Insectum Chronica

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

For reasons that are yet unknown, a group of high schoolers find their selves stranded on an unfamiliar land. How would these naive modern day students survive now that they've all been scattered across the globe? What course will the protagonist life takes, now that he has become one of those abominable monsters himself? Dwell in the mythical world of Saol Eile, a land of strife and fire, where monsters are deadly and brutal, where one's life hangs by the iron at their waist. *Note: This novel is a dark fantasy, but told in a light-hearted and carefree tone.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2016
Author: AmanoMai

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.2/ 5.0
Followers: 237
Views: 140,904

Chapters(27 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

HapkiRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
If you love fantasy and aren't disgusted by gore descriptions, this story is for you. The potential for story development is quite high with a well-introduced background and niec grammar. Some illustrations embelish the chapters, a point which is not to be neglected on RoyalRoad.
AxoneRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Insectum Chronica is told from a first-person narrative, mainly from the protagonist’s point of view with some switching to side characters.
AmanoMai appears at first to be following the generic ‘transported to a new world’ formula, but unlike many has succeeded in adding his own touch to it. The world’s monsters, the character’s abilities, and the reaction of the natives deviates from the norm towards the realistic end of the spectrum.
The protagonist seems a tad whiny at first and the first person perspective doesn’t help with this. I am glad to say that he quickly becomes one of the best things about this novel. His reaction to his situation and his initiative are huge positives for me.
The grammar is significantly better than usual RoyalRoadl standards. Some of the text in the earlier chapters needs to be spaced out more as it interrupts the flow somewhat. The later chapters do not have this flaw.
I cannot go without commenting on the art. Throughout the chapters there is some high quality art that really help in visualising the characters and monsters we meet. It is clear that AmanoMai has put a lot of time and thought into this novel.
In addition to the excellent art the chapters are of significant length. The seventeen chapters that I have read so far are comparable to sixty chapters of other novels on this site. I would like to make it clear to the author that while I enjoy both the art and the lengthy chapters, I would rather prefer you keep the chapter length if you are ever forced to save time.
The plot is moving at a good pace and I am looking forward to seeing what happens next. There are many things I cannot mention without spoilers, including why I have titled this work as horror fantasy. I will leave that surprise for future readers.
ForsakenXLegionRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
i love how you put all those pov it makes the story more understandable and the situation of the other people beside the mc and the illustration are just amazing it makes the story more interesting
Shutra25Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Excelente ............................................................................................................................................................................................
PeppermancerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's well written and thought out, illustrations are some of the best I've seen on this site, and it is well balanced between comedy, seriousness, and action. Now if only there weren't so many bugs involved *shiver*
AugustusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This reminds me of Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka, sort of, the MC's are sort of similar in personality, but your is more human. Anyway I have not read it all yet but it is amazing and I hope you continue writing.
God's HydraRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The only reason this story is not higher than a four overall is because I only rate things a 4.5 or 5 after they hit 50 chapters, and right no it is at 23. This is my first review on this site, but it is a rule I use when I rate webnovels to friends, and now on with the review.
STYLE 5/5
The Author does a great job at writing, allowing you to really visualize the situation, and feel the tension. And when the Author feels this isn't enough, he supplements with these really amazing drawings that can really do the scene or characters justice.
STORY 4.5/5
Watch out for spoilers from this point on.
So it opens with the MC dying, then goes a few days back to address how the MC got there. Nothing new here. MC is a loner, nothing new, but he is quirky, cowardly, and is too pretty for his own good., And then he and his class travel/ are taken/end up in to a different world. After this, he wake up alone, finds some of his classmates, and is saved by a kind elf archer. Then the kind elf archer turns out to be a slaver, kidnaps them, and MC falls down a cliff, and gets eaten by some insect/arthropod thing. And then he is reincarnated as the thing that ate him, and most similarities with other "Other world" novels end. All in all, a great and original story.
