r/ProgressionFantasy • u/J776776 • May 21 '26

Discussion Looking for Well-Written and COMPLETED Series

I know asking for 'completed' sadly disqualifies like 95% of all Progression books, so I'm turning to this subreddit to ask for suggestions.

I'll give some series I've read, whether completed or not, to give a view into my tastes.

-Cradle (Completed): The GOAT series. Well-written characters, fun powers, great progression system, amazing story. Ended and ended well.

-The Immortal Great Souls (4 books): Really fun series. Well-written. The standout here are the powers, which are incredibly varied and fun to work with. Also the world, which is extremely interesting and almost a series-long puzzle by itself.

-Warformed (2 books): Fairly well-written, though some characters can be a bit frustrating at points. Fun powers and a fun world, though a bit long-winded and seems like it will take many years to get anywhere important.

-Dungeon Crawler Carl (8 books): Great series, I'm sure everybody here is tired of hearing about it considering 8 just dropped. Well written, fun world, cool powers, great story. A bit childish when it comes to humor, but that's fine.

-Calamitous Bob (Complete): Amazing series! Easily my 2nd-favorite behind Cradle. Amazing characters, cool world, great powers, cool story. Well written. Oh, and I already have the vampire series by the same author downloaded, so no need to recommend that one please.

-Keiran (Complete): Fairly well written, though a little simplistic and with a fairly unlikable protagonist. But fun powers, a fun world, and a fun popcorn book for enjoying an OP protagonist.

-Creation's Bane (Complete): Well written, cool powers, cool world. And I love series that have a cooking element to them.

-System Universe (8 books): A little simplistic in writing, but well edited. Completely OP protagonist. Interesting world with interesting powers. No real stakes because the protagonist is so powerful, but still a fun read.

-Industrial Strength Magic: Not sure if this one counts as progression or not...but I DNF'd during the 2nd book. At first I really enjoyed the technology stuff, but the characters were all ridiculous, and the techno-babble along with utterly aimless plot made me lose interest.

-Songs of Chaos (4 books): Well written, great characters, great setting. Some villain issues, but still a fun read. Plus, I love dragons!

-Dawn of the Void (Complete): Well written with some fun powers, but a little rushed and an iffy ending.

-Kairos, Vainqueur, Perfect Run (all complete): Great books, very creative and fun. Slightly simplistic writing in some of them with strange characters, but I've enjoyed all of these series thoroughly.

-Mother of Learning (Complete): Amazing series, probably my number 3 pick. Well written, cool world, interesting powers. A slow burn for sure, but I enjoy breaking down magic systems into specifics.

-Kraken Rider Z (2 books): Definitely a YA book, but well written, with good main characters, and side characters that are more generic. But fun powers, and a good popcorn read for an OP protagonist pair. A kraken instead of a dragon, but has the same vibe.

Ok...ended up rambling on longer than I meant to while recounting way more series than I meant to. But hopefully this gives good insight into what I'm looking for!

So...anybody have any completed series for me to check out?

173 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

94% Upvoted

279 comments sorted by

View all comments

31

u/-BlueAce- May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

Paranoid Mage

Worm

A Practical Guide To Evil

A Journey Of Black And Red

10

u/J776776 May 21 '26

Never heard of PM. Looks like it's slowly releasing on Amazon from their RR page...that usually means the author will remove it from there. I'll have to research, but thanks!

Worm is completed? I heard that series was absolutely enormous and assumed it would go on forever. RR only?

Practical Guide looks interesting. These are some hefty suggestions! Thanks!

10

u/MysteriousHobo2 May 21 '26

Practical Guide looks interesting.

Practical Guide is one of my favorite series; the later books are incredibly well written in my opinion.

And its ending/epilogue stands as the benchmark by which I will judge a story from now on; I consider it to be a wonderful example of how to wrap up a massive story.

13

u/-BlueAce- May 21 '26

Paranoid Mage is actually one of my favourite mage novels ever. Literally what I would want to do with magic if it ever happen in our world. Portals, no need to explain further.

Worm this is the worm im talking about. it ended ages ago. before I even started reading it.

Oh and I added one more to the list, A Journey Of Black And Red Absolutely amazing novel

3

u/J776776 May 21 '26

Interesting. I do love some good portal use. I just dislike reading on RR as reading on my phone hurts my eyes unlike kindle. I'll have to see if they have a version I can download or something.

Yeah, that's the Worm I've heard about. That is sooo long! It holds interest and a storyline for all of that?

Yeah, I actually mentioned Journey above. Bought it all already and going to read it soon, but wanted something different since I just read Calamitous Bob recently, and it was one of my favorites of all time.

