The Twilight Ascent is coming to a boil. The Eveningtide Asura's plans are nearing fruition, while powerful factions try to block his ascent. The survival of Twilight Harbor and its citizens depends on who's victorious. Zac finds himself tied to the asura's chariot, but that's only one of his problems.
Uona Noz'Valadir has stolen the Splinter of Oblivion, leaving Zac with a ticking time bomb of Creation in his body. A trap has been set within the City of Ancients, but Zac has no choice but to enter the belly of the beast.
A final battle awaits, and Zac is determined to show everyone the price of meddling with his path.
From the tower arc this series experienced a huge downward trend in quality, streatched out arcs like a fever dream, characters that are lost and trying to find a place for themselves in the story, and an unnatural progression that looks like a well practiced dance in which every move is scripted for a purpose that the reader can notice.
It was hard to drop it because of the time and emotional investment I have put toward this series, but I think it is not for me anymore.
Patreon success can be a killer to the authors' creativity, when they start releasing meaningless dragged out chapters. Or it can be a motivation to make the best story possible and build a reputation for themselves for their next story. Sadly, this is an example of the former.
Before I write the review, I want to preface with I have loved the series; however, this entire book felt bloated and uneventful.
With this being the 9th book, people who are reading should have a decent understanding of the system and what all it entails, but the author goes on increasingly lengthy reviews of skills and systems. Honestly I feel like this book could have been 1/4 or less of its actual length and accomplished as much.
There was very little actual story progression, just a long training montage that felt more forced than anything. I actually felt like I was watching an old DBZ episode with 5 episodes of Goku screaming to go super sayan.
That all being said, the overarching story is great and I want to keep reading more of that, but this entire book just felt like a huge let down.
This was such a promising series. A cultivation progression fantasy that had great promise. However, this snooze fest has shown that the author is padding out his wafer thin story arc in such a way that will all be dead (in terms of books released - cha ching! Keep the cash moving!) before the main protagonist has reached the halfway mark, in terms of his progression. This time sees him interred in the belly of fish (sound familiar?) seemingly regressed in terms of progression. Skipped 85 % just to see if the plot would advance…nope! I give up!
Ok, so I understand that Mr. Piker is our MC, and he needs to thrive. And please understand that I usually want the MC to be a monster of a powerhouse. However, in this book,for quite a lot of it, Zac was completely outclassed by everything around him. Almost every I interaction was resolved by plot armor, not by Zac doing anything. I get that a major part is that he has a crazy luck (though that is an issue as well that I will get to later), but he always just happens to have what he needs. At times, this is through a rediculous paragraph that explains that off scene a few months ago, he found exactly what he needed for his current action.
I hate the idea that he has to pop pills to level, and it is not experience related.
His luck... He is supposed to have this massive luck score that dwarfs other characters' score, but it is only a base 540 when his next lowest is over 4000, and his highest is over 13000. I find it hard to believe that other characters do not have luck that high.
I still enjoy the series and will continue to read it, but this book was a disappointment.
Usually I enjoy that this author takes their time and goes at their own pace, but I cant imagine an editior who wouldnt take a scaple to this book. It is so bloated with dao imagery and the like, pages worth, that I was forced to start skimming sections.
Strong series overall but this was such a weak book both in terms of story and conflicts.
Fun series but the eternal web novel nature of this series is really starting to show. Overall there is some direction and goals yet to be achieved but it is taking forever. His advancement isn’t that high in the grand scheme of things. Will this series continue to be written all the way to the A ranks and how long will that take?
Steeped in endless metaphysical mumbo jumbo, I didn’t find an ounce of joy reading this. There wasn’t even a spark of the novelty or humanity of the initial story to be found in these thousands upon thousands of meaningless words. I’ll read the next one but I’m dreading it, particularly given how bad an ending we got here.
I love the books, but this one puts out the worst this series has to offer. It started strong, but the mid point was tedious sadly (the amount of chapters about Zac's improvement is just to much). The end has me hooked again. I will definitely stay with the series to the end.
Another continuation of Brink's series. I did enjoy this one word a bit, though if you're not as interested in the some of the cultivating world-building some seconds might be slow for you.
As this is a story I enjoy and a character I like, it was another fun jaunt in a world I enjoy. Looking forward to the next one!
Little slow in parts but incredible ending and an amazing epilogue. Not sure how this author keeps coming up with these ridiculous but interesting scenarios
TLDR: "Defiance of the Fall #9" offers a well-balanced mix of engaging storytelling and complex world-building. While it introduces helpful reviews of systems and skills, the lack of an appendix is felt. The narrative excels in pacing, using flash-forwards effectively. Zac's character is intriguingly dualistic, embodying both strengths and vulnerabilities. Despite some tedious and abstract sections, the book's compelling character development and thoughtful exploration of Zac's abilities make it a worthwhile read. The series shows improvement and continues to promise an exciting future.
sometimes a book is a home run and other times it’s a single or double or triple. This is a double.
