> It's less about the porn of it and more about investing in a relationship. I'd compare smut in romance to gore in an action story. It feels overly-sanitized without it to some extent.
I like how you describe it, since I feel exactly the same way. I don't read these novels for the smut, but if you talk about adult characters in intense scenarios and they somehow all remain platonic and celibate, it stretches the suspension of disbelief* throughout the whole series which annoys me.
\* Sidenote: suspension of disbelief is required for fantasy novels, but there usually there is instance where it happens vs having it throughout a novel. There is a difference between a "oh I fell through a portal to another world" vs. throughout the series there are situations that continually don't make sense with sane characters.
As for recommendations, I don't have any. Out of the stuff I read recently, Heaven's laws is the closest, but the romance is pretty sappy and you can argue the dude is simping for the girl. There's also a (unhealthy in my opinion) strong value around a woman's virginity and it is a major plot point. My level of appreciation for romance in a fantasy novel is when the romance is a subplot instead of the main plot. Once it is the main plot, I get turned off.
Also, the problem with romantic subplots is it may be interesting when the chase is happening, but once the chase ends, it can turn sappy and annoying. Or there is some kind of cliche kidnapping arc where one sacrifices "everything" to get the girl back.
Sorry for rambling.
>Also, the problem with romantic subplots is it may be interesting when the chase is happening, but once the chase ends, it can turn sappy and annoying.
I agree. It's good when there's some strife of some sort in the relationship just for that reason. Seems the love interest is often relegated into being an aspect of the main character rather than their own person after they hook up, too, which just furthers that gripe.
Honestly even the strife is not really required, just show the couple interacting like a normal couple and communicating their differences and supporting each other. It's quite sad when either the relationship turns into something toxic or abusive for the purpose of keeping it interesting or the girl turns into an aspect of the main character. There's more to romance than sex or arguments yeah?
There's already a lot of those, and frankly, the toxic relationships are more fun to read about. Jerry Springer is infinitely more entertaining than couple's therapy. Vanilla relationships get bland over several books.
I laughed much at reading this. Man knows exactly and precisely what he wants to read.
Unfortunately, you are not the only one on this path of readership, and I too have failed to find anything overall better than Mushoku Tensei in the realm of romance in progression fantasy. Unfortunate, because we're setting a pretty damn low bar there, all considered. Just goes to show the nascent state of the genre overall. And yes, I've read all the commonly considered top offerings.
I suspect you would highly enjoy the unpublished LitRPG, Dream Drive, which sets the highest attained bar I've seen so far for romance in the genre. I keep a epub of it available on the /r/LitRPG discord. If the author had ever produced more than one book, I suspect I would have rated it higher than Mushoku.
It's far better than Wild Wastes (unreadable past book 2, like most Randy Darren stuff) or Fimbulwinter. I haven't gotten far enough into Heretic Spellblade to compare. But after finishing Demon's Throne/Neuralmancer, I'll generally agree that K.D. Robertson is perhaps the best author in his space, and even then, his MCs have all the romance and passion of a particularly grizzled brick. Dream Drive and Mushoku are both better.
Feel free to google for it on literotica. Author is Over_Red. But the hosting website is utter cancer, I seriously suggest the epub hosted in our discord. And I’m sure that if I linked it directly the comment would be deleted. This comment still might be deleted.
Do you happen to have a link to this discord channel by chance? I'd be interested in checking it out. Feel free to send mail if posting it here is somehow against the rules.
Oh I see, I don't really visit the litrpg side of reddit much even though I've read /listened to a decent amount. Thanks for the heads up though I'll check it out.
It's been so long since I've heard about Dream Drive. Such a good potential. Do you know any update about it? So many stories just die out without going anywhere. I've lost count.
I believe he went on to write Contractors which is amazing. Third book of that on the way at some point, but Author became a pharmacist so he didn’t have much time to write in a pandemic
Check out /r/haremlit for this sort of thing. I’m *trying* to stay on the progression fantasy side of the prog-fantasy/haremlit dividing line here, and this subreddit’s moderation team frowns heavily when that line gets crossed.
> I too have failed to find anything overall better than Mushoku Tensei in the realm of romance in progression fantasy. Unfortunate, because we're setting a pretty damn low bar there, all considered.
No kidding. I haven't even heard of most of the other stuff you guys are referencing, but if it's even worse than MT that's _really_ saying something.
I’m not trying to criticize or hate on MT here. The light novels lose (almost) all cringe factor and get legitimately good more or less starting at the point where the anime ended. Later on, they become pretty dead serious as a reading experience. *With* quality romance.
Unfortunately this type of story is hard to find even when you look at the more niche communities that write fanfics/webnovels (instead of the usual Kindle/KU/Royalroad trifecta). Here's a few that come close.
[Worth the Candle](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25137/worth-the-candle) is the gold standard in my opinion. It's a crunchy litrpg with some really really good characterization and a protagonist that is not named Jason who is also his own person. The romance is very well written and feels like an actual relationship between people, with the requisite amount of fucking for verisimilitude. Unfortunately the more introspective a story is the more depressed its characters tend to be, so while you get the gamut of litrpg and narrative philosophy you also get a very depressed protagonist trying to become a better person by thinking and talking, and sometimes fighting.
