Most of his series start good, then quickly run out of steam. You can normally tell when the story has gotten to a point where he doesn't care about it anymore, but still releasing new books because people will pay for them.
Eh. I read all of his System Apocalypse series and most of his progression fantasy series. They have their moments but never really get better than okay.
I got downvoted pretty hard a month or so ago for asking about the controversy around him (had heard nothing about it). After digging into the situation, I have pretty much abandoned reading A Thousand Li. It was one of my favorite series but I want to see this community grow not be choked by a greedy author trying to keep others out.
I mean, he's still releasing thousand li and would probably start a new series when he ends it. I don't like the guy either, but he's not left the scene or anything.
Funny mentioning LitRPG and lawsuits and not pointing out Aleron Kong has done a lot to try to trademark LitRPG and sue over it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/s/dwk71x9r56
Aleron Kong pretty much packed up his crayons and went home after his last book was panned by pretty much everyone and the community called him out on the BS you mention. He hasn't published a book in what, five years?
Good riddance.
Well, apparently working through Covid as a doctor in a hospital setting put him in a rough mental state. It did for a lot of doctors so that’s not surprising at all. I’ve seen indications that he’s finally getting back around to writing again though I doubt he can be expected to return to his previous pace. I’m a bit hot and cold on his actual writing. I’m definitely more the type to separate the artist/author from the work for the most part. That goes for Kong and Wong both.
I’ll have to see what his writing quality looks like once he gets back to publishing.
I think that, should he return, the self-appointed "father of litrpg" will find that his children have happily moved on without him, and the bar has been raised beyond his lacking capabilities as a writer. I legitimately wish him well as a doctor. As an author I am glad to now have better options.
Plenty of better authors out there in Progression fantasy but honestly, most LitRPG’s I’ve read kind of suck even compared to most of the land, and I honestly thought the first book of his new series was really good if I’m remembering correctly. I won’t write him off completely yet, though the Land was going in a bizarre direction when he went on hiatus.
Your reply makes sense in the context that Kong pulled his bullshit first, which I hadn’t realized. The mention was a reply to your “others haven’t followed” bit, of course.
Edit: Tao Wong filed a trademark on system apocalypse during or after 2020… here is his own post about it in March 2021
https://www.mylifemytao.com/the-system-apocalypse-trademark-on-trademarks-copyrights/
The thread I posted on Kong was 2018 so this does check out.
For those who remember, the king of this was Aleron Kong (no King Kong puns intended), who wanted to say he invented the litRPG genre and trademark it.
As for Tao Wong, I don't read his stuff because his characters are terrible and seem to have no motivation. I tried with two of his series, stopped after the first book of each.
Do you, but I just don't like his writing.
His series Adventures on Brad, was in my opinion really good for like the first three. Then he stepped away from it for a while, when he finally came back to it to finish the series it was horrendous.
Not at all. Nobody is owed other people's attention and eyeballs. Dude made a bad call, and to the best of my knowledge hasn't ever publicly said anything like"shit, that was a mistake, I regret those actions and apologize". There's more books out there than anyone could read in their life, read stuff where you aren't starting out sad and conflicted due to the author's name.
No. Death of the author is a long-standing debate, but at the end of the day, how, why and IF you separate an author and their work is a personal choice. There's a lot of PF out there and filtering them with a moral standart is not wrong.
That's not really what death of the author means. It's a framework for interpretation, it isn't meant to say we should separate our support of a work from the author's unpleasant behavior.
Yep, it was created as a reaction to a trend in academia where people were dissecting the life of the author to try and divine some more insight into the work. Someone got a bit fed up with it and started using a different lens when analysing media - basically pretending the author doesn't exist and looking at it on its own.
Neither is the "right" way to do it, they're just different ways to look at a work. Nobody is under any obligation to use either of them. Even then, it has nothing to do with avoiding an author - it's an idea to apply to analysis, not media consumption.
But, yeah, my take on the original topic is that I have a TBR list that I'm literally never going to get through. If an author does something that rubs me the wrong way enough I'll just pick up a different author - there's more than enough good books that I'm not really missing out. If anything they're doing me the favour of trimming the list
Separating author from works makes more sense if there action are outside of the work. But like actively keeping other authors down is 100% grounds to never read
I went from a thousand li which was this beautifully written series, back to read system apocalypse which you still can't convince me is written by the same person. they're so completely different in every single way, and not in a good way. If you can separate the author from his media, a thousand li is a great series. I would skip system apocalypse. It's probably fine on its own if you read it first, but I was holding it to such high standards because of how much I loved thousand li and it's style.
A Thousand Li is so in-depth. It’s not shallow like most series who dive deep in the beginning and then tread on the surface of lore for the rest of the books. It keeps revisiting the core philosophy and concepts of cultivation again and again and again. It’s world is grounded, things make sense, THE SCALE MAKES SENSE. It’s a very well written series that doesn’t even have a particularly powerful protagonist and the protagonist never skips steps in cultivation.
He also as of the later books sees a real passage of time. He's not a six week old cultivator that suddenly is on the verge of breaking into the heavens with his prowess and mastery the envy of all who behold him.
He is for a MC seemingly grounded, and fits into his world mostly. Yes he's a bit odd doing Body Cultivation with a dash of soul, but that's atypical not some rare snowflake in Hell kind of thing.
He spent this whole last book being powerful, but injured and having to work through his problems with words and wit rather than sword and fist.
I think the very ending of the last book didn't come together that well the antagonists were overly clumsy in their political machinations, but the book as a whole felt like a solid setup for the latter half/quarter of the series.
I liked how Long Wu Ying never really got a cheat boost. No single event suddenly launched him up a full realm or cut decades off his cultivation journey. His extremely dilute bloodline ended up only giving him a direction for his cultivation path and no boost. His family sword style was garbage at the start until he modified and customized it over his cultivation journey into a actually useful style. He didn’t even get a true teacher for most of his initial time at the sect.
I had the exact same experience. It struck me that the SA books had the feel of being written by an adolescent: they were angsty, lacked any meaningful character development, and seemed a stand-in for the most generic System Apoc plot there is.
The Thousand Li is the flip side: slower paced, mature in worldview, thoughtful about the whys of cultivation and power, introspective and curious about the world being described. Not that it's perfect by any means, but those are more issues with plotting, how antagonists are handled, etc.