I say this book is a double using baseball analogy because that’s exactly what it is. It’s not great, it’s not a home run, it’s not bad it’s just good. The story doesn’t really progress, the MC doesn’t grow that much, we haven’t learned about what’s happening with the rest of the characters in the story, we have not learned anything about the storyline, and how it’s progressing, except for a few snippets here and there. I’ll give it to stars because the story still is interesting. But not much has been learned. We know Zack has a lot of growing to do but he’s so far down on the totem pole. There’s gonna have to be 90 books before he gets to grade D. There seems to be plenty of meat to the story, but the author is so verbose in his descriptions, that the book bogs down. Let’s get on with it, let’s hear about the war, let’s hear about the people interested in Zack, let’s find out about his side characters. Not sure I will continue to read this particular story since there are better ones out there. Probably will save my money because I believe this is starting to be a money grab.
I don't know how I'm going to finish this mess of a book. I went through the first 8 in 4 months, but I've been stuck on this one for an entire month. Reading it feels like punishment.
For context, I'm really only able to read after the kids go to bed. There were many nights where I lost track of time reading the previous DotF books that my wake-up alarms went off. With book 9, I'm falling asleep before my kids fall asleep!
I've been told to just skim this one because 10 and 11 are better, but the devastating drop in quality does not make me optimistic. I'm still spite-reading this because I've been too invested in the series to quit...
Honestly I almost quit reading this book but I felt like I had to keep going because I already read the first 8.
This is a book filled with....75% filler and most of it could have been skipped. I really can't say how much I hated this book. The plot was sprinkled in here and there. If book 10 was like this one then I'm done. I'm not going to slog through another book like 9.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Duality. Dichotomy. I am not sure what the best word to describe this book. Everything about it is opposites both being true. Zack is both a life and death cultivator. He is at the same time the most untalented and the the biggest monster. He has no backing and no heritage which makes him free to do whatever he wants but he also seems to be a pawn of fate, the system, and the shards of oblivion and creation. Parts of this book were incredibly interesting and other parts were extremely boring. Almost every person that meets Zack thinks he is an incredible monster, but at the same time almost everyone that meets him is way more powerful than him. Sometimes the scope of the world building was so large it was hard to picture in my mind and other times I thought the world view was too small and I wanted to know what else was going on. I do like the direction this author has taken this character though. I thought it was good that Zack was sent off earth. While I do miss the people back on earth with the rate that Zack was growing, they were just holding him back. I also like that this book takes place over time. From the early books we know it takes years to decades to gain power. It would be odd if Zack was able to do it in 6 months. This book took place over a period of 4 years or so. That is pretty good when you consider the first 2-3 books took place over a year. Overall the good parts outway the boring parts and I am looking forward to reading the next one.
Cultivating through capturing other cultivators within an inner world, anything really is possible
Zac’s time in the inner world of a gigantic beast is quite outside the norm while being well within the norm for the crazy lives of cultivators continuing to push forward along their Dao paths. Everyone has a different level of potential and they all grasp at anything that can both build their power and push them along their path. Even spending years or decades within a primordial beasts gut as they progress their skills, Dao, body/mind/soul cultivation in the never ending quest for power and understanding of self. Zac uses his unique duplicitous core to improve both of his races and eventually used that to build up the contribution points he needs to escape this inner world. But only after he wrings every single iota of advancement he can from the beasts inner world and those trapped within. However he is a new arrival and called a brat by the other restrained prisoners of the Orom. And he is soon caught up in the schemes of the old and powerful again as he has the realization that the shards and splinters may also be controlling him. Will his future fate build his strength or destroy him? Zac will have to continue along the unique cultivation path he has to learn more, oh and he has to survive his increasing encounters with B- grades and above.
I like this book. It starts with Zac being in a cave at the bottom of a chasm in the Twilight Ocean, looking for the Splinter of Oblivion. However, it has been stolen by a vindictive vampire, Uona, who has set herself up as the gatekeeper to his quest. If Zac doesn't retrieve the splinter, the System will confiscate one of his Daos. Zac decides to leave the cave and encounters an odd flickering of light that he recognizes as the energy of stars. He investigates and finds a small mote of Ventus's Dao Branch, which leads him to a small box containing a hologram recording of Ventus.
The writing style is super descriptive and immersive! It's like you're transported right into the world of Zac and his adventures in the Twilight Ocean. The author uses tons of juicy details to paint a picture in your mind and keep you on the edge of your seat. They're not shy about using all sorts of cool fantasy and adventure words and phrases too, which really adds to the excitement! It's a totally engaging and well-crafted writing style that'll have you hooked from start to finish.
