[OLD VERSION] Cradles of Gravity

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

THIS IS THE OLD VERSION OF THE STORY.It is still posting for several more chapters for the readers who have been following along, but if you are new to the story, it is highly recommended to starthere.

Soren woke up on a strange planet today—and yesterday was 8,000 years ago.

He's taller, stronger, full of unstable cosmic energy, and surrounded by alien matriarchs.

And they want to kill him.

Welcome to Cradles of Gravity!

A space opera romance with all the laughs, playful banter, and chaos that make up a good found family story. It also contains adult sexual themes, emotional trauma, and graphic violence. Come join the crew, save the world, and learn to transcend humanity.

What do the readers have to say?

“The writing, story, characters, and world are all Will Wight top-tier amazing.”

“It treats care as action, rushes and thrills, and respects healing without sanding off the sharp edges. The writing is clean and cinematic.”

“This author really gets relationships. Every character organically builds connections that take time and effort—characters actually communicate. If you like slow burns, found families, or stories about people striving to be their best selves, then hell yes, read this.”

What to Expect

- Multi-POV Storytelling

- Extremely layered characters and worldbuilding

- Slow-burn relationships, both romantic and platonic

- High reread value. You’ll wish you could experience it for the first time again.

-Powerful women with hooves and huge chests. Don’t come leaving comments saying you weren’t warned, this is your notice to hop off now.

📅 New chapters every Monday and Thursday at 7AM EST. Comments are always welcome (this story was built to be shared!), and you canJoin the Discordto discuss chapters, share theories, and connect with other readers.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2025
Author: Rauxon

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.1/ 5.0
Followers: 417
Views: 112,419

What readers say about [OLD VERSION] Cradles of Gravity

“O damn. That art. That's easy on the eyes. Okay, so here's what I love about this: You've got two scales going at the same time. One is an intimate character connection. Another is COSMIC. You make the grandiose feel personal. I love the 'cold open'. It's t…”
SaucingtonRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“This came to me when looking for trending sci-fi romance. I'm willing to see it grow, provided it can decide what it wants to be I appreciated the opening and the world setting (with BUTs, more on this later). Although it reminded me of different video game…”
Saturn Gei GeiRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(7)

SaucingtonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
O damn. That art. That's easy on the eyes.
Okay, so here's what I love about this: You've got two scales going at the same time. One is an intimate character connection. Another is COSMIC. You make the grandiose feel personal.
I love the 'cold open'. It's two people arguing and illustrating the disparity in their power levels. But when she headbutts him, this transition happens (Beyond finding out she's a weapon and he's a squishy human): We see a violent explosion and find out we're talking something planetary, where we don't know if he's a planet, or a god, or a naked idiot under a table. All before the opening credits roll and the theme song plays.
He wakes up naked and confused and that's an excellent hook (kind of like in Eden of the East where a Japanese tourist is getting yelled at by cops and a naked man with a gun shows up and offers to help). Fantastic hook to drive us into the next chapter.
Delightful tropes:
"Person of Mass Destruction": Lulu is a living weapon, not just some solider. And she's not evil, but out for revenge. It makes her sympathetic in that antihero way.
"Naked on Arrival": The Terminator, or Doctor Who after a regeneration. Showing up naked under a table isn't just humor and great drama but also serves as a great tone shift and a grounding mechanism for a new act of the story.
Saturn Gei GeiRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This came to me when looking for trending sci-fi romance. I'm willing to see it grow, provided it can decide what it wants to be
I appreciated the opening and the world setting (with BUTs, more on this later). Although it reminded me of different video games, the pacing was handled competently. The same competent prose holds throughout the book, showing the author knows what a cozy novel is. The crew is competent and SOME are memorable. The prose as I said is good, and it has stayed that out throughout the parts I've read
I like that the story goes at a slow pace, and I can appreciate how certain scenes could play out if adopted to a different media like manga or anime. But that's also weird because I get the impression that this story identifies as inspired by western video games (Mass Effect, KOTOR), though (and I hope this makes sense to the author) there's just way more Final Fantasy and Dragon Balls in it. The prose can be a bit too rich at times but never past the 'ick' threshold. Somehow I get the same 'shonen wannabe' vibes here like I do several other books on the website, only this book implements in a more mature, holistic and competent way
What prevents this story from being great is the cast of deceptively diverse characters: what I mean is, they 'look' diverse, but aren't actually. Paradoxically, I find the male characters (except Aurania who's obviously woman and awesome) to be much more compelling even though I'm usually more invested in female toons, having read adventure romance and raunchy stories in different languages. I think this 'unbalanced cast' problem is contributing to bouncing and controversy reflected in the book's rating. It risks attracting a wrong audience who'd 1-star it because they misinterpret it as harem, or they think it is harem and are disappointed there's none. When the space opera and cozy adventure finally come, the votes have been cast. This site's age groups appears quite young and boy-dominant, so that might explain thi
Vel WovenRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Hello to any reader that sees this.
I am Vel, a fellow author who's also been writing a space opera that identifies as 'quirky' and 'different'. When I saw Rauxon's book, I thought I might give it a go. It's multi-POV, has romantic elements, is different, and isn't afraid to let you see it.
Having just recently finished Act 1, this review's content will focus on that.
Long story short: Whether you enjoy this book will hugely (almost entirely) depend on how much you like the POV characters. If you like Soren or Aurania, you can easily settle into their shoes and appreciate the amount of effort that's been put into the universe.
On style, while the opening resembles a Hollywood-ish opening with high-octane elements, the general 'vibe' of the story can be placed in the 'cozy, feel-good' category. What this means is that you can enjoy the story over an afternoon coffee or on that train back from work and not worry about forgetting something important or getting stressed over life-and-death situations too much. Despite the occasional inconsistent pacing and structure (extended setup, unresolved threads), this story is very human. Sharp-eyed readers will soon be able to tell that this is hobbyist writing.
For me, the passion and effort behind the passages are often enough to overcome the dangling plot threads and keep me interested. There's also emotional authenticity, particularly in scenes like Inelius with his parents, or Tamiyo's reflection on witnessing healthy intimacy. The emotions feel lived-in.
If you've played RPGs like Mass Effect, you'll notice some elements that feel endearing, but if not, you can still enjoy this book if character-driven story is your thing, or if you endorse the idea of alien beautiful characters of the feminine persuasion (I'm phrasing it this way because some characters are really above the average 'just really hot, not much else' baseline).
One thing that stood out for me was the beautiful descriptive passages that show the world (althou
sebbiRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The title, it’s really good! Some unique formatting, but you get used to it. A GREAT cast of characters, with very unique personalities, and some very dark moments mixed with some light heartedness really ties it all together. Great stuff, would recommend 100%
filler word, filler word, filler word, filler word, for the 50 word rule :)
LiteraryToadRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I am primarily a romance reader, so my review is from that perspective.
It's too rare I get to say this about romance stories, but I'm happy to say it here: this author really gets relationships. Every character here organically builds connections with each other, and those connections take time and effort. Many books struggle with relationships that seemingly spring from nowhere other than plot necessity, but this one is firmly in the character driven category to my eye. Nobody is static here either—you'll find that everyone is affected by everyone else in some way and this whole book is you getting to appreciate that journey together. Characters actually communicate with each other too, I love it! I know, crazy to see in a romance book. Plus, if you're a mono romance reader like me, you'll find enough to enjoy with the main character's slow burn ship.
At times it feels like the story stretches itself thin on the number of POVs. There is already so much written here, so it feels weird to say this, but it could honestly benefit from even more. Specifically more time letting the characters breathe between major plot points. Cradles of Gravity has more quiet moments than many other sprawling space operas, so it's a testament to the depth of character writing that it doesn't feel like enough—there's a high ceiling here that has yet to be reached.
As far as the sci-fi space-y-ness of it all, I found there to be enough interesting lore here for the nerd in me to have fun detangling mysteries and imagining possibilities. There is a little-understood magic-like force paired with technology that seems fantastical and yet stymied by some invisible barrier to progress (part of the mystery). If we're talking Star Trek (my sci-fi baseline), the scope is like Deep Space Nine minus all the minor and MOTW aliens. We have a consistent cast of several people and a few alien races the plot centers around. They're still boldly going places when events require it, just don
ZinBreakerRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Don't get me wrong. The writing, story, characters and world are all amazing. Like, top tier amazing. Like, Will Wight top tier amazing. There is so much potential here. And the little taste I've given the novel so far shows great execution as well. However, I'm 8 chapters in and almost every chapter so far has been from a new POV. I know the synopsis warns of multi-POV, but I expected to get familiar with 2, maybe 3 perspectives. Not 6 to 10 (or however many POVs this novel utilizes).
As a disclaimer, I couldn't finish the Stormlight Archive because I got sick of so many different POVs. I've heard many people tell me great things about Stormlight. So, I've probably just got some deep seated frustration with multi-POV stories.
If you don't have a problem with lots of perspectives; read this. The writing quality is leagues better than the slop on the RR trending page and the characters are extremely well thought out. Just don't ask me to read it. If Brandon Sanderson couldn't keep my attention through multiple perspectives, then no one will.
Note for the author: I'll be following you. Your writing and world are so very good. I hope you write a single POV story someday.
JAXORoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
There is a good foundation of the story line, but I found it hard to follow in the first few chapters because the story jumped around a lot and the ends didn't meet up very well when resumed.
Is there one MC or three...confusing.
The world setting and characters could use more backstory to flesh it out better.