The Simulacrum

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

"He who fights with harem tropes should see to it that he himself does not become a harem protagonist. And if you gaze for long into a narrative, the narrative gazes also into you." ---Friedrich Nietzsche (probably?) How would you react if one day you found yourself in an environment running on tropes and clichés? For allegedly average high-schooler Leonard Dunning, this rhetorical question became uncomfortably real on the day he woke up on a strangely pristine island country in the middle of the Atlantic. Without memories, surrounded by countless characterless placeholders, and with a classic harem protagonist and his various love interests for friends, he tries his best to fit in and figure out what's going on. That would be difficult enough already, yet his investigation into the rules governing the world, sabotaging the harem tropes, and his odd blend of outside-context knowledge, unique abilities, and a penchant for causing trouble wherever he goes, ends up drawing the attention of the world's nebulous narrative... Disclaimer: This is a tongue-in-cheek, slice of life romantic comedy, with occasional sprinkles of combat and mystery to spice things up. Please do not expect a straight up deconstruction beyond some in-universe meta-commentary by the characters.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2019
Author: Egathentale

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 5,843
Views: 5,165,755

What readers say about The Simulacrum

“Usually I'd wait to review, but what can I say it intrigued me. So far it's pretty original hard to say with only 4 chaps but its definitely got potential in that department.The characters are fresh(yes they do have some stereotypes),butwith how the story…”
Mammoth321Royal Road5.0 / 5
“Before I beginthis review, let me say that I really, really enjoy this story. I've bought and pre-orded the books on amazon, and I think this is one of my favorites on Royal Road.However, there are a couple of issues that can be somewhat detracting from the…”
Book GremlinRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

