Formicea

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The swarm.A unitary force of countless entities.Nightmarish creatures from the darkest depths.All working towards a greater purpose.Simply fulfilling their role in a complex system.Abducted from the world I know I am now forced to become a part of this.Forced to help these horrors to increase their power.However, they are not mindless killers.There might be a way for me.I could influence them from the inside.To prevent that anyone has to die.To protect the ones I love.Maybe I can adjust.

If not for the eggs.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2021
Author: expentio

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 516
Views: 629,842

Chapters(252 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

ThisPeterisnotPeterRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
An excellent, gripping read, partly due to how well author understands and works by "Non-Human Lead" genre and its implications, allowing it to shine to the fullest. You can feel this understanding in descriptions of formicea (their society, strengths and banes), their interactions with humans, and the main character facing her disturbing transformation and responsibilities it brings.
This story is neither afraid to remind that MC is not а human anymore, nor does it suddenly replace her character with a cold, ideally adapted one, deprived of human experiences and ideals, nor it tries to bury this topic under a mountain of conventions. So you see her learning, doing things her own way, making mistakes and compromises.
Overall, on both the human and formicea sides, characters feel alive and complex. At times I wondered how some of them would interact with each other or being on their own, and as you can imagine I found interludes quite exciting.
The story itself has pretty good pacing without overly protracted or suddenly shortened moments.
The grammar is fine. Early chapters took some polishing, but author has clearly improved since then.
Style is the most questionable part, although I got used to it very quickly and see the author’s intention, I understand that some may be confused by the use of initials after lines in dialogues. This may be partly why, in later chapters, potentially puzzling moments often began to receive noticeably more context (Like a name instead of initial and/or reintroduction of a long-unmentioned characters).
SaxifrageRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
With all the chapters already published, we can already appreciate the immense potential of this story. The chapters are long, the world is coherent for the moment and the path taken by the protagonist is really exciting! For me it's 5 stars although I can't judge the grammar as English is not my native language.
ArmitageRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm really enjoying formecia so far, the story and world building is fascinating, the characters are interesting with their own querks good and bad, grammer is fairly solid and easy to follow has some issues here and there overall the dialogue and banter is great and enjoyable to follow 😀 ❤️ some of expentio's finest work if i do say so myself. Keep up the good work my friend. 🧡 love from Australia 🇦🇺 ❤️
OatsMaGoatsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is one of my favourite fictions I've read on this site so far, I even decided to make an account so I could follow and review it.
English is apparently the authors second langauge, and the writing conventions they use are quite strange. Once you get used to this however I found it clear enough and I'd say in general it is quite well written.
Where it really stands out is in originality, and I'd highly recommend it to people who are tired of isekai.
All in all a good read, and I eagerly await more chapters!
DethRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm enjoying this and look forward to each installment. Unlike other similar stories, looking at you "Isekais", the main character is relatable. She has inherited all this power and a stronger body, but struggles. She has to adapt to each new situation. She has support from her family and new species family. And I find this to differentiate itself from other stories.
woseRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Before I begin, I must acknowledge that the author is aware of their limitations due to English being their second language. Despite this, I could see a clear improvement during the course of the story which is commendable. If they are reading this, please know that I'm also a non-native speaker and that I can see that your hard work shows.
Now for the review on the story: Formicea has probably the best blurb on this whole website, which drew me to read this. The copy is chef's kiss good and it made me wonder if the author shouldn't try working with flash fiction or shorter formats instead.
The actual story keeps a proper pace, even if it does take a little while to get going at times, alternating between world-building and action. This is a very difficult balance to achieve in fiction which is commendable.
The problem arises in the author's signature style and the way they handle prose. While the idea appears to be to maintain a snappy, screenplay style exchange and progression (at least by my reckoning), it often uses a character's initials or a descriptor of said character, often before introducing them. I often had a hard time realizing who was talking when until I got to know the characters better.
