Stranded at the Crossroads

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

James Smith is a poster boy for bad decisions. Who hasn’t fudged a little bit on a job application? James has. He inflated his qualifications to get placed on a field investigation team for a shady conspiracy-oriented dark web group and got deployed to New Orleans. During his investigation, he encountered a thing from another dimension that was harvesting humans as livestock, and was transported to the creature’s home world. His new reality is strangely familiar, relatable to him because of mythology, the games he played and the books he read. He is alone, which wouldn’t be as big of a problem if he were a tenth as competent as he said he was when he filled out that job application.

This serial is currently on hiatus.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: Gild

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.0/ 5.0
Followers: 63
Views: 76,559

Chapters(124 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(3)

Mirrius RusticulusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
One of the best stories I read. A bit of luck for our MC he gets thing like gift of tongues, or lucky find of ancient dungeon/shelter, are more than enough offset by ton of unluck, people screwing him over, robbing him, cheating him, because of his lack of knowledge of the new world, and MC have to be resourcefull to overcome many things, which make sense irl, which would be often glossed over in lesser novels.
MC feels real, world feels real, regular folks feel real, enemies have believable goals, MC needs to eat, needs care about his clothes, as other people notice he is bloodied or dirty. The world feels big and unknown. The kidnapped-isekai concept in story feels realistic, contrary to usual hit-by-a-truck lazy excuse. Nothing except gift of tongues is handed to MC, cheats he gets feel realistic as other charaters can get them through in world actions as well. Story telling is good.
There are quite smart passages about philosophical nature of magic, which promise quite an interesting system in the future.
10/10 adventurers would take an arrow to the knee for this one.
omedaopheliaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm liking this story more and more as it unfolds, how it braids familiar fantasy with unexpected action through an unlikely hero. The backstory is appreciated as it frames the main character, and the author becomes quite colorful in their telling once the modern day real world fades from frame. There's some solid humor in here, too. I look forward to reading more chapters as it goes. Great first effort on this platform by Gild. I'm invested.
donutguyRoyal Road
★ 0.5
I really wish this story was better. I love the premise and could see it having become a favorite. However, the utter incompetence and disappointment of the mc time after time left me baffled. He gets tricked, bullied, duped, beaten, and bruised at every turn, and he takes it almost every time. He even lets them enjoy it, and doesn't go back into a store (for directions) that played him because he didn't want to ruin their fun. An absolutely incompetent beta wimp. He misuses funds overpays, tries to be a hero, and gets in over his head constantly, Says he'll be better then does it all again. It's so annoying especially since I see a lot of potential for the story to be good. I hope the author does a rewrite but instead of making him stay an incompetent fool make him more capable and cautious, especially since he has to take this situation more seriously because his life is at risk at every turn.