jarring how this doesn't come up when orphan-hood seems to affect both how she will be perceived as a Guardian by the public and the immediate first impression she makes on people like her university's Registrar. It's not mere prejudice, apparently, but the audience isn't clear on what the actual issue is, either.]

Grammar is fine. Straightforward, very few mistakes.

Characterization is interesting so far. The protagonist has a chip on her shoulder and predator instincts that lead her to kill things, which works fine with the kill-monsters-to-level-up plot. She has some relationships—a couple of friends, a parental figure—but not much more going on, which is a bit of a shame.

You can see similarities to Magical Girl Gunslinger (which in turn cribs from Stray Cat Strut), and I think the differences are worth commenting on where they play against Wolf of the Blood Moon, both in how the character acts and in perspective for the story:

* The main character is a close-range fighter. This sounds (is) cool but has a problem: she's open to attacks from her foes and gets stealth / positioning advanges much less often. This is incredibly risky when you have no combat training or practical experience. Even if her instincts aren't sabotaging her, she has nothing like a proper stance or footwork that would let her dodge effectively. The most likely outcome of someone slightly above human baseline fighting a giant demon spider is that they'd get stabbed and severely hurt. It feels like she gets away with barely any injuries despite doing something she should be very bad at, and the combat scenes didn't really give me the impression that she gained some kind of amazing combat instinct on how to move.

*The protagonist (so far) always succeeds at haphazard, complicated plans like dropping a chandelier on something without a lot of setup despite (again) having no experience or training. You'd kind of expect her to either fail spectacularly in trying to do something beyond her (current) capabilities, or succeed at a cost.

* The protagonist's relationships feel fairly simple and don't seem to drive her much. She's prickly and is determined to not call Cipher her daddy. She has best friends that she likes. No one depends on her. She doesn't seem to want anything in particular from other people. Show me what she wants, show me what she needs: is she lonely? A romantic? Does she feel distant from her friends? Any dreams, beyond being powerful? What does she enjoy, stylistically, other than gamer colours like black and red? What does she look like when she's vulnerable? What would it take to make her cry? What's her guilty pleasure? Who does she share this stuff with?

Report

Overall

Style

Story

Grammar

Character

Right so I don't normally give out reviews to books with this many chapters but I felt like this one deserved it. At the time of writing this review I am at chapter 14, though not by choice I assure you, but rather because thats all that has been written/published. As far as the review goes I think this will be a wonderful book and I genuinely can't wait for more. Even with only 14 chapters it is already one of my favorite books.

Style: As far as the writers style I think It is worthy of 5 stars, even with the few chapters I had to read I found myself being pulled in to the story. Being able to pull someone into a story like that takes talent, and I truly enjoyed the imersion that the author was able to bring me.

Grammer: All things considered the grammar was fine, I noticed that a few (2) typos but ultimately so minor in scale that they didn't take away from the story in anyway. Sure It could be better but It is good enough (so far) that only the most picky of readers will probably care, because of this I am giving 4 stars.

Story: The only reason I am giving this a 4 and not a 5 is because of the lack of current chapters. I have a strong feeling that this will be an epic story after all bad stories don't draw you in the same way good ones do. As soon as there is more 'story' I will revise this section to better reflect the state of the story.

Character: I decided to give this category a 4.5 because well the characters are well written (so far), and that is the only thing I have to judge this category by so far. The characters haven't broken down in tears and spontaneously given out their life stories (It would be odd If they did) and so this early on how well written the characters are is the only thing I have to go on. I will of course update this section later on as well