Crimson Tower: Blight

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

On New Year’s Eve, Jude goes to Brooklyn to meet Nathan and Angela, a couple he met during Christmas. When the ball drops in Time Square, a huge spiral tower bursts from the ground high into the air. As it does, a hundred thousand people suddenly disappear from the city at random. They were all dragged into the tower for the first floor trial: Survive.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2023
Author: Sooty_Owl_

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 39
Views: 26,591

Reviews

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Community Reviews(7)

Sakura sakiRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
"Crimson Tower: Blight" (available 42 chapter)
First off, I read the initial chapters for the swap, thought it was a decent start, and then, out of curiosity, kept going. The story clearly isn't finished. It ends on a major cliffhanger with two separate teams heading toward a village in a second trial. It feels like the author wrote a long first act, marked it as complete, and then later decided to continue. That's fine, but the tagging is confusing.
Style: The style is straightforward and readable. It's mostly third-person limited, switching between Jude/Iris and the military team. The prose isn't flashy, which works for a story like this. It gets the job done without getting in the way. The shift from a lonely, almost cozy Christmas-in-NYC opening to survival horror, then to high fantasy with the Fae, and finally to a tactical military narrative. The author is blending genres, and for the most part, it works.
Story: The plot is the strongest part. It's structured like a video game (Trial 1, Trial 2), but the execution has depth. The first trial in the Red Wood was well-paced. The mystery of the rot, the Fae, and the Devourer was engaging. I liked that solving it involved healing and diplomacy, not just combat. The return to Earth and the world-building around the global Tower phenomenon and the military response was a smart, logical expansion. It raised the stakes from personal survival to something geopolitical. The parallel storytelling between Jude/Iris and Cooper's squad is effective; you get two different philosophies on how to handle the Tower.
Grammar: No major issues. It's professionally presented.
Characters:Jude and Iris are solid protagonists. Jude's practicality and guilt over feeling "useless" are relatable. Iris is more compelling, her healer's mentality twisting into a dangerous, obsessive drive to master the rot is a great character arc. Captain Brett Cooper is also well-drawn; he's a professional soldier, not a caricature, and his priorities (fami
Deempress_12Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
WOW
This book has me reading until I was lost can't wait to continue after this review.i like how descriptive every detail is and how suspenseful each paragraph is,it's like you can't even tell what to expect next like you are right there experiencing every emotion the protagonist goes through and it has zero spelling error just one place I happen to catch an offending error in the grammer in chapter one ,great work I must confess and the setting makes it more appreciated able the only thing I would suggest is to tone down the excessive use of "Jude" try the second person pronoun instead and I sincerely hope I would see the end because my mind is already working three times it's speed to try to create an ending,I really want to see which ending I got correct.
J.V. GloomRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Great start. The setting of a blizzard-struck NYC is a cool backdrop for a System Apocalypse origin. I liked that the MC isn't just a gamer in a chair, but someone out exploring the world when things go wrong. The mystery of the "transfer" in the alleyway is a great hook, and the flash-forward dream sequence at the end promises some massive stakes coming up. Interested to see where it goes.
167fiveRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This has a lot of potential!
The story itself is very good. The plot, characters, and settings all seem very realistic and interesting. The backdrop of a blizzard-ridden New York as the setting is definately unique. The grammer and spelling are all also very good.
However, there are still a few things that I feel that the author can improve.
The paragraphs are too descriptive. For a story that relies on tension and suspense, it kind of breaks the flow.
The start of the story is a bit too slow. I can understand that the author did it on purpose to make the tense moments later on more impactful, but it is harmful for reader attention. Readers dont want to be reading +2000 words of the main character describing how his apartment looks like.
Still, this does have a lot of potential. I'll be looking forward to see how the story improves!
Marlon_TraversRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I finally had time to read a large chunk of this story over the holidays, which made perfect sense, because the beginning of this book takes place during Christmas in New York. The setting immediately dragged me in: Times Square during a city-crippling blizzard. Jude is new in town, and we're given a thorough background of the character in the first few thousand words. Chapter 2 is when things start popping off. A mysterious (dead) character is introduced, which opens up dozens of dramatic questions as to who this person is, how they will fit into the story later, and even if Jude is totally sane.
The pace slows over the next few chapters as Jude becomes quick friends with the local convenience store owner and a group of artists who hang out in the nearby bar. Conveniently (yes, I know), his love interest happens to be the daughter of said convenience store owner.
As the new lovers share a New Year's Eve kiss, they are transported to the world of the Crimson Tower, and all hell breaks loose. You are in for a ride. It's a slow-ish burn that allows the story and the characters to breathe, but nonetheless, hang on to your britches.
From a stylistic perspective, the author has a habit of overwriting mundane details that could either be omitted or refined with simpler constructions. Still, these could be cleaned up with a quick edit with a keen eye for lyposuction.
This is a fantastic story that is well worth a read. I look forward to more from the SOOTY OWL!
bwfoster78Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Honestly, this one just wasn't for me. If this were a standard tower climber, I probably would have kept reading, but I rapidly lost interest.
On the plus side, the writing is solid. Everything is understandable. There is a real attempt to craft believable characters.
On the minus side, the pace is kind of glacial, and this system so far is extremely LitRPG lite. Very little in the way or stats. I think the worst thing for me, though, is that the characters aren't being given an opportunity to level up before facing the Big Bad. Instead, the story feels more like a horror story than a tower climber.
This story isn't what I want to read simply due to my tastes, but it is done well enough that YMMV by a lot.
lar.larRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
The premise and title of the book set me up with an expectation that this was going to be one of those stories where you progress from one level, fighting monsters as you level up.
All that I have read so far feels nothing like that all and I it makes me wonder whether I'm the only one who got that impression from reading the synopsis.
Regardless, this is a review on the book we got and what we got is not bad at all. Its a romance, slow paced, novel about healing (up to the point I read).
I will always sit down and read a story like that. It's very hard for me to ignore a feel good atmosphere. Especially one with fae and talkative songbirds. I didn't really care for the litrpg elements and think the story would have been better off without them.
I commonly associate LitRPG with adrenaline fuelled fast action paced worlds and so seeing it in this setting feels a bit shoehorned, to be honest.
The main characters are fine. They have clear motivations and objectives as well as a time limit to add some stakes to the plot. The only thing I wish they had were glaring flaws. They feel too clean to me, too perfect. There isn't much room for character development UNLESS they are going to degrade over time and show their flaws further on. That would be interesting to see.
It's a good book. I just feel it should be marketed more as a romance, slow paced novel.