Cradle: Long-form anime prose

I binged the first 11 books in the Cradle series (by Will Wight) over the past two months. They're easy reads with progression, action, and world-building to rival top anime shows.

The Good

• Progression - It really is like an anime. From zero to hero. If you like anime you'll prob like this.
• Good world-building - Very interesting universe rules and the world makes sense on that foundation
• Interesting perspective - magic, but kinda feels like an eastern take on magic with auras and chakras ("madra" here)
• Funny - I did not expect this series to be as funny as it was but there are some standout moments

The Bad

• Literary depth - These are good books but you're not gonna find like King Killer Chronicle level depth / complexity here. In many ways that's a good thing.
• Pacing - This is a hard one with all animes cause the characters tend to be on an exponential curve. So you either gotta be internally consistent where the characters become god like or internally inconsistent to try and rate limit their growth - both of which can feel unnatural at times. This is more an issue with the genre than this series though - series handles it well.

Rating: 5/5 (I only gave one book in the series a 4)

• If you like anime, you'll prob like this.
• If you don't like anime you might still like this but it will feel a bit action-y, fast paced than many fantasy books.