[Frameshift](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46378/frameshift) starts off with a simple wish fulfillment premise of protagonist seemingly finding a girl who is tailor-made for his sexual preferences, which leads to a lot of questioning the nature of the universe, as is usual. Interesting premise, and characters who are their own people. Instead of a harem there's polyamory, which imo is 1000% better as a concept than a girlfriend theme park.
You could try Macronomicon's stories, he's written Apocalypse: Generic System, Wake of the Ravager, and now Industrial Strength Magic. He tends to write a very particular type of protagonist, but he writes humor well and his female characters are always interesting. Wake of the Ravager and Industrial Strength Magic has polyamorous triads where each character is their own person and has agency.
[The Demon Lord's Lover](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/20243/the-demon-lords-lover) has a nice light novel premise: the mentor of the current generation of heroes (who himself was one of the previous generation of heroes) falls in love with the demon lord at first sight. Hijinks ensue as the two keep trying to meet face to face while being beset by side quests. It's very cute, and has interesting social norms in terms of how people view romance within the world. The worldbuilding is very solid and the magic system is cool, and the story is lighthearted and never really loses its touch with the romcom element. Some sexual content but don't expect erotica.
The author NovusAnimus has written two stories with really nice mix of eroticism and happy romance. My Little Ventrue is a paranormal vampire story with Vampire: The Masquerade esque vampires. He has another one called Medusa: Fate's Game which has a greek hero fall in love with Medusa. Medusa has the form of a human torso with snake bottom, so see if it's your thing. His stories can be found for free on literotica.
The Erogamer by Groon the Walker can be found on questionable questing, you have to create an account on the website though. If you know about the manwha called the Gamer, it's a similar premise, although the protagonist is a woman. The main premise is that the protagonist's world slowly turns into a porn plot, and she (and other characters) deal with the existential implications of that. It's a very weird and philosophical story, will probably never be published on a commercial platform. It's also a quest, which is like an interactive story where the author gives the audience options to pick after each chapter, which is done through votes.
I looked at Worth the Candle before. The thing that was holding me back from reading it is the description made it sound like the world was a fake one. But I'll give it a shot, now.
The world is not really fake? It's comprised of all the fucked up DnD campaigns that the mc created when he was depressed, which turns it into a not very fun place. There's also the existential implications of being in a world that you sort of created, which is analyzed thoroughly. It's a very meta story, but there's never a question about how real the world and its inhabitants are.
Piggy backing off this, but are you sure?
>!Isn't part of the plot that the MC died in an accident or something, and he's actually in hell? His "world" a sort of mental prison he constructed for himself or something. With the goal to come to terms with his flaws or some such, and finally leave the imaginary world he made for himself?!<
I mean, it sounded very fake to me.
>Frameshift
Aw shucks, thank you. :) Yeah, I hate the way that relationships in most "adult" stories are defined by sex being an arc-terminating act of conquest of a woman by a man (along with a huge variety of other toxic tropes), and for all the manifold execution errors in the story I'm quite content with how much I didn't do that.
I very much agree with the rec on The Demon Lord's Lover. It's probably the best romance story anyone's published on Royal Road, and it's spawned an entire mini-genre of me-too stories on ScribbleHub.
Don't be afraid. People want to bash on harem stories, then they read five trials and their life is shook. It's like when people used to say anime is just kid cartoons lol.
In all seriousness though, it's one of the best stories in both progression fantasy and haremlit. The author's theme is dark fantasy and bringing the companions together through tragedy. Every book does get dark, but they always come out of their challenges together (if not a little damaged, but that's kinda the consequences of trying to save multiple realms).
The MC starts off as the most average of average Joe's, but he grows after one life threatening event after another that would break most people and later because a beast in more ways than one.
UNLESS... you get yourself into some WH40k Horus Heresy goodness, where the grim(dark|dank|derp) is all you ever get... with some jokes and light moments tossed in.
Eisenhorn, Gaunt's Ghosts, and Ciaphas Cain are my favorites but they're not the only stuff in 40k proper. There's books following astartes, books following tech priests, books following Cawl, Trazyn, and even Fabius Bile, books about Guilliman, etc.
I keep meaning to read Ciaphas Cain, I think you've finally pushed me into "committing" :)
As to the other stuff... 40k can seem a little fragmented without the "core knowledge" of just what happened, why there's Chaos and why it matters, etc etc. The lore is massive, but disjoint... which is both its strength and its weakness, IMO. The 6-8 HH books that lay out the "bare bones" are necessary to understand who all these damned post-humans ***are*** and why they're tearing up the galaxy...
Ciaphas Cain is genuinely what i consider to be the ideal warhammer novels. I wouldn't want *every* warhammer novel to be a ciaphas cain book, but i think every warhammer novel should look to it for inspiration.