Reviews of the top fantasy releases in April 2023:
Nice addition, although RR format makes it seem like more of a filler
DofF is a great progression series with a nice strong OP character who still gets into enough trouble to make the prgression worth while. This book actually sets up some nice character foils and even a little humor. The only real issue is that, because its mainly a Royal Road book, the novels can seem more like filler, with no real plot progression. This is particularly true in this book, with one arc setting up the next. The counter is that the MC's progressiona ctually moves forward, which is a pleasure to read. My only other thoughts are that there are a LOT of subsidiary characters, making it hard to follow, and the brief nods to some of the larger characters in like 1/2 chapter throwaways are more distracting than fulfilling. Maybe set up these characters in their own novels, or make them more interesting through several chapters instead of distilling their promise with half-hearted plots? Either way, its still a really entertaining book that I found hard to put down. I look forward to the next one!
This series continues it's downward spiral of fractured grammar and word choice. While the overall plot outline remains strong...it appears that details filling that outline are a spontaneous vomit of words complicated by insertion of occasional hasty revisions of word and even plot details. The result are many pages that need to be reread and mentally edited by the reader to prune out contradictions, rearrange jumbled sentence structure, tossed out extra words left by bad editing during revision etc. As an example of simplest problems is the frequent use of "isn't" verbs when overall plot context shows the author meant "is". There even places where it's obvious the author changed their mind about which characters interact because early choices are not all changed.
Overall usually not too difficult to go back over sentence, paragraph or page to figure out approximately what the author meant to say. But unfortunately it's a burden on the user due to being a fairly frequent occurance. Message to the author ...get grammar software and some fast alpha readers to point out flawed areas before public release.
Approfitto di questa splendida giornata a Milano per parlarvi di “Defiance of the Fall Volume 9�. Come sapete, questa serie occupa un posto d’onore nella mia classifica semestrale di letteratura, meritandosi un prestigioso rank S. I primi volumi sono stati eccezionali, anche se ho notato un lieve calo di qualità intorno ai volumi 5, 6 e 7. Tuttavia, con questo nono volume, la serie ritorna ai suoi livelli eccelsi, presentando una conclusione straordinaria della saga di Evertile, che termina in modo sorprendentemente devastante.
In questo volume, l’autore inizia e conclude una mini-saga, utilizzando un intrigante stratagemma letterario per introdurre Zac a cultivator di altissimo livello. Zac impara, diventa più forte e si afferma come un vero “agente del caos� � un concetto che vi invito a scoprire leggendo il libro. Il volume è ricco di momenti intensi e memorabili, anche se forse non raggiunge l’epicità dei “Monster�.
In conclusione, “Defiance of the Fall Volume 9� conferma il suo posto come serie di rank S. Adesso, non vedo l’ora di leggere il Volume 10, già disponibile, e sono molto curioso di scoprire cosa riserverà .
One of the best litrpg series with superb progression and brilliant power scope with the mc being just one of the monstrous powerhouses roaming the wide galactic world.
The biggest point of contention is the extreme amount of time spent stalling in the latter books, the earlier books had some of it too but they felt more like a well deserved break after a nice fight and also had more meaning behind them, but the latter books around 7 or so started having a lot of explanation regarding meaningless stuff like cultivation and all that, with too much minute explanation about things that frankly don't matter, coz we all know, the mc will cultivate and become powerfull, and 40 pages about the thought process behind it with meaningless realizations and how he got to them is useless, of the writer can make them concise and more to the point that that would make this book one of the classics.
Another book that does the same stalling is The primal hunter, that too is a treasure of a book, epic, a must read for people who like these kinds of book.
Can Zac ever get a break? What is pushing him to reach such heights? Is he truly the result of a failed Technocrat experiment? Or did the experiment fail because someone else had plans for their work? From the beginning, when he was in the exact spacial coordinates of one of the bosses of the Incursion, Zac has seemingly had someone/something guiding his fate. I hope the we do eventually find out who it is and why Zac.
I liked how this book allowed Zac to learn about, and put into practice, a good solidification of his foundations in martial techniques as well as in his Dao understanding. He’s not only looking to become powerful quickly, but also to have that power support him as he continues to rise.
Will he seek to balance his Life, as a human, against the Death of his Draugr side? If he does so, will he actually remain human? And what about his cultivation core? Something tells me that he’ll be able to achieve the supposedly impossible and form one without having to give up on his Edgewalker status�
I was initially annoyed because I wanted to get back to home base and see what's going on with everybody there! However, this "side quest" turned out to be pretty interesting. I liked the opportunities that the MC was presented with and how he handled them. It gave us a wider view of the world and showed us that our little human is a bit more than most.
Still had some problems with wording. Snort. Also, bouncing between miles and kilometers, and saying thousands of meters instead of a few kilometers really throws me off. I'd recommend picking one measurement system and sticking with it. We're mostly in metric, so stick with metric, stop putting in miles, and use the appropriate scale, ie., kilometers instead of meters.
I also like that he's got and unintentional harem of obliviousness? He's got girls all over the multiverse interested in him, and he has no clue.
Better than the last book, will definitely read the next one.