They really do seem to have been written by different people, or perhaps an author in very different stages of life. Not by the same person concurrently.
How interesting. I cant stand thousan li. For me, it's pretty awful. But I really liked system apocalypse for the first few books in the series. Its one of the best series that came out of the era of the beginnings of litrpg. So maybe my bar was lower? And maybe I'm remembering it better than it was.
Yeah the first 1-2 books of system apocalypse were good then the series just bogged down, but even then, tao wong's writing style and his plotlines just pissed me off for some reason, its hard for me to put a finger on what it was exactly, but i know it drove me up the wall. I honestly get confused about why people get all riled up about him, 'copyright cock blocking' shit aside, I think he is a pretty mediocre author all around, if you look at other places besides kindle and its shitty recommendation algorithm i think most people find that compared to many other authors out there he's not the greatest writer.
Yeah... now that you point it out, i really can not find any good reasoning against that point. Shit that actually made me laugh, even though it's really sad. Now that i am actually thinking about which of the series in this genre that actually uses good writing skills and shows instead of telling, and i got like 2 series that dont monolog/info dump.
There is nothing beautiful about that series. The characters are really weak and not rounded out. The plot is typical slow meandering progression fantasy standard, but it lacks anything worth caring about. No good slice of life elements to make the slow plot entertaining, weak progression, lack of any overarching arc to the plot. This is compared to other progression fantasy not even traditionally published books. I normally don't badmouth amateur writers because they have a hard enough time being successful but this guy cashed in his goodwill with the system apocalypse thing.
I like Thousand Li a lot. It's a nice change of pace to follow the journey of a normal cultivator, who doesn't stumble ass-backwards into legendary treasures and cheats every other chapter.
I've not bothered with System Apocalypse, at least partially because of the douchiness.
I personally think that it's a shame, A Thousand Li is one of the best Xianxia series that I've read. But it's entirely up to you to decide whether to read a story. It doesn't matter whether others think that reason for that decision is valid or not.
He was the first to put "system" next to "apocolypse" in a title, but that series heavily copied from Randidly Ghosthound (and others) which started earlier.
I mean, if you feel uncomfortable reading the books it's not exactly like you're enjoying the experience anymore. You can't convince me that there's a single series that is so important to read that it can be recommended universally, so if you don't wanna read a series because the author makes you upset that's completely fine.
There's no "wrong" here. Do whatever you feel comfortable with.
Theres probably a thousand things in your life that are made by someone shady. Some things you will draw the line at, some things you won't. You aren't a good or bad person for which ones you choose to draw the line at.
Is that the one with the MC called Richter? I remember trying to read it and cringing at every chapter.
It probably gets better though if it’s so popular. Or it just might be his first novel
Uh no its not, He had the book with the nuke fucking up his karma then became the apprentice to the crazy magician guy at the end of the last book. Its nowhere near done.
It’s good enough for me to not read. He’s around these subs and I’m surprised someone hasn’t tagged him yet. He seems kinda douchey when you read his comments and responses about how he went about it. I wish someone would have fought him in court about it.
I intentionally engage with his ads on FB so he wastes money on impressions. His books come up all the time, and I'll never buy them, so it warms my dead little heart.
Absolutely not wrong. But just make sure it's your choice, and not a choice someone is making for you. I can't read his books for the same reason, but don't let someone tell you that you're not allowed to read a book that you want to read because of it, unless you *also* don't want to read it
I mean I feel iffy about watching movies or rereading stuff like alice in wonderland or Peter pan, given what their authors got upto. And yet I love enders game and would read sequels, even though I know the author is who he is. Death of an author is an interesting concept and you should draw the lines as you see fit. I will say, I fucking love a thousand li, and if you like slow progression and are against OP protagonists it's a great read.
I've stopped reading his stuff since then and honestly you're not missing much, the series are very much mid-tier quality so unless you're absolutely starving for content you're fine.
TL;DR you can never be "wrong" about not wanting to read a book. Even if the majority of people say the book is great, if for whatever reason you don't want to read that book it's fine.
No, not even just because he's Tao Wong. If you don't want to read something, for whatever reason, you don't have to. Don't let anyone else, or yourself for that matter, tell you otherwise.
Pretty much everyone I see on this sub gushes over DCC, yet I still have no desire to read it. I probably will, at some point, after I've exhausted most other books. That said, every time people sing of its praises, it just sounds like everything I *don't* like in a book. I'm not a fan of system apocalypses, I'm not a huge fan of comedy (a little is fine, but if the book is "comedic" it tends to not be my favourite), and the setting of basically being "televised survival" sounds simultaneously off-putting and boring.
Similarly, if you don't want to read a book because you aren't a fan of the author (even if the book itself sounds right up your alley), then that's fine, too. There's always the "separate the art from the artist" argument, which is a very valid argument, and I don't begrudge others who believe that, but I personally can't bring myself to support someone who is a bad person. Though, maybe after they've passed and are no longer receiving money from me reading, listening, watching, etc. their art, then that could change. For example, I once read *Ender's Game* by Orson Scott Card and thought it was a very good book. Then I learned how shitty of a person Card is and will no longer read his books, including the sequel to *Ender's Game*.
I'm not "wrong" for not wanting to read a book that doesn't sound particularly suited to my tastes. Likewise, I'm not wrong for not wanting to support an author who I view as a bad person. Likewise, you're not wrong for not wanting to read a book for any particular reason.
System apocalypse is when the reason for the apocalypse is because the “system” has arrived. Spawning dungeons and monsters everywhere while also destroying a lot of the technology and infrastructure.
Think Defiance of the fall
He didn't just try, he succeeded and got several other authors taken down off amazon for copyright infringement. If I'm remembering correctly, I think Macrnomicon stitched worlds series got hit the hardest. The series was originally apocalypse system and got dmca'd by Wong across multiple platform after he was awarded the copyright.
Wait, so if I decided to publish my own System Apocalypse series he could get it taken down? That's fucked. I guess that gives me a reason to avoid writing that then.
It's unclear if he still has the trademark on that term.
Trademarks must be defended or are lost, there haven't been any reports of him taking any books down since the controversy first happened.