This also hurts the moments of body and regular horror, taking away some of their punch because of it. I trust I will see an improvement soon, however.
Overall, this is an underrated piece of fiction on this website and I'd like to see it get more exposure.
OdioalosHackersRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Overall, this story is simple but effective.
We follow the life of Erys, a young, unremarkable peasant girl who, due to events beyond her control, finds herself in a crucial position for the Swarm, a hive of insectoid creatures that, like any hive, seeks expansion and has no problem waging war to secure their goals.
I can't criticize the grammar because I read this page thanks to Google Translate, so I don't recognize when there are mistakes.
I like the main character. She's a simple person who has to go through things no one else has to go through. She's afraid, has doubts, and doesn't know what to do. But thanks to the characters around her, human or otherwise, she finds her way in her new life. And the others? I like them too. Each character has their own way of thinking and acting. This work isn't very long, but it ends at the right point for my personal taste.
OntokineticRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
This story has a well executed setting that provides sensible and engaging consequences to the characters’ choices: progressing the plot in a coherent and mostly interesting manner.
the subjects and big decisions provide initially engaging insights and entertainment but steadily become tired out and boring due to repetitive descriptions and actions. The psychology of the characters is well done and inspired but tiresome as the amount of character development is not well proportioned to the amount of time spent describing their mental states.
the cast is limited in size but well executed and very believable which in conjunction with some character’s exotic traits makes their writing especially impressive. The characters are varied in behavior and mostly make sense for their upbringing. Such is especially true for the Formicea characters who each have unique and demonstrably alien traits.
the book is distinctly uncomfortable and uncompromising in how it presents ethically and emotionally challenging situations. Often making applying human morality to the formicea seem like a futile exercise.
the world building is tasteful and serves to enhance the important themes, provide entertaining reprieves without being distracting.
personally I feel this book starts strong but becomes frustrating and boring towards the end, it makes up for this however with some remarkably entertaining side POVs from other characters, the epilogue was extraordinarily amusing and I find it surpassed a lot of the actual book in terms of personal interest.
HypnoticyunaRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I have to ask what it is with authors on this site and forcing characters compliance and then continuing to push it farther. The mc was race changed by force and does NOTHING to get away from the source of many issues, the queen. Then her family gets screwed and doesn't help get them away. Instead the author decides to stick the family with the cause who is a trash person. And it constantly feels like the book is heading towards the worst possible ending for the mc which, fine. But the book has way too many hentai mind bending vibes and just ew.
Vash209Royal Road
★★ 2.0
The story has a premise that I LOVE. However, despite that, I cannot recommend it.
The style is probably the thing about this story I find the most consistently irritating. Each line has a letter at the end or a sentence to denote the name of who said that line. It makes the writing feel hard to follow who is speaking, as well as dry. No descriptions of the tone a person said something in. Just a (E) or (H). The style would improve immensely if "the Queen said" and "the MC yelled" were added the the end of lines of dialogue.
The story needs to be cleaned up. Many of the rationalizations and motivations of why a character is taking certain actions are not adequately explained. Many of the comments in the story are people asking the elaborations on the text because they are confused. If a 2 paragraph response is needed to explain why your characters are doing something then their motivations need to be made clear.
The early chapters feel rough because of the writing style but once you get used to it the grammar felt alright. I feel that it improves as the story goes on and will probably continue to do so.
I don't have anything good to say about most of the characters. The Villains are mustache twirling idiots whose plans would likely end in the destruction of their own nations. Nations that they are presumably attempting to save. They make decisions with authorial knowledge in mind.
The MC is truly an imbecile. Nearly every line that describes how she is feelings is "overwhelmed" or "stressed". She constantly describes herself as out of her depth. It isn't very compelling characterization. She is unbelievable naive about everything and never learns from her mistakes. I find that if I read with her as a human sympathizer that wants to turn the Formicea into slaves that gather resources for the humans, then her actions make a lot more sense.