GRAMMAR 4/5
I'm really harsh on grammar, but this story is fairly devoid of errors, but the Author has some mistakes spread out, be it tenses, wrong words, or some minor spelling. I'd recommend to just read certain parts out loud, and you'll catch them.
CHARACTER 4/5
More spoilers. YE BE WARNED
I love the MC's changing mindset, and how he deals with his problems. My problem is just how fast he came to terms with killing and eating humans. Granted, he is no longer human, but I just feel like it should have been fleshed out more. Besides that though, these characters seem to be just stereotypes, but that changes fairly quickly, with each set of characters. You have the rape group, which the Author did a great job at by the wa
jwalker2_4Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
It's well written so far. A few minor grammar mistakes, some unnecessary repetitions, but overall good. Just one teeny problem. This is a genderbender story. Don't mistake me, there is an audience for that, and I don't personally have strong feelings on this one way or another, but it should be tagged. It's gonna throw off a lot of readers if it isn't.
GaskRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
This series begins with the tried and true Japanese LN trope of the bullied protagonist who’s surrounded by the usual cast of cruel or indifferent classmates who soon find themselves in a new world because… that’s what usually happens. The upside here is that no one has summoned them, no one cares about them, they’ve been scattered over a wide area and a variety of creatures find them extremely delicious. As you can imagine, soon after they appear, bad things start to happen and the protagonist experiences a change that will set the stage for the rest of the novel.
These details should sound fairly familiar and they are but despite this the opening situation is engaging enough to grab and retain interest and the artwork serves to illustrate what’s happening quite well. That said, one issue that often comes up is the author’s tendency to interrupt his action sequences with long passages of dry observation and explanation detailing the how and why of it all. These details can obviously be important, when necessary, and worthwhile, at the right moment, but not when they break the flow of a scene that’s meant to build tension or to be exciting. As it is these digressions often sap most of the emotion out of dangerous and potentially immersive situations.
Another problem and the potential main sticking point for many is the personality of the protagonist. At the beginning he comes off as fairly level headed and quirky, as the story progresses and he experiences his first power up his personality remains the same except that he suddenly transitions into a psychopathic cannibal as well. One who has little to no qualms about butchering any number of people, unprovoked, and preserving their corpses for future snacking. If you enjoy dark, gory manga stories that don’t take themselves very seriously then you will enjoy this transition. Personally my main issue was with its presentation as this change occurs without the meddling of any outside influence. Thus you are
despairpartyRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
(Spoilers addressed in this review, including at least one big one, but the delivery of these events are so homogeneous I doubt it matters.)
There is one thing that is absolutely key in dramatic, raw, gritty, serious stories, one thing that makes good fiction great, one thing that is so important that it's really jarring if it isn't present;
Emotional intensity.
This story is, at first delivery, pretty good! It exhibited a really interesting setup in the human world, an interesting otherworld, an interesting twist, and an interesting starting goal. The writing is incredibly resonate with Japanese webnovels, and it's done well (the laziness of telling you who's talking in parenthesis aside). By all means, this story SHOULD be good.
But it isn't, because it's a soulless husk as soon as we hit the characters themselves.
The main problem starting out is tone; it's written like a serious comedy, but the contents are all gritty and grimdark, so the airy-fairy writing style where the character makes calm commentary like every single aspect of what's happening to them (see: this is a problem for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER) is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. We should be dizzy with the implications of eating someone, but because the character goes "gross and technically wrong but I'll roll with it", the overall impression is just...eeehhgnh?
The whole story is written as one giant shrug, and the more intense the events get, the harder it is to tolerate.
The lack of emotional intensity, though, is the killer.
At no point do we see a character we're meant to care about exhibit any sort of extreme emotion; the best we get are the throwaway-from-the-get-go students the MC bumps into at the start, who are just kinda. Crying and swooning. The reader is constantly informed that the situation is pretty messed up, but at no point do characters who should by all means be flipping out (like MC, class rep) actually express any emotion.
A huge part of making a dark, raw story is te