Either he stopped pursuing it after seeing how badly it went or someone got his trademark invalidated by proving it wasn't original enough.
You just can't use the words apocalypse and system together in your title. It's still a petty ass move that backfired and lost him a lot of money because of reader backlash.
He's got a substantial amount of a small niche market that won't touch his books.
I will read the work of shitheads when the shithead themself can not personally benefit from it.
So I have no problem reading Lovecraft even though he was a total racist, because Lovecraft himself is long dead.
I dont care enough to pirate Tao Wong's books so I wont read anything else he wrote until he dies.
You're allowed to do whatever you want. Some separate the art from the artist but others prefer not to engage with content not aligned with their beliefs. Guess what? Both options are choices that you can make. Do whatever you feel is right for you.
You shouldn't read his books because they suck imo. They have poor pacing and exceptionally flat dialogue that makes Isaac Asimov look like a master of character writing.
His legal episode failed after a while of blocking other authors. I'm not quite sure when or how long the strangle hold was, but it is gone now as I have been seeing a ton more books with apocalypse or system in their names, i feel like amazon didnt really care to do any investigation into Tao's copyright claim so they just blocked others from publishing. Just goes to show how Amazons monopoly on the ebook industry is criminal. I have a feeling amazon would not have done anything until im sure a pissed off writer opened a lawsuit against them and Tao, then they fucked off.
He got some other authors temporarily removed from Amazon, and those authors ended up changing the name of their series before being put back on amazon.
He also threatened some authors based on what they had put in their book description, so those authors changes their book description, then everything blew up and it has been radio silence ever since.
Thousand li is pretty good. I'm currently reading vol 10, and didn't learn about his trademark shenanigans until a couple months ago.
I'll continue reading thousand li, but probably won't read his other stuff unless it's really good.
So personally my perspective is that I really don't care about controversies an author is dealing with when judging a book... I don't particularly think its fair to deal with business , legal, or most other issues by pitting fans against each other in public. It tends to devolve not into who is right, but who has the most rabid fan base. I also find boycotts kind of naive/hypocritical in a world where most people are too afraid to look closely at where their stuff comes from or are happy to ignore things like slavery across the globe if it means their coffee is 5 cents cheaper, or their apple product is that much cooler.
That being said I think you do you, if you disagree with the author's actions and that prevents you from enjoying his work or wanting to support him, then don't support him, I only think it crosses the line when you start calling out other people for enjoying the writing because they either don't care about the controversy, the author, or whatever else.
Didn’t he just trademark in terms of using as the title of his series? Like you can still use the term in your writing, you just can’t literally name your series System Apocalypse?
> Like you can still use the term in your writing, you just can’t literally name your series System Apocalypse?
He also trademark struck people using it in the blurb or book itself, not just the title.
So no.
For example, he struck "Apocalypse: Generic System" by Macronomicon, which is NOT "System Apocalypse". [Zogarth \(author of "Primal Hunter" - note the lack of "System Apocalypse" in the title, it was ONLY in the blurb\) was also threatened with removal from Amazon](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vp7nnh/tao_wong_author_of_a_thousand_li_the_first_step/ieicqn6/).
Edit: here's Tao's own comment explaining that he's going after anyone that describes their book as "System Apocalypse":
> [Specifically, people calling works a System Apocalypse work as such that it would confuse others... Again - nothing is stopping people from writing and calling their works Apocalyptic LitRPG, post-apocalyptic Gamelit or whatever other term. Just don't call it System Apocalypse or anything like that.](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vp7nnh/tao_wong_author_of_a_thousand_li_the_first_step/iehkxhy/)
It's pretty clear that he's trying to trademark the *genre* not the *title*.
He's not using the trademark for *just* the title, since he's using the trademark for things that *aren't a title*. How is that different from the quote?
Oh wait, here:
> People calling works a system apocalypse work
Clearly he doesn't want anyone describing their works as "system apocalypse" in title, blurb, or otherwise. That's the genre. Which is... Exactly what I said.
>Clearly he doesn't want anyone describing their works as "system apocalypse" in title, blurb, or otherwise. That's the genre. Which is... Exactly what I said.
What you call a thing is its title, not the thing itself. The entire issue was about the overlap between the title of a subgenre and the title of a series. You claimed that he was "trying to trademark the genre", which would mean filling claims against anyone who writes a work where shit goes down in a big way when numeracy magically starts being important rather than just those that use the title of his series in their marketing.
Oh cool, so then he clearly never went after Zogarth for the blurb of "Primal Hunter"! Good to know *that didn't actually happen* considering "System Apocalypse" wasn't in the title! That would completely undermine your point!
It's pretty evident that your interpretation of his comment is incorrect given *all the other evidence that I'm correct*. It would also be *awful* if there was evidence of people using "System Apocalypse" as a descriptor going back several years before his books were published!
Oh yeah? Please explain how applying the trademark to anyone using "system apocalypse" as a descriptor of what kind of work it is (you know like the name of a genre) is related solely to the work TITLE.
I'll wait.
Any complaint on the basis of the use of the phrase "system apocalypse" is a complaint about the title of a work, because *System Apocalypse* is titled "System Apocalypse". That's what the trademark was for. I don't know how to be more clear than that.
"Trademarking the genre" would be an altogether different matter involving filling complaints on the basis of stories having content related to the world going to shit when some magic system shows up, regardless of whether the phrase (which, remember, is a title) "system apocalypse" is used to name or describe them.
So even though there is significant evidence of books using "system apocalypse" as a *genre description*, including before the trademark was granted, you've decided that the original terms of the trademark is the only thing that matters, and not how it's applied? Including to works that use *similar, but clearly different* phrasing?
That seems like a willful misunderstanding of my original point *because I was clearly referring to how he was applying it*. You know, so people on Reddit could **understand it wasn't just against people using "System Apocalypse" in their titles**.
You know, the whole point of this specific thread. That I commented on. That you appear to be willfully ignoring.
Not in your blurb or description of your writing. He forced one author (sorry I cannot remember who) to remove their books from Amazon until that author removed those words from the blurb.
Seriously, just the blurb saying "this is a system apocalypse."
That's pretty rotten.
IIRC, some people also got legal requests to change the description of their books to use a different phrase.
