Review Detail of RockNRage in Lord of Mysteries

An ok CN isekai-Dickensian novel written in 2018 that you should just speed read through, otherwise it's quite unreadable. It's basically Steampunk meets "The Witcher" meets "Jack Ryan". Concept of mystery is ok. But world building and plot development / structure is painful. Poorly disguised filler in the form of ridiculous expository and realism writing. Long chapters 2000+ words, tons of unnecessary lore, plot devices, characters. Translation can be iffy at times. Just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's cool. Not sure why it's rated so highly, but I can respect what the author was trying to create. PREMISE An average Chinese Joe gets isekai'd to a 19th century steampunk / paranormal world through the accidental use of a magic ritual. He's immediately knee-deep into a murder mystery and caught up in political/factional machinations. MC figuratively becomes Geralt of Rivia /Jack Ryan. COMMENTS (1) A genuinely interesting mystery novel... but too-much-too-soon all the time The initial murder mystery when MC isekai'd was a clever plot device, especially since it was enacted against the MC himself. It led to the logical introduction of paranormal powers (despite the steampunk era). But before we can take a breather and figure things out, MC suddenly encounters ANOTHER mystery through his reuse of the SAME magic ritual when trying to go back to his homeworld. He enacts powers of a Grey Fog (OP dimensional realm), accidentally connects to two strangers, which eventually forms the Tarot Club. These strangers are given paragraphs of backstories, and 10-15 different named characters associated with them (everything from scullery maids to random crew members) are thrown at us. Then MC joins a special-ops team (Nighthawks) that investigates paranormal incidents while protecting their own church believers. All this in just the first 30 chapters. HUH? Maybe just kick the Grey Fog mystery till later? The first 30+ chapters had NOTHING to do with the side characters. It was literally character introductions to tell readers that they exist. What's the point of fronting multiple mysteries / scenarios at once when it's so easy to connect side characters later when it's more logical? Also maybe just lay off on the use of naming characters? Bestowing a name assigns a degree of importance. Too many, esp on random people, makes it unnecessarily distracting. Imagine every NPC and monster in an RPG having a name! Holy cow! This kind of distracting development happens throughout the novel. You can see that author's ideas are all over the place. Before we figure out how deep the 1st rabbit hole is, we reach a junction with 10 different rabbit holes. That's not mystery writing, that's just sheer nonsense. Several reviewers have claimed that the first dozen chapters are ALL NECESSARY FILLER, which is absurd. The need for character introduction doesn't excuse poor structure and development. Take a page from "Overlord". Whole chapters are written about side characters and their adventures, and they eventually link up with the MC Ainz in a logical, appropriate timeline. Author doesn't understand pacing and the basic concept of "Do readers really need to know this NOW?". (2) Filler filler filler You know how horror movies have the camera pan away or pauses, and you're expecting a monster to pop up, but nothing happens? This novel has it in spades, to the point that it's just distracting and ruins the mood. Here's just a few examples. Spoiler There were comments that the slow pace/fillers are "just" a translation issue. I disagree: -- NU IS A DIRECTORY OF ASIAN TRANSLATED NOVELS. All reviews on NU are based on translated novels, not their raws. It doesn't matter how amazing the raw version is. You have to take both the novel and its translation into account. -- I'll partially defend the translator. While the translation quality admittedly isn't great, there are little/no liberties taken with punctuations, sentence structures, etc. A simple example. Spoiler -- This is a big issue with the novel. It feels like you're not reading the MC's thoughts. You're reading the author's viewpoint (who is omniscient). The author has 100 different nuggets of lore/info that he probably wrote on scraps of paper. Then he tried to forcefully combine it into chapters. The sheer mental gymnastics you need to read a chapter carefully is exhausting, especially after you realize it's just filler. I get the sense a lot of reviewers have read the Chinese raws and can easily gloss over the problems, but it's precisely because it was translated into English that all of the problematic content and sentence structures start becoming obvious. (3) Pointlessly complicated world building / more filler It's one thing to have filler, it's another thing to try to disguise it with lousy Dickensian-style. Author tried to hid filler under nonsensical verbosity, lore and hyper realism. Lore/backstory isn't meant to be storytelling. It's to provide info that will entertain and enlighten a reader. It's meant to connect the dots. There's something very wrong when the first 30 chapters has an info-dump on things that hardly matter. If you want to know how pointlessly complex it gets, google the Lord of the Mysteries wiki page. Descriptive realism is just meant to convey the mood and atmosphere to readers. It's utter s*upidity when it gets verbose. Spoiler These are just a few examples. EVERY CHAPTER IS LIKE THIS. (4) Tons of sesquipedalia spouted by all characters / even more filler This isn't just adopting archaic speech/lexicon, it's annoying name dropping and quotes of fictional gods/beliefs/philosophies that nobody knows about. And you just KNOW it's the author trying to slip in word count. Nothing beats an example. Spoiler (5) Illogical plot development / Retcon -- MC's powers make no sense. He supposedly stockpiles over 40+ skills by Vol 5 (FYI that c105 is still just halfway through Vol 1....) Author frequently has to pile on layer after layer of explanations (retcon) to cover it up. Spoiler -- MC was going to take a job as a university lecturer. Basically an Indiana Jones copy. There were long chapters devoted to his upcoming interview. MC then suddenly decided not to go, even though it was repeatedly mentioned he could juggle being a secret agent and a lecturer at the same time (plenty of hours). No reason given. Author probably realized having a side job as a lecturer was pointless. MC then justifies to his family that he'll be rich with just his secret agent job. Afterwards (in about... 3 chapters?), MC starts complaining that his single secret agent job salary actually isn't all that much. I won't even bother hiding this as a spoiler, it's just that s*upid. -- Plot development (at least the first arc/vol) comes in the form of 3 strangers (including MC) sitting together in a virtual environment (Grey Fog) after MC called on them by accident. Literally, sitting around exchanging ideas and chatting about what's going on in their part of the world. Too much to write, I'm giving up. Am tired of constantly having to refer back to the novel to point out problems. Feels like I'm reading SAO all over again.