Path: ...!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Chris Buckley Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: (review) Super Supportive by Sleyca Date: 12 Jun 2024 03:21:55 GMT Lines: 46 Message-ID: References: X-Trace: individual.net 4R/8B3wFRbcaDu1870SR7g3tgaDESSwsu+EklvhyiXYtx4Wme2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:0Q6bFPWPt5gatrf+W+zP6BFRiZQ= sha256:u3ulmTj3e7cUcmYIlCWQcPdWPDL5/trjEcLLpClVJsA= User-Agent: slrn/1.0.3 (Linux) Bytes: 2890 On 2024-06-11, James Nicoll wrote: > Super Supportive by Sleyca > > An orphan sets out to become a superhero, only to discover there's far > more to the career than he knew. > > https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/may-be-the-devil Yes! As I've said before, I consider _Super Supportive_ to have some of the best world-building and character building I've seen for years. It's amazing to find such a gem in the webnovel format. The last time I saw such a knack for getting characters "right" was Murderbot in _All Systems Red_. And that was primarily just the main character there; in _Super Supportive_ (_SS_)there's a host of well-done side characters (James for his review only saw a few good side characters; several more get introduced just after he stopped reading.) _SS_ isn't for everybody; it's very slow and character focused. But those who like it, really like it. Many get involved. A major chapter might get 2000 comments in Patreon, about the same on a fan run Discord channel, and then a 1000 more once it gets released for free reading on Royal Road a month later. A more typical chapter (Sleyca comes out with roughly 2 chapters a week) might only get a third of that. As James said in the review, the "superheros and superpowers are good" surface view is being gradually devalued as you read carefully more. It's even worse than what James said - he was wrong when he said superpowers were given to those who volunteered and worked hard. The Avowed are not volunteers; they are involuntary draftees based on genetics and can be summoned by the aliens at any time. All this is well-known on Earth, but the implications and the purposes of the aliens are not really understood by Earthlings and much less by young Alden. The story will definitely be turning darker; my prediction is it will be pretty soon, within 200,000 words (it's at 800,000 now, roughly 3-4 novels.) The hard questions of worthiness of sacrifice are just beginning to be explored now. Sleyca obviously has a well-developed idea of where she wants to take her themes, the question is whether she'll be able to continue writing at such a high level. The Patreon readers are pretty clearly worried about burnout and are urging her to write less! Chris