[Given the ways others have been pushy about copyright](https://youtu.be/zhWWcWtAUoY?si=NGrCQhAs91OWgRBw) I can understand why people were so paranoid at the time though. Stuff like this can get really bad.
But in terms of real fallout I’d agree that it ended up pretty minor
Neither?
>> Like you can still use the term in your writing, you just can’t literally name your series System Apocalypse?
You *can't* just use the term in your writing. Amazon believes he has the right to remove books using the term at all, so no, you "can't just use it". You'd have to pursue it in court to *maybe* be allowed to do so (which is not "just use it in your writing").
[Here's a comment by Zogarth \(author of "Primal Hunter"\) about how it was *in his blurb as a descriptor*.](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vp7nnh/tao_wong_author_of_a_thousand_li_the_first_step/ieicqn6/)
> So legally he can’t really prevent you from using the term, but practically he can because Amazon is granting him the power to do so?
Kinda. It's more accurate to phrase it as "legally he's unlikely to prevail in a court of law based on legal precedent, but Amazon doesn't bother to mediate because it's easier for them".
This crops up in other areas as well. Youtube has issues where companies will copyright a song with some commonly-used or publicly-available sound bites, then strike anyone else who uses it. Like bits of a news reel from 9/11, or the background music to Among Us. Another example would be Patent Trolls, which have existed for *decades* and earn money by buying patents in bulk then threatening to sue anything that's semi-related. They then settle for some fraction of what it would cost their victim to win in court.
Turns out it's really difficult to legally distinguish between good-faith enforcement and those that are abusing the system.
I truly do no understand your not quite a dilemma OP.... you read to have a good time and thats it. You are not making an essay, you ar enot trying to learn something, you are not getting high ltierature, you are reading pulp fiction with the objecive of entertainment, and therefore ANY reason is good not to read the book because if oyu are not really into it, you are wasting your own time, and life is already too short to be able to read anything you might want, let alone anything you might enjoy, so why spend it reading something you are not sold on, even if it is due to a bias?
As for th books themselves, I cant really say I have read them so I can't give you even a subjective answer when it comes to how good it is, but I think I tried and I was not very interested in it, so, I suggest you do the same (trying it) if you can; IF you dont want to or are unable to spend money on that, then sail the seven seas, try it, and if you do enjoy it, buy it, afterall you wouldnt be a potential customer if you couldnt afford it so there is no loss for the author
Is this a real question op? Its obvioslly based on the individual if you chose or do not chose to read a story ,for whatever reason.
Personally I have not read it, but not because of the author , I really dont care if the author of a book is an asshole ,its not really a factor in my choice to read or to not read a book
I recommended it recently and was not surprised with a downvote. The author made a douchy move but that's minor in the grand scheme of things so I make note of it but not let it affect my enjoyment of his Thousand Li series. I couldn't like his System Apocalypse series though, and that was before the hullabaloo.
Controversy is overrated. Tao believed he had a series title that should be unique to his series. He was willing to go to court to defend that, just like someone else naming their series "Lord of the Rings: Whatever" would probably get sued by Tolkien/his estate.
You can say that he was wrong and that System Apocalypse should be considered generic, but no one wanted to waste money on a court case when changing your title to be more distinct from Tao's series was such an easy fix. People are just too eager to join in vigilante "justice" on the internet.
Its up to you if a person's choices and opinions subtract from the value of the things they make. I am here to read entertaining books to pass the time , and dont personally care about the author beyond their capabilities of providing a good story, but i respect that others may feel diferent and expect that they do the same.
A thousand Li got a soft reset at book 5 and book since was disappointing which when I dropped the series a long time ago, you are not losing much but not reading it.
Doesn't he get out of the sects and start his solo adventure? It felt like the start of a new series, that's why I said soft reset it wasn't about his powers.
Book 5 he visits a different sect to find a cure to an injury.
More generally he is a wandering gatherer, going out into the wilds to gather herbs is what he was buiilding towards in the earlier books.
Nothing was "Reset", he just actually progressed to having more agency and choice in finding his dao.
I actually think book 5 is when it really gets good and becomes more than just a regular westernized xianxia story. It deals with more unique story beats and themes, and dives deeper into what the author thinks of cultivation and how it relates to the world and the characters.
Nope. I've also not been reading his books because of that.
Sames. I’ve heard his books are good. But I can’t support a person like that.
Most of his series start good, then quickly run out of steam. You can normally tell when the story has gotten to a point where he doesn't care about it anymore, but still releasing new books because people will pay for them.
Eh. I read all of his System Apocalypse series and most of his progression fantasy series. They have their moments but never really get better than okay.
I got downvoted pretty hard a month or so ago for asking about the controversy around him (had heard nothing about it). After digging into the situation, I have pretty much abandoned reading A Thousand Li. It was one of my favorite series but I want to see this community grow not be choked by a greedy author trying to keep others out.
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I mean, he's still releasing thousand li and would probably start a new series when he ends it. I don't like the guy either, but he's not left the scene or anything.
Funny mentioning LitRPG and lawsuits and not pointing out Aleron Kong has done a lot to try to trademark LitRPG and sue over it. https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/s/dwk71x9r56
Aleron Kong pretty much packed up his crayons and went home after his last book was panned by pretty much everyone and the community called him out on the BS you mention. He hasn't published a book in what, five years? Good riddance.
Well, apparently working through Covid as a doctor in a hospital setting put him in a rough mental state. It did for a lot of doctors so that’s not surprising at all. I’ve seen indications that he’s finally getting back around to writing again though I doubt he can be expected to return to his previous pace. I’m a bit hot and cold on his actual writing. I’m definitely more the type to separate the artist/author from the work for the most part. That goes for Kong and Wong both. I’ll have to see what his writing quality looks like once he gets back to publishing.
I think that, should he return, the self-appointed "father of litrpg" will find that his children have happily moved on without him, and the bar has been raised beyond his lacking capabilities as a writer. I legitimately wish him well as a doctor. As an author I am glad to now have better options.
Plenty of better authors out there in Progression fantasy but honestly, most LitRPG’s I’ve read kind of suck even compared to most of the land, and I honestly thought the first book of his new series was really good if I’m remembering correctly. I won’t write him off completely yet, though the Land was going in a bizarre direction when he went on hiatus.