Mammoth321Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Usually I'd wait to review, but what can I say it intrigued me. So far it's pretty original hard to say with only 4 chaps but its definitely got potential in that department.The characters are fresh(yes they do have some stereotypes),butwith how the story is set up they could turn out to be pretty fun.Anyways shout out Egathentale keep up the good work I'll try and get a more in depth review in once there's some more chaos in so it's more real ya know
Book GremlinRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Before I beginthis review, let me say that I really, really enjoy this story. I've bought and pre-orded the books on amazon, and I think this is one of my favorites on Royal Road.However, there are a couple of issues that can be somewhat detracting from the story. For one, the story switches tones at the end of volume one. What starts out as an interesting mystery about a guy trapped in your bog-standard Harem setting morphs into, well, a Harem setting. Yes, there are excerpts in the later volume that go in depth on trying to figure out what is going on, but the majority of the chapters are not focused on this, instead being about the Protagonists life. Don't get me wrong, the writing doesn't drop and it is still excellent the whole way through, but the shift is somewhat offputting.For another, a lot of story threads are picked up, mused about, and then never talked about again, or are never really resolved. Nothing really important, but it does kind of throw me off.Another thing I should mention is the internal monologue. At some points during reading (not often, but just enough that it stuck with me), the main character's inner monologue just goes on and on and I have to scroll up to re-check what the author is talking about.Lastly, the second volume. I know the whole point was battling a genre shift, but it just doesn't work for me. In additon, many of the main character's supposed friend group feel excessively bitchy in this arc: Not enough to make me stop reading, but it does cause me to raise an eyebrow. The ending is phenomenal, but the whole sentai arc feels honestly kind of droll.IN SUMMARY:This book, despite some pacing flaws and an off second volume, it still is really good and I thouroughly reccomend it!
Book wyrmRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a seriously great piece of fiction.The narrative is good, the story innovative but at the same time familiar.The characters are amazingly fleshed out and their interactions very likeable.The world building is seriously amazing in its own weird mysterious way.The only issue that I can consider revolting is!I've read all the chapters...Hook, line and sinker, you got me here author, have mercy on me!OwO
Guan7Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
As the title says this is my favorite Fiction on royal road. Here is whyGood pacingLove the conceptLays out a good mysteryAuthor knows how to make a good cliffhangerThe only bad thing i have to say about this is that I only get a Chapter every 2 weeks
HoloSolRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story has its niche and it does it well. I can consistently always get a few laughs out of every chapter; the writing is never dry unlike many of the litrpg stories here on RoyalRoad.
The wittiness is also fairly consistent throughout the chapters and the puns/jokes/word play combined with some interesting situations causing hilarity to ensue. I really do think this story has the best comedic value on the site. No other author on this website mimics his playful and engaging writing style.
My one minor gripe that I have with this story is that I feel it is mislabeled. This should have the Harem tag. He has two girlfriends. I know this isn't a true Harem, but it's a spiritual cousin and a huge turn off for some people. Comparably, I would say it's similar in how LGBTQ+ elements on RoyalRoad are handled with the Gender Bender tag. Gender Bender isn't really related to lesbian or gay love, but there isn't a Yuri or Yaoi tag.
Hyperion915Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
im not usually one for these sorts of stories, i prefer more action-packed tales (as might be inferred from the fact that i frequent this site in particular), but goddamn bro, this is some quality shit. characters are (ironically) very fleshed out and i actually believe everything, despite/because of the context it was presented in. cool fucking idea, and a really fun slice of life
Ians Not My NameRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
One of my favorite fictions on this site that I've been reading for the past year. Just made an account so I might as well review it.
Style :
The story is engaging in its writing, but there is a lot of references, tropes and what-have-you from anime. I can see this being off putting to some. Many of the jokes grounded on reference humour didn't land with me, but to each their own.
Grammar :
Honestly. This one is the easiest to do right. That shouldn't take away from the fact that this author does do it right. Just a mini-rant on how many people on this site don't even bother. Unless english isn't their native language, which makes it perfectly understandable and I feel their pain. Grammatical errors are very rare.
Story :
Light-hearted slice-of-life for the first two dozen-ish chapters, shifts into a supernatural action type after. I think that both genres are done well and this type of plot progression makes perfect sense since it's a trope that anime does quite a bit (though I guess supernatural elements are usually established at the beginning too).
Characters :
Each of the characters fall under one to three typical anime archetypes. This is sort of the point however, since
Spoiler: Spoiler
yadda yadda, setting is actually a simulated typical anime(?) setting, yadda yadda.
Even though they are designed to be cookiecutter archetypes, the characters feel real, with understandable motivations. The author doesn't even do much of anything to deviate from the archetypes. He just writes them well, I guess.
Overall, a good read and I would recommend.
Kw1nnRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Okay so first of all here's a short and sweet review. It's good I enjoy it a lot go read it. (this is as of chapter 39 in my reading)Note to Author:Now for something more important in my reading and skipping forward to look at the announcement as I caught up I noticed that the Author is greatly bothered by a single negative review someone left. To that I can't say anything but tell the author to look at all the positive reviews. I normally don't do reviews I'm a lurker by nature but I felt compelled to leave this as a message to the author in a way. This is a great story. Over the last three days I have read it, laughed my ass off and felt warm and fuzzy about the wholesome moments that are there. Egathentale write it however you want to I enjoy it and I think you should focus on continuing writingyourstory not something a someone else complains about because they thought it would be something else. I'll agree this story isn't perfect, No story is perfect everyone of them has some problems. But I'm willing to say that as far as this story goes it gets pretty close.Premise: Initially the story is about the mc waking up in an isekai like situation with amnesia and finding out he's in a harem story. That slowly turns into trying to discover the rules of the world and somehow finding himself at the mercy of the tropes and whatever else is going on.Story:Overall I enjoy the story. My most disliked bit is the ocassional cut to dark. I'd love to read about the antics and interactions of the characters that sometimes are skimmed over with "Then we did some antics" My favourite part of this story is characters interacting with eachother. Skimming some interactions causes some characters that should be in the forefront to get little development. Obviously the most development happens to the main character and Judy since their interactions are almost in every part. I think the characters to get the least screentime is the childhood friends duo and this causes me to be much mor
LkhasserRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
One of the best stories in this platform. I don't usually do reviews but this one deserves all the love it gets. Keep up the good work.
Marc'dU4deathRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Read this, and thank the author first and me later.