I have decided to start something new that I think should improve the community here on Scribble Hub a lot if this catches on and more authors start doing this as well. At the end of every book, I will be giving a plug for another series that I truly enjoyed, but I do not think is gaining the attention it deserves. All of these are likely to be on my reading list, so you can find a lot of them there.
You may notice this is not the end of the book, this is the end of act 1 of book 2. Well, I did not post one for book 1, so we will just call this one a late update of book 1’s plug.
Anyway, my story for today is called Tree of Aeons. This is a series that I think would be rated MUCH more highly and be making regular appearances on the top trending list if the artist would just put a freaking cover art up for it. It is very well written and the story is quite compelling and incredibly original.
This one starts off like your typical Isekai story. It is a world that has a demon lord problem, so the gods summon some recently dead Earthlings and give them special powers to fight the demon lord. Well, here’s the thing. The gods want teens and young adults to become their heroes. However, our MC dies as a middle aged man who just happened to be on the same bus as the teens who got summoned. So, the gods had him but they didn’t want him. They had to find something to do with him, so they reincarnated him as a tree.
Now, as a tree, he became the spirit inhabiting the tree and quickly gained a great deal of power. Turns out, he possesses the ability to retain the hero essences from any other hero who is killed. He accumulates this power, and quickly gains levels in classic lite RPG fashion. However, he’s still a tree and has no ability to be mobile on his own.
For a stationary object, he seems to attract a lot of trouble, especially as others discover the power and protections he can give, and soon the other heroes start interacting with him as well. Then, in the more recent chapters, it even gets into some civilization building as well as a Starcraft style tower building RTS kinda feel to it as he gains the ability to make “subsidary trees” which are smaller trees that share his senses.
It is an incredibly interesting example of taking an unusual concept and fully committing to it. It is a very good and interesting read. (I might also have to admit to a bit of personal bias because there are some things about the MC that make it so that I can’t help but think of Dryad. Take that one as you may.)
Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I would definitely suggest checking it out. (and telling the author to get a freaking cover.)
EDIT: It seems the author of Tree of Aeons has gotten a cover since writing this, it seems one of his readers made it for him and donated it. He's now doing very well and is constantly on the top trending list. Glad to see this series finally getting all the attention it deserves. I would like to take some of the credit, maybe 20% of it, but it is certain that the majority of his improved performance is due to 1. The fact he has a cover now, and 2. The increased exposure allowing more people to find this fantastic series.
I read it. I see why you would like it, but I couldn't handle the very clear and major alignment shift of the protagonist. From good, nice chap to an evil tyrant - no thank you.
I found that point rather interesting, mainly because of how gradual the shift was and how clearly you could see the motivations behind it. It's all a matter of preventing harm to those he cares about as others are trying to take from the bounty he offers. He doesn't want to be taken advantage of, which a lot of the people around are trying to take advantage of him. He is faced with people threatening him.
It really reminds me a lot of "the prince," the book written by Macivelli that details out why it is that most rulers become tyrants. It's not because they are evil people, it is because ruling works in such a way, especially in a harsh world where everyone is out for themselves, that you kinda have to become a tyrant in order to just keep the order and prevent things from going horribly wrong.
(This is a weakness that democracy doesn't have quite as much. The consent of the governed is not only good for the people, it's good for the ruler as well since they don't have to worry about being back-stabbed as much. However, autocratic rulership will turn the nicest people into tyrants out of necessity.)
@Jemini Meh. Torturing someone to death to see how their soul tick is not related to preventing harm or anything. It's standart villain thinking (why would I not do something that benefits me?), he doesn't even stop to think whether some of his choices are moral or not.
Your argument about rulers also doesn't really apply. He isn't a ruler. He's a landowner cum gang leader, leasing land and extorting money in exchange for protection. There is no *social* contract between him and the people in his forest and he fundamentally views them as outsiders, not subjects.
(And there is a huge hole in your though on democracy, since autocratic governments, both historical and modern, often have very high "consent of the governed", higher than in many democracies).
@vallar That bit kinda happened quite a while after he was already going down this road. He was at a point where he was trying to figure out how to make his own side stronger due to the constant attacks, the most recent of which was the most severe and by an enemy that was particularly hateful to them threatening to almost perfectly repeat the atrocity that set him onto this road in the first place.
So, given those circumstances, it makes sense he would go to some very morally questionable areas in order to gain the ability to make his own side stronger. You are not wrong about him not really being a standard model of a ruler, but it's also not wrong that it's really his land. It's not just his land, the forest might as well be part of his body. The fact that someone would set up a kingdom in his forest and consider themselves the ruler is kinda insulting from that perspective, wouldn't you say? What would you think if a small race of people set up a kingdom on the back of your hand and started making demands of you?
This is the reason I like authors like this. I am not so into evil for the sake of evil, but it is fascinating watching evil acts that are the result of perfectly reasonable thought processes. Really, the thing I am most fascinated by in a work of fiction is truth. True things about human psychology and motivations, especially where it comes to evil acts.
For the flip side of this, I would actually suggest reading The Hunchback of Notradam, or finding the live-action stage play of it. The stage play is also made by Disney, and includes the stupid gargoyles, but it also follows the book a lot more closely. The original source material Frollo is a far more interesting villain than the animated version that is just pure evil. The book and the stage-play both show him starting off as a slightly selfish clergyman who thinks too much about his own image but is still kinda a nice guy, and shows his descent into a truly frightening villain one step at a time and every single step being a very logical step you could see anyone taking. That makes him truly frightening as a villain in a way that outdoes the 2 dimensional animated version by a massive margin.
@Jemini Like I said, I understand why you would like it (judging purely from your own fiction). I simply can't recommend it to anyone who does not enjoy evil *protagonists*. Showing such paths in secondary characters or antagonists is fine, but a first-person pov protagonist's role like this is not for everyone.
And I can't really pin him as rational either. He simply has plot armor thicker than his bark, so his decisions work out.
@Jemini
I tried out the story since youade a suggestion and it's a great story. Looking at the few comments on here I just wanted to say:
You're looking at it from a viewers point of view (we are reading a story after all) but if you're in an actuall sisuatiin like that you'd understand his way of thinking a bit more (not completely I'm sure).
He's put effort to make his own little home and suddenly people come in his front yard and set up tents. Then some gangsters come and fight and his house gets hot from stray bullets and so on so he's forced to participate. Of course he will no unhappy.
Then not long after, random people start moving in his front yard and around his house again and involve him in a big war. The previous one might have been a bit better since he had to fight monsters and demon kings anyway but this war has NOTHING to do with him. It's normal for him to ask for something in return for ruining his peace.
Then imagine you get a servant (lab girl) and a random thief sneaks in attempting to kill you and in the mean time uses some weird spell on her. To top it off, a massive ass army is attacking and trying to kill his friends/neighbours. It would be understandable to kill the thief. As for torturing him... He didn't really mean to? I imagine it like he was just testing but then the man ended up in pain so it was similar to torture but it's kinda important to find out how souls work since his whole soul tree existence is about souls. Plus, I'm starting to think his thinking may have been distorted from being a f*cking tree for many tens of years . Many of which were spent without talking to anyone
@Ves Damn that's a good point. Even though I haven't read the book/novel dunno what that is but you're seriously good at this persuasion and making a point thing, I felt genuinely moved.