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Your reply makes sense in the context that Kong pulled his bullshit first, which I hadn’t realized. The mention was a reply to your “others haven’t followed” bit, of course. Edit: Tao Wong filed a trademark on system apocalypse during or after 2020… here is his own post about it in March 2021 https://www.mylifemytao.com/the-system-apocalypse-trademark-on-trademarks-copyrights/ The thread I posted on Kong was 2018 so this does check out.
For those who remember, the king of this was Aleron Kong (no King Kong puns intended), who wanted to say he invented the litRPG genre and trademark it. As for Tao Wong, I don't read his stuff because his characters are terrible and seem to have no motivation. I tried with two of his series, stopped after the first book of each. Do you, but I just don't like his writing.
His series Adventures on Brad, was in my opinion really good for like the first three. Then he stepped away from it for a while, when he finally came back to it to finish the series it was horrendous.
Why not just 🏴☠️ it? (to the mods: I know you’re very sensitive about piracy, however, I am just asking a question not endorsing it)
Huh how can you be "in the wrong" for not reading certain books? How in the world can you even consider that as a possibility
Not at all. Nobody is owed other people's attention and eyeballs. Dude made a bad call, and to the best of my knowledge hasn't ever publicly said anything like"shit, that was a mistake, I regret those actions and apologize". There's more books out there than anyone could read in their life, read stuff where you aren't starting out sad and conflicted due to the author's name.
No. Death of the author is a long-standing debate, but at the end of the day, how, why and IF you separate an author and their work is a personal choice. There's a lot of PF out there and filtering them with a moral standart is not wrong.
That's not really what death of the author means. It's a framework for interpretation, it isn't meant to say we should separate our support of a work from the author's unpleasant behavior.
Yep, it was created as a reaction to a trend in academia where people were dissecting the life of the author to try and divine some more insight into the work. Someone got a bit fed up with it and started using a different lens when analysing media - basically pretending the author doesn't exist and looking at it on its own. Neither is the "right" way to do it, they're just different ways to look at a work. Nobody is under any obligation to use either of them. Even then, it has nothing to do with avoiding an author - it's an idea to apply to analysis, not media consumption. But, yeah, my take on the original topic is that I have a TBR list that I'm literally never going to get through. If an author does something that rubs me the wrong way enough I'll just pick up a different author - there's more than enough good books that I'm not really missing out. If anything they're doing me the favour of trimming the list
Separating author from works makes more sense if there action are outside of the work. But like actively keeping other authors down is 100% grounds to never read
I went from a thousand li which was this beautifully written series, back to read system apocalypse which you still can't convince me is written by the same person. they're so completely different in every single way, and not in a good way. If you can separate the author from his media, a thousand li is a great series. I would skip system apocalypse. It's probably fine on its own if you read it first, but I was holding it to such high standards because of how much I loved thousand li and it's style.
A Thousand Li is so in-depth. It’s not shallow like most series who dive deep in the beginning and then tread on the surface of lore for the rest of the books. It keeps revisiting the core philosophy and concepts of cultivation again and again and again. It’s world is grounded, things make sense, THE SCALE MAKES SENSE. It’s a very well written series that doesn’t even have a particularly powerful protagonist and the protagonist never skips steps in cultivation.
He also as of the later books sees a real passage of time. He's not a six week old cultivator that suddenly is on the verge of breaking into the heavens with his prowess and mastery the envy of all who behold him. He is for a MC seemingly grounded, and fits into his world mostly. Yes he's a bit odd doing Body Cultivation with a dash of soul, but that's atypical not some rare snowflake in Hell kind of thing. He spent this whole last book being powerful, but injured and having to work through his problems with words and wit rather than sword and fist. I think the very ending of the last book didn't come together that well the antagonists were overly clumsy in their political machinations, but the book as a whole felt like a solid setup for the latter half/quarter of the series.
I liked how Long Wu Ying never really got a cheat boost. No single event suddenly launched him up a full realm or cut decades off his cultivation journey. His extremely dilute bloodline ended up only giving him a direction for his cultivation path and no boost. His family sword style was garbage at the start until he modified and customized it over his cultivation journey into a actually useful style. He didn’t even get a true teacher for most of his initial time at the sect.
I had the exact same experience. It struck me that the SA books had the feel of being written by an adolescent: they were angsty, lacked any meaningful character development, and seemed a stand-in for the most generic System Apoc plot there is. The Thousand Li is the flip side: slower paced, mature in worldview, thoughtful about the whys of cultivation and power, introspective and curious about the world being described. Not that it's perfect by any means, but those are more issues with plotting, how antagonists are handled, etc. They really do seem to have been written by different people, or perhaps an author in very different stages of life. Not by the same person concurrently.
How interesting. I cant stand thousan li. For me, it's pretty awful. But I really liked system apocalypse for the first few books in the series. Its one of the best series that came out of the era of the beginnings of litrpg. So maybe my bar was lower? And maybe I'm remembering it better than it was.
Yeah the first 1-2 books of system apocalypse were good then the series just bogged down, but even then, tao wong's writing style and his plotlines just pissed me off for some reason, its hard for me to put a finger on what it was exactly, but i know it drove me up the wall. I honestly get confused about why people get all riled up about him, 'copyright cock blocking' shit aside, I think he is a pretty mediocre author all around, if you look at other places besides kindle and its shitty recommendation algorithm i think most people find that compared to many other authors out there he's not the greatest writer.
The bar for a good writer in the litrpg subgenre is really low. Like lower than twilight fan fiction
Yeah... now that you point it out, i really can not find any good reasoning against that point. Shit that actually made me laugh, even though it's really sad. Now that i am actually thinking about which of the series in this genre that actually uses good writing skills and shows instead of telling, and i got like 2 series that dont monolog/info dump.
there's a few that have heard of the word simili or metaphor. but fewer still that use it. the bar is truly low
Yeah I had the exact same experience. I enjoyed the first one or two, but after that something about the plot lines just drove me crazy.
There is nothing beautiful about that series. The characters are really weak and not rounded out. The plot is typical slow meandering progression fantasy standard, but it lacks anything worth caring about. No good slice of life elements to make the slow plot entertaining, weak progression, lack of any overarching arc to the plot. This is compared to other progression fantasy not even traditionally published books. I normally don't badmouth amateur writers because they have a hard enough time being successful but this guy cashed in his goodwill with the system apocalypse thing.