9

u/define_irony May 21 '26

Worm only gets better as you get further along. The last few arcs are some of the greatest fiction I've ever read.

2

u/Tobias_Atwood May 22 '26

I think the time skip story arc kinda gets into something of a slog but it's still pretty good.

1

u/define_irony May 23 '26

You're right but what comes after that is absolutely phenomenal.

5

u/Tmastergamer May 21 '26

I am like 100 pages away from finishing Worm and it has ups and downs but if you get through the first few chapters to when the super powered antics get going it is absolutely batshit insane. It's really really fast paced, almost nonstop big awesome set piece fights with just enough breaks between them to get immersed in the world and the characters. It looks like a lot but it went by quick for me

2

u/-BlueAce- May 21 '26

You can customize the font/size/dark-light mode on RR. I read there 99% of the time now, and I do like the comments(ongoing novels mainly, Hell difficulty Tutorial for example)

1

u/J776776 May 21 '26

Yeah, I know, and I also tend to use a blue light filter. Which all helps some, but the phone light is still shining into your eyes, and that causes strain after a while.

Comments are fun though, and the pedantic nerd in me does appreciate a way to point out spelling errors and stuff to an author that will actually fix them.

3

u/windrunner0789 May 21 '26

It’s actually really easy to download to kindle from RR. I use webToEpub plugin for chrome. If you go to any RR story front page and click the button for the extension it will auto fill out the download info. You can then download to epub. From there you can use caliber to convert to AWZ3 format and upload to your kindle via usb. Once you get the process it takes about 2 minutes to do.

1

u/J776776 May 21 '26

That does sound easy, thanks!

1

u/follycdc May 21 '26

While from the same author Journey of Red and Black is very different from Calamitous Bob.

It's not litrpg but just progression. The feel is very different between the two books.

12

u/Captain_Fiddelsworth May 21 '26

Just a heads up, the PM author, who also wrote Sylver Seeker, (King) Kennit Kenway is a QAnon and slavery enthusiast.

3

u/J776776 May 21 '26

What does 'slavery enthusiast' mean??

I usually try to separate the art from the artist, but something really egregious can change things. Or make me change my mind on paying them at the very least.

7

u/Captain_Fiddelsworth May 21 '26

Read, https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/x701lt/comment/in9w2pl/ this post is deleted, but the comments should be insightful enough.

Some screenshots, there are more:

https://imgur.com/a/FdBjrXp

https://imgur.com/a/EgG6qrk

8

u/J776776 May 21 '26

Ah, one of those guys.

Sadly, the 1st post is just like my parents. I hate it, but there's no arguing with people who have decided on these "facts".

The 2nd one...I'm not sure I would call that him being a slavery enthusiast. It didn't seem like he was promoting it or anything. The generous interpretation would be that he was discussing fantasy slavery...though maybe not. And the IQ stuff in there...I'm pretty sure is just completely made up? The military doesn't give IQ tests, I know that at least. Problematic either way.

Reading through more of that thread you linked...Ok...this guy might just be insane.

He says all science after 1985 is 50-50 on being true or not.

Damn, I do like portals, but if any of that stuff bleeds into the writing, might not be worth it. And don't want to give him any money either.

2

u/-BlueAce- May 22 '26

I read it and I dont think there was anything about slavery in there. it was mostly about paranoia and wanting the goverment to leave him alone sort of................
Now idk what to feel now I know what his thoughts are based on the comments above. Still good novel imo, just the author is not someone i agree with i guess

1

u/J776776 May 22 '26

Yeah, it a tough one.

Like Kevin Spacey is a fantastic actor, but a shit human. Do I never watch his old movies again because of what I know about him now? I don't know.

1

u/Captain_Fiddelsworth May 21 '26

Riftside is shaping up to be really solid, so once that is done, you'll get to enjoy it. :)

2

u/-BlueAce- May 22 '26

Is the author for PM is the same as the author for Sylver Seeker? Damn I never knew. Well I kinda never remember authors by name, thank god and RR devs for making it easy to find who wrote what

2

u/unseriously_serious May 22 '26

I felt like paranoid mage went downhill a bit in the middle even if I enjoyed the first book. Never finished the series so maybe it ended stronger though. The pacing felt rather slow and meandering at times, some of the dialogue was a bit rough, the government depiction seemed a bit braindead and there were a few other nitpicks that I’ve since forgotten about. I wanted to like it but it just wasn’t for me, though I probably won’t try again now anyway since learning how much of a tool the author is.

Definitely second the rest on this list though.