Mark II [Hidden World Urban Fantasy]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Monsters. Spirits. Gods. All real, all forgotten, all invisible to most in the 21st century. Malcolm is a Ranger, one of the unlucky few tasked with managing all this supernatural nonsense. His job is hard enough, but when he meets Red—a kid his age far too strong to know so little—everything gets much more complicated.

On Volume 3 | 300k+ words.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: JR Castle

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.2/ 5.0
Followers: 143
Views: 45,189

Reviews

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Community Reviews(6)

A V DalcourtRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Style: Written in 3rd person, the author focused primarily on the relationships building the characters, largely through dialogue, while sprinkling in a nice dose of action sequences. He does a great job pulling along without bogging us down with character life stories and origins of their super powers. I’m enjoying not knowing and I’m looking forward to learning more.
Story: A new recruit arrives serendipitously to an urban super hero group, who specializes in taking out supernatural threats. We open with an angry golem who had just woken up after a long hibernation, bewildered, confused, and whose species is on the cusp of extinction. As Red gets acquainted with his new crew, the bad guys spring a trap! And that’s where I’m at…
Character: Malcom is our main MC, as so far the point of view seems to focus on his view of the story. This may change, it may not. I don’t know for sure. I only have access to three chapters. Either way, the characters are this author’s strong point. Everything about them feels authentic, and it doesn’t hurt that he throws in a few cultural references that feel just a little too familiar (Surviving my teen years by being good a Mortal Combat – is that true for anyone else?)
AQuackRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Note: This is going to be more of a rambling of my thoughts (that I had while reading) than a review.
First of all, just want to say that the ad for this story worked. As a big shounen battle manga fan, I read the text and clicked after only a few seconds of scrutinizing the weird looking art.
After finishing up on vol.2, I think this is a solid popcorn fic but with one seriously annoying flaw.
The story's writing style, characters, fight scenes, and plot are all well done and executed. I didn't find any major faults there at the very least. Characters were great and unique, the plot for each arc were entertaining, and the fight scenes while a bit simple at times were engaging.
Ideally this would be where I stop my review and call it a day, but I need to talk about the world building and magic system. Not that they are bad, just that information about them is literally drip fed across the 800 pages or so of the story. Actually calling it drip feeding might be an exaggeration now that I think about it more. I know that at some point early on the Author left a AN saying he doesn't like expositions/info-dumps but I sure as fuck wished for some for the first time in a long time.
So to explain my frustration with this aspect, usually a typical battle shounen would explain its general magic system/world building early on either gradually or through a straight up info-dump. Either way it doesn't matter.
In Mark-2, up to ~700 pages in all the reader knows is that "Spirit" is an energy that exists (that the MC is barely aware of btw) and that other skilled people clap their hands before doing magic tricks. For 700 pages the MC is only punching people, which is admittedly typical for the genre, with no clue to the wider picture.
That's like watching JJK or HxH without getting the details of cursed energy or Nen. Really fucking annoying I'd bet.
Spoilery for Act 1
Just wanted to say, found it absurd and kinda funny that we were already at saving the world by chapter 9.
Overall
M.G DriverRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A brilliant simple read, with the main focus being battles and contests. The plot is easy to get into, along with comedic jokes and funny dialogue to keep things interesting. Don't read this review any longer - just start reading!
Style:
Great description of battle scenes, with brilliant vocabulary to describe the actions and movements of others in that said scene. No beating about the bush, no flashbacks - straight to the action 'punch in your gut' style.
The way the dialogue is written is also clean and concise, making it easy for the reader to keep track of who said what.
Personal Gripe: I read this on mobile, and while the paragraph sizes might be good for a normal book or essay, it is far too chunky for this type of novel. The reader's reading speed picks up slightly when the scenario being detailed is tense. This makes the current format of chunky paragraphs even harder to read during such moments, again, it's a personal issue, so I'm not marking it down a lot.
Story:
I personally don't like the simplistic plot (or so it seems so far) but then again it is a shounen battle anime-inspired novel - so full marks for that. In such novels, the plot is meant to not be extremely complex as well, so the author does a good job in simplifying what needs to be done and what's going to happen next.
All in all, an easy to follow and understand plot. The battle is where it is at.
Grammar:
I'm not a native English speaker, so I can't pick up any language details. The novel never once tripped me in terms of understanding and following the battle scenes, so 5 out of 5.
Character:
It is a battle-focused novel between superpowers, so of course there will be a huge ensemble of characters. I can tell that the system is a bit intricate in that it's not a battle of 'Oh my power level is 5000, yours is 4999 - you lose' there is still a base level of physics in the world that the characters can use to get around potential losses, and I find it all very ingenious.
My personal gripe is t
One Way JusticeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Story& Characters: A nice and engaging blend of the known and unknown, our own familiar world infused with a rousing splash of the supernatural—in other words: urban fantasy done well. (It’s very much a character-driven story, so I think there is little sense in splitting up the discussion.)
Malcolm soon establishes himself as a non-hero type hero... he is a pragmatic fellow (I want to say ‘man’, but he’s merely nearing adulthood) who acts out of a deep-seated sense of duty, it seems. Not one for self-glorification; he does not want or need the hero status. It just comes with the job. This does make him oddly endearing in a way. And regardless of what he wants, as a Ranger he is put right in the firing line of the supernatural threats that lurk, mostly in the dark... so duty calls, and it’s time for heroic acts more often than not.
Aside from the urban wizardry, there is ample attention given to the psychological aspects of slinging spells in the park—always a welcome sight: emotional depth in web novels.
The side characters add depth and at times emotional involvement—they do not appear as just ‘there’ for plot purposes.
Style: A clean, staccato-style prose. Very modern, but with little twists. This makes for a very readable (and bingeable) story, though personally I prefer the prose to be a bit more varied in cadence and more dramatic/engaging, so it can set the scene rather than stay in the background.
Grammar: Clean and well-edited. Nothing much to remark on.
wiserthanthouRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I know it only has three chapters so far, I'm gonna hold off on doing a full review for now, but I just have to get it out there how much I love this book. The author writes with a confidence that is rare to find online, I felt like I was being directed by a master writer, once I started reading I could not stop and though I may have caught up with the tale I am still thinking about it, days later.
Besides the incredible prose, the star of the show are the characters. All of them are extremely likable and entertaining but, more than that, their banter is giving me life right now. They each are such complete people, I can tell that even from three chapters, and their conversations are addicting as heck. I can't remember a story that had characters that I could literally just read them talk forever and not even care about a plot.
Tremendous work Mr. Castle, I am waiting for every next chapter on the edge of my seat.
J.DrudeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Mark II is an impressive piece of Shonen that takes the premise of the hidden world of the fantastical and slaps it in a modern setting. Malcom and Red are the two main points of view for the story so far, and they play off each other extremely well. Red is an uneducated, easy going dude that loves a good fight while Malcom plays the reluctant, straight laced student with good grades.
The cast of characters that make up the Rangers works well. While they all work together, not all of them get along, and they all have their points of view and mannerisms that put their aims in conflict with one another from time to time. Everyone feels like a real person, if a little 'heightened' by the style of the story.
So far the plot has action, intrigue, and drama, and I'm all here for it. There's enough mystery interlaced in the action that the story never feels one note, and the world the author has created keeps surprising me.
Good stuff. Read it.