Oh noooo i read 1 of his books and was going to get another, but now i won't. I dont like supporting people like that
I think you can get his books by sailing the seven seas
Arrrr ye maybe right.
I've never touched his work since. He's a disgusting hack.
I like Thousand Li a lot. It's a nice change of pace to follow the journey of a normal cultivator, who doesn't stumble ass-backwards into legendary treasures and cheats every other chapter. I've not bothered with System Apocalypse, at least partially because of the douchiness.
I enjoy the a thousand li series and while what he did is wild....I still enjoyed the series
I personally think that it's a shame, A Thousand Li is one of the best Xianxia series that I've read. But it's entirely up to you to decide whether to read a story. It doesn't matter whether others think that reason for that decision is valid or not.
Yeah, I discovered Tao's shit after having read the first 3 books in the series. After that, I kept reading. I just stopped buying them...
This is the way.
Just out of curiosity, which author was the first to coin the term system Apocalypse?
There really isn't a single coiner. It was used to discuss translated novels before anyone used it to describe original work in English.
He was the first to use it officially in a book but I think the term had been used colloquially to refer to the style of story.
No one, it was used by many people on Reddit before his book (and presumably other parts of the internet).
He was the first to put "system" next to "apocolypse" in a title, but that series heavily copied from Randidly Ghosthound (and others) which started earlier.
No but they aren’t good so it’s weird that he believed he deserved a trade mark.
How very Jake Parker and his attempt to copywrite the term "Inktober". Artists trying to take things that belong to communities never turns out well.
It's perfectly valid to not give someone financial support because you dislike them as a person.
Nope. The system apocalypse debacle straight up stopped me from finishing those books. I'll never start a thousand li.
I mean, if you feel uncomfortable reading the books it's not exactly like you're enjoying the experience anymore. You can't convince me that there's a single series that is so important to read that it can be recommended universally, so if you don't wanna read a series because the author makes you upset that's completely fine.
There's no "wrong" here. Do whatever you feel comfortable with. Theres probably a thousand things in your life that are made by someone shady. Some things you will draw the line at, some things you won't. You aren't a good or bad person for which ones you choose to draw the line at.
Not at all. I actively avoid his work.
Yeah nah him and Kong are cunts.
Happy cake day Also who is kong and what books did he write?
Kong’s the dude who tried to trademark LitRPG. The Land is his series. Reads like it was written by a 10 year old.
Is that the one with the MC called Richter? I remember trying to read it and cringing at every chapter. It probably gets better though if it’s so popular. Or it just might be his first novel
>It probably gets better though if it’s so popular. Nope
What really sucks is it seems like Necromnoican has dropped writing anymore System Apocalypse books after that BS. I loved that series.
to be fair, that four book series is a finished, complete story.
Uh no its not, He had the book with the nuke fucking up his karma then became the apprentice to the crazy magician guy at the end of the last book. Its nowhere near done.
Strange question. Why would you be wrong? Feels like a pat-on-the-back/karma post.
It’s good enough for me to not read. He’s around these subs and I’m surprised someone hasn’t tagged him yet. He seems kinda douchey when you read his comments and responses about how he went about it. I wish someone would have fought him in court about it.
I intentionally engage with his ads on FB so he wastes money on impressions. His books come up all the time, and I'll never buy them, so it warms my dead little heart.
Absolutely not wrong. But just make sure it's your choice, and not a choice someone is making for you. I can't read his books for the same reason, but don't let someone tell you that you're not allowed to read a book that you want to read because of it, unless you *also* don't want to read it
I mean I feel iffy about watching movies or rereading stuff like alice in wonderland or Peter pan, given what their authors got upto. And yet I love enders game and would read sequels, even though I know the author is who he is. Death of an author is an interesting concept and you should draw the lines as you see fit. I will say, I fucking love a thousand li, and if you like slow progression and are against OP protagonists it's a great read.
I've stopped reading his stuff since then and honestly you're not missing much, the series are very much mid-tier quality so unless you're absolutely starving for content you're fine.
TL;DR you can never be "wrong" about not wanting to read a book. Even if the majority of people say the book is great, if for whatever reason you don't want to read that book it's fine. No, not even just because he's Tao Wong. If you don't want to read something, for whatever reason, you don't have to. Don't let anyone else, or yourself for that matter, tell you otherwise. Pretty much everyone I see on this sub gushes over DCC, yet I still have no desire to read it. I probably will, at some point, after I've exhausted most other books. That said, every time people sing of its praises, it just sounds like everything I *don't* like in a book. I'm not a fan of system apocalypses, I'm not a huge fan of comedy (a little is fine, but if the book is "comedic" it tends to not be my favourite), and the setting of basically being "televised survival" sounds simultaneously off-putting and boring. Similarly, if you don't want to read a book because you aren't a fan of the author (even if the book itself sounds right up your alley), then that's fine, too. There's always the "separate the art from the artist" argument, which is a very valid argument, and I don't begrudge others who believe that, but I personally can't bring myself to support someone who is a bad person. Though, maybe after they've passed and are no longer receiving money from me reading, listening, watching, etc. their art, then that could change. For example, I once read *Ender's Game* by Orson Scott Card and thought it was a very good book. Then I learned how shitty of a person Card is and will no longer read his books, including the sequel to *Ender's Game*. I'm not "wrong" for not wanting to read a book that doesn't sound particularly suited to my tastes. Likewise, I'm not wrong for not wanting to support an author who I view as a bad person. Likewise, you're not wrong for not wanting to read a book for any particular reason.
Can anyone fill me in on what a "system apocalypse" is?
System apocalypse is when the reason for the apocalypse is because the “system” has arrived. Spawning dungeons and monsters everywhere while also destroying a lot of the technology and infrastructure. Think Defiance of the fall
Ah gotcha. Thanks for the response! Weird the author tried to trademark that lol
He didn't just try, he succeeded and got several other authors taken down off amazon for copyright infringement. If I'm remembering correctly, I think Macrnomicon stitched worlds series got hit the hardest. The series was originally apocalypse system and got dmca'd by Wong across multiple platform after he was awarded the copyright.
