The world background is frustrating and confusing. Readers will spend a lot of time wondering where the setting is (it’s not explained until pretty far into the story).The most frustrating thing about the story is the knock-offs of existing work. He releases The Halfling (The Hobbit) with Filbo Fabbins (Bilbo Baggins) as the main character. Every non-original song has the song title and lyrics altered in a way that’s disorienting and confusing. I guarantee you most of the readers googled the lyrics to see which song it is. It takes you out of the immersive experience. If you’re going to rip something off, you might as well be honest about it. I don’t know if the author is trying to avoid copyright strikes or whatever, but you can safely reference existing works as long as you properly cite it. Even using lyrics would be fine, it’s considered fair use.The language is stilted. You can tell the author speaks English as a second language. This is far from the worst story on Webnovel though. But…It often comes off as word salad. Especially the chapter titles (it looks like Mad Libs sometimes).The names of the MC and the supporting characters are awful - they’re not memorable in a literary sense. The other thing that bothers me is that this is a novel that requires payment. Given all of the problems with the story, I don’t think this rises to the level of a work requiring payment. I’m not trying to discourage the author. In fact, if he fixes what I suggested, I’d revise the rating to 4.5/5 stars. It’s an interesting premise and can be engaging.