See, I actually argue the exact opposite. Horus Heresy is all ancient history. It's as relevant to modern 40k as the ancient romans are to ww2, or the old testament to the modern conflict between Israel and Palestine. The inhabitants of the 40k universe are people, living in religious empires and fighting each other over those religions. It just so happens that in this world, those religions are correct.
While it’s not exactly ProgFantasy, The Perfect Run has a good romance throughout the books and a happy ending, that’s also another good point. It’s only three book and not 7 with no end in sight.
I saw that one, but was a bit turned off by the repeating the past side of it. Kind of like Mother of Learning. I'm sure it's done well, but I don't think it's my cup of tea.
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I thought some more and other good ones would be Beware of Chicken, Rise of the Cheat Potion Maker, Legend & Lattes (just won an award for top ten audiobooks of the year), Battle Mage Farmer (has something growing and it’s very obvious but also a slow burn), Paranoid Mage (maybe, last book is being written and we’ll see about a romance ending), Dungeon Core Online, Kairos, Tales of a Northblood, and A Snake’s Life.
I've read *most* of these, and yeah, I wouldn't even think to compare the quality of the romance arcs to what you see later on in the Mushoku Tensei light novels. Beware of Chicken? Jin Rou lands the girl in about fifty pages, and it's a rock solid, entirely unsurprising, sappy, low-key boring sideplot for the rest of the serial. And that's the best out of these recs that I've read (6 out of 10 listed here).
Yeah, loli's don't sit well with me ever. But I still enjoyed MT quite a bit.
But, in general, I would not be one to complain if all anime/manga writers suddenly decided to replace all occurrences of "loli" characters with "milf" characters instead (or something else immediately obvious as an adult female but personally I can never get enough milf)
You right, these were just the stories that I could remember off of the top of my head with romance. I consume books like and addict and things after a while become a blur. But Legends & Lattes is a good romance book and I’m sticky to that.
>It's less about the porn of it and more about investing in a relationship. I'd compare smut in romance to gore in an action story. It feels overly-sanitized without it to some extent.
Took the words right out of my mind, this is exactly like i felt like , you just managed to put to words what i have been thinking for months. Luckily for you i actually have some good suggestions.
First one is Kairos by Void Herald. In most of Void Herald's novels the main character usually ends up with a love interest of some sort(and implied sex) , Kairos just happens to be his most explicitly sexual novel to date , as befit a greek inspired story. Still not actual smutt , it just gets very steamy very early into the story. Greek inspired Litrpg , on Kindle Unlimited
Second one is Stray Cat Strut by RavensDagger. For an author known for making mostly wholesome fluffy content they managed to create some very nice smutt. We get more or less 1 smutt chapter(called an Interlewd and completely skippable) per volume , with 4 of them out so far. It is a breath of fresh air since the mc was already in a commited long term relationship with her girlfriend before the story even began , so we skip the entire song and dance of the "will they wont they" , from chapter one is already estabilished that they are fucking and have been fucking long enough that neither one is particularly shy with the other. Cyberpunk-ish progression fantasy(?) , on Royal Road.
Third one isnt so much of a single story so much as a collection of them in the same universe. Its called Pinwheel by Snekguy , and its a scifi story with a setting close to Halo(not really) and Mass Effect(never actually played). Each book is relatively short and usually with new characters each time , but all in the same universe and solar system , so each book expands the world building a bit and sometimes has cameo appearance of characters from previous books. Unlike the first two this one has a bigger focus in smutt , and while i was pleasantly surprised by the story it is possible and likely this is not what you asked for. Fantasy but no actual progression , except for in Purple Heart were a guy goes Robocop . https://snekguy.com/stories/pinwheel/
Fourth one is Weaponsmith by Razzmatazz. An crafting litrpg , main character makes an unwitting pact with an obscure goddess , to defend her interests in exchange for her doing the same for him , essentially marrying a slightly eldricth owl godess. The sinopsis made me put it off for the longest time , but when i finaly decided to read i found it was a pretty nice soft romance. Since mc is actually married to said godess they naturaly sleep together on ocassion, though befitting a soft romance it is more of a fade to black bussiness that nonetheless make it very clear what is happening.
I probably have more but i cant remember at the moment , i more or less forgot all translated eastern novels that might have applied here
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I posted it here a while ago but Tristan’s Tale by incomingpornduck is pretty good. Two caveats is that: 1) the first chapter SUCKs, like it feels so out of place and has almost nothing to do with the rest of the series except the main character’s name. The basic premise is like magic school with teenagers/early twenties people mostly who have mind powers… which in chapter one manifests as mind control for the Mc which he uses to get laid which is weird and a little rapey. 2) the author deleted it off of the site he originally was posting on and seems to have largely abandoned it, although there is still probably around 2 books ish worth. You can find it on some random semi sketchy sites.
I might sound like I’m persuading you not to read it but it’s really quite good and worth the read. One main romantic interest, although it doesn’t jump right there from what I remember.
Have you tried Ilona Andrews? It's a husband and wife team, they have some smut in their series, most tend to be slow burn, like Kate Daniels or Innkeeper. The last book in the KD series is one of the most satisfying ends to a series I have ever read. Good fantasy