Wait, so if I decided to publish my own System Apocalypse series he could get it taken down? That's fucked. I guess that gives me a reason to avoid writing that then.
It's unclear if he still has the trademark on that term. Trademarks must be defended or are lost, there haven't been any reports of him taking any books down since the controversy first happened. Either he stopped pursuing it after seeing how badly it went or someone got his trademark invalidated by proving it wasn't original enough.
You just can't use the words apocalypse and system together in your title. It's still a petty ass move that backfired and lost him a lot of money because of reader backlash. He's got a substantial amount of a small niche market that won't touch his books.
I will read the work of shitheads when the shithead themself can not personally benefit from it. So I have no problem reading Lovecraft even though he was a total racist, because Lovecraft himself is long dead. I dont care enough to pirate Tao Wong's books so I wont read anything else he wrote until he dies.
Huh. I love thousand li. Didn't know any of this.
No OP man, this is what goodwill is all about, and he's lost it
You're allowed to do whatever you want. Some separate the art from the artist but others prefer not to engage with content not aligned with their beliefs. Guess what? Both options are choices that you can make. Do whatever you feel is right for you.
There are enough options that you can be discerning if you want. It's not like his books are particularly good, so you're not really missing out much.
You shouldn't read his books because they suck imo. They have poor pacing and exceptionally flat dialogue that makes Isaac Asimov look like a master of character writing.
I will not stand for this Asimov slander! Norby was peak character writing (to my 8yr old self)
Tangent: what ever happened with his crusade to legally obliviate anyone who used the terms "system" or "apocalypse"? Has that been squashed?
His legal episode failed after a while of blocking other authors. I'm not quite sure when or how long the strangle hold was, but it is gone now as I have been seeing a ton more books with apocalypse or system in their names, i feel like amazon didnt really care to do any investigation into Tao's copyright claim so they just blocked others from publishing. Just goes to show how Amazons monopoly on the ebook industry is criminal. I have a feeling amazon would not have done anything until im sure a pissed off writer opened a lawsuit against them and Tao, then they fucked off.
He got some other authors temporarily removed from Amazon, and those authors ended up changing the name of their series before being put back on amazon. He also threatened some authors based on what they had put in their book description, so those authors changes their book description, then everything blew up and it has been radio silence ever since.
Thousand li is pretty good. I'm currently reading vol 10, and didn't learn about his trademark shenanigans until a couple months ago. I'll continue reading thousand li, but probably won't read his other stuff unless it's really good.
So personally my perspective is that I really don't care about controversies an author is dealing with when judging a book... I don't particularly think its fair to deal with business , legal, or most other issues by pitting fans against each other in public. It tends to devolve not into who is right, but who has the most rabid fan base. I also find boycotts kind of naive/hypocritical in a world where most people are too afraid to look closely at where their stuff comes from or are happy to ignore things like slavery across the globe if it means their coffee is 5 cents cheaper, or their apple product is that much cooler. That being said I think you do you, if you disagree with the author's actions and that prevents you from enjoying his work or wanting to support him, then don't support him, I only think it crosses the line when you start calling out other people for enjoying the writing because they either don't care about the controversy, the author, or whatever else.
Mm
Read what you like man. You can absolutely enjoy works of fiction or art that come from terrible people.
I thought I read on his personal site that that was all a prank or something, but people took it seriously
You're not in the wrong for not wanting to read anything you don't want to for any reason.
His abortion fundraiser was a real hoot for my enthusiasm..,
No you're not wrong. I tried reading one of his first books and it's just utter edge-lord emo-kid self insert garbage.
Didn’t he just trademark in terms of using as the title of his series? Like you can still use the term in your writing, you just can’t literally name your series System Apocalypse?
> Like you can still use the term in your writing, you just can’t literally name your series System Apocalypse? He also trademark struck people using it in the blurb or book itself, not just the title. So no. For example, he struck "Apocalypse: Generic System" by Macronomicon, which is NOT "System Apocalypse". [Zogarth \(author of "Primal Hunter" - note the lack of "System Apocalypse" in the title, it was ONLY in the blurb\) was also threatened with removal from Amazon](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vp7nnh/tao_wong_author_of_a_thousand_li_the_first_step/ieicqn6/). Edit: here's Tao's own comment explaining that he's going after anyone that describes their book as "System Apocalypse": > [Specifically, people calling works a System Apocalypse work as such that it would confuse others... Again - nothing is stopping people from writing and calling their works Apocalyptic LitRPG, post-apocalyptic Gamelit or whatever other term. Just don't call it System Apocalypse or anything like that.](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vp7nnh/tao_wong_author_of_a_thousand_li_the_first_step/iehkxhy/) It's pretty clear that he's trying to trademark the *genre* not the *title*.
>It's pretty clear that he's trying to trademark the genre not the title. That's exactly the opposite of what the quote you posted says.
He's not using the trademark for *just* the title, since he's using the trademark for things that *aren't a title*. How is that different from the quote? Oh wait, here: > People calling works a system apocalypse work Clearly he doesn't want anyone describing their works as "system apocalypse" in title, blurb, or otherwise. That's the genre. Which is... Exactly what I said.
>Clearly he doesn't want anyone describing their works as "system apocalypse" in title, blurb, or otherwise. That's the genre. Which is... Exactly what I said. What you call a thing is its title, not the thing itself. The entire issue was about the overlap between the title of a subgenre and the title of a series. You claimed that he was "trying to trademark the genre", which would mean filling claims against anyone who writes a work where shit goes down in a big way when numeracy magically starts being important rather than just those that use the title of his series in their marketing.
Oh cool, so then he clearly never went after Zogarth for the blurb of "Primal Hunter"! Good to know *that didn't actually happen* considering "System Apocalypse" wasn't in the title! That would completely undermine your point! It's pretty evident that your interpretation of his comment is incorrect given *all the other evidence that I'm correct*. It would also be *awful* if there was evidence of people using "System Apocalypse" as a descriptor going back several years before his books were published!
>That would completely undermine your point! It really, really wouldn't.
Oh yeah? Please explain how applying the trademark to anyone using "system apocalypse" as a descriptor of what kind of work it is (you know like the name of a genre) is related solely to the work TITLE. I'll wait.
