Review Detail of Daoist_Dan in Steampunk Apocalypse!

The author wasn't kidding when he suggested the first 21 chapters were something to grind your way through, I only barely managed to reach the halfway point of that benchmark and I feel like I'm about to go nuts with frustration. - The first thing you'll notice beyond a decent opening is how quickly the author is rushing to get to more "important" plot developments. He gets blackmailed through his deserter father and we can't even get a sentence of dialogue between them before he's carted off to another city. The dad risked a lot for his son and abandoning his responsibilities to the government aside, he didn't act like a bad father. Seems like they would have some emotional response to being parted, but nah, lets not include that. He loses an arm too and at least that one gets a sentence or two, unlike daddy dearest. Still, one measly paragraph to waking up with one of your arms just gone? I doubt he's so uninvested in his dominant hand that he wouldn't freak out or need a day to come to terms with his new life. Realistically, you'd need months and even years to get over it, but one paragraph later and he's mentally prepared to negotiate the terms of his blackmail (also something that happened INSTANTLY) and decide the path of the rest of his life. Then there's the ride to the new city itself, the landscape and the culture around them. Did any of that get mentioned? What about the after-effects of the attack or even the color of train he's sitting in? Well of course not! We skip straight to Godzilla rampaging through his home killing thousands to the hospital and his one paragraph of "where's my arm at?" then straight to blackmail and a train ride out. A one chapter wham-bam-thank-you-mam that shows the writer won't be asked to give detail to anything that'll slow him down on his checklist of plot points. - Then there are the conclusions these people jump to... It's honestly mind boggling at times. For example, some classmate gets told about his ability to manipulate different materials and when hearing that this power doesn't include liquid matter she goes "Well, people who control liquid are your weakness then"... Like no the fck it isn't, how does that make any sense? Someone else can do something you can't, whoopty doo! Are you going to fall to the ground and become useless because somebody can control water?.. No, the best counter to his ability was another character who can reverse effects, or roll back time in specific areas or whatever. She could literally undo everything he tries with his powers and still this classmate's logic is that liquid control counters him. Go figure. Anyway, this kind of logic isn't uncommon and is very noticeable to a reader for being just a little bit... off. - Another thing that became a problem real quick was the authors tendency to borrow lines or plot from whatever anime he's currently watching like One Punch, Full Metal and My Hero. The ripped Bakugo character is especially disgusting for how blatant he is. Same personality, same power, same rival dynamic with the mc. The other examples of it didn't bother me at all because although similar, they were distinct enough to be original. But I draw the line at a near copy paste of Bakugo's formula because of how ill-fitting the character was to be the mc's rival. We get promised an antihero and here we sat watching some Deku/Bakugo-esque development. - Anyway, to sum it all up this sht show is tied together with obvious plot devices, convenient storytelling and contrived plots. It's so rampant and disjointed I'd sound nuts trying to pick and choose examples, but you'll just have to take my word for it that if the writer wants something to happen he won't be discrete about it. This is the bedrock of what makes this story tick because it's the only way the writer seems to know how to move the plot forward. I refer back to his checklist of important plot events, everything is just another "tick" that needed to happen. - This story is frustrating to read and review lol. I seriously wasn't expecting such a poor experience when I started and in so few chapters as well. I read the author's joke 5 star review and I've got to ask that he stop. You've admitted there's a glaring issue with the first 21 chapters, you can't avoid fixing an issue you yourself realize when you're going around joking about having written "the best" story on this site. I'm not convinced your writing really improves at chapter 21 but if it does how can you stand letting thousands of readers drop off at a fixed point like this? The only thing a writer can ask is that we invest our time in their world, so don't ignore the hundreds of commenters I saw throughout each chapter frustrated with what the experience you gave them. - TL;DR - Highly overrated considerating how many poor quality chapters you have to grind through to reach the "good stuff".