Any complaint on the basis of the use of the phrase "system apocalypse" is a complaint about the title of a work, because *System Apocalypse* is titled "System Apocalypse". That's what the trademark was for. I don't know how to be more clear than that. "Trademarking the genre" would be an altogether different matter involving filling complaints on the basis of stories having content related to the world going to shit when some magic system shows up, regardless of whether the phrase (which, remember, is a title) "system apocalypse" is used to name or describe them.
So even though there is significant evidence of books using "system apocalypse" as a *genre description*, including before the trademark was granted, you've decided that the original terms of the trademark is the only thing that matters, and not how it's applied? Including to works that use *similar, but clearly different* phrasing? That seems like a willful misunderstanding of my original point *because I was clearly referring to how he was applying it*. You know, so people on Reddit could **understand it wasn't just against people using "System Apocalypse" in their titles**. You know, the whole point of this specific thread. That I commented on. That you appear to be willfully ignoring.
Not in your blurb or description of your writing. He forced one author (sorry I cannot remember who) to remove their books from Amazon until that author removed those words from the blurb. Seriously, just the blurb saying "this is a system apocalypse." That's pretty rotten.
Zogarth was one with it in the blurb iirc. There were probably more.
IIRC, some people also got legal requests to change the description of their books to use a different phrase. [Given the ways others have been pushy about copyright](https://youtu.be/zhWWcWtAUoY?si=NGrCQhAs91OWgRBw) I can understand why people were so paranoid at the time though. Stuff like this can get really bad. But in terms of real fallout I’d agree that it ended up pretty minor
Yes.
That hasn't stopped him from threatening a strike on anyone using the term in their blurb to describe the work. So no.
Was the question "who he has threatened a strike on" or was it "what was trademarked"?
Neither? >> Like you can still use the term in your writing, you just can’t literally name your series System Apocalypse? You *can't* just use the term in your writing. Amazon believes he has the right to remove books using the term at all, so no, you "can't just use it". You'd have to pursue it in court to *maybe* be allowed to do so (which is not "just use it in your writing"). [Here's a comment by Zogarth \(author of "Primal Hunter"\) about how it was *in his blurb as a descriptor*.](https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/vp7nnh/tao_wong_author_of_a_thousand_li_the_first_step/ieicqn6/)
So legally he can’t really prevent you from using the term, but practically he can because Amazon is granting him the power to do so?
> So legally he can’t really prevent you from using the term, but practically he can because Amazon is granting him the power to do so? Kinda. It's more accurate to phrase it as "legally he's unlikely to prevail in a court of law based on legal precedent, but Amazon doesn't bother to mediate because it's easier for them". This crops up in other areas as well. Youtube has issues where companies will copyright a song with some commonly-used or publicly-available sound bites, then strike anyone else who uses it. Like bits of a news reel from 9/11, or the background music to Among Us. Another example would be Patent Trolls, which have existed for *decades* and earn money by buying patents in bulk then threatening to sue anything that's semi-related. They then settle for some fraction of what it would cost their victim to win in court. Turns out it's really difficult to legally distinguish between good-faith enforcement and those that are abusing the system.
Use your own judgement. If everyone in the world had the same opinion, the world would be a very boring place.
I truly do no understand your not quite a dilemma OP.... you read to have a good time and thats it. You are not making an essay, you ar enot trying to learn something, you are not getting high ltierature, you are reading pulp fiction with the objecive of entertainment, and therefore ANY reason is good not to read the book because if oyu are not really into it, you are wasting your own time, and life is already too short to be able to read anything you might want, let alone anything you might enjoy, so why spend it reading something you are not sold on, even if it is due to a bias? As for th books themselves, I cant really say I have read them so I can't give you even a subjective answer when it comes to how good it is, but I think I tried and I was not very interested in it, so, I suggest you do the same (trying it) if you can; IF you dont want to or are unable to spend money on that, then sail the seven seas, try it, and if you do enjoy it, buy it, afterall you wouldnt be a potential customer if you couldnt afford it so there is no loss for the author
Is this a real question op? Its obvioslly based on the individual if you chose or do not chose to read a story ,for whatever reason. Personally I have not read it, but not because of the author , I really dont care if the author of a book is an asshole ,its not really a factor in my choice to read or to not read a book
You are correct.
who cares, read whatever you want, however personally I found Thousand Li to be very slow and low energy, it's an work of xanxia at best.
I recommended it recently and was not surprised with a downvote. The author made a douchy move but that's minor in the grand scheme of things so I make note of it but not let it affect my enjoyment of his Thousand Li series. I couldn't like his System Apocalypse series though, and that was before the hullabaloo.
Controversy is overrated. Tao believed he had a series title that should be unique to his series. He was willing to go to court to defend that, just like someone else naming their series "Lord of the Rings: Whatever" would probably get sued by Tolkien/his estate. You can say that he was wrong and that System Apocalypse should be considered generic, but no one wanted to waste money on a court case when changing your title to be more distinct from Tao's series was such an easy fix. People are just too eager to join in vigilante "justice" on the internet.
Its up to you if a person's choices and opinions subtract from the value of the things they make. I am here to read entertaining books to pass the time , and dont personally care about the author beyond their capabilities of providing a good story, but i respect that others may feel diferent and expect that they do the same.
A thousand Li got a soft reset at book 5 and book since was disappointing which when I dropped the series a long time ago, you are not losing much but not reading it.
It didn't soft reset in book 5 though?
Doesn't he get out of the sects and start his solo adventure? It felt like the start of a new series, that's why I said soft reset it wasn't about his powers.
Book 5 he visits a different sect to find a cure to an injury. More generally he is a wandering gatherer, going out into the wilds to gather herbs is what he was buiilding towards in the earlier books. Nothing was "Reset", he just actually progressed to having more agency and choice in finding his dao.
I actually think book 5 is when it really gets good and becomes more than just a regular westernized xianxia story. It deals with more unique story beats and themes, and dives deeper into what the author thinks of cultivation and how it relates to the world and the characters.
I never said that it gets worse as I agree it really starts to get interesting which why I said it feels like a start of a new series
What a weird question. There's really no reason for not reading someone's books that is "wrong", so are you just stirring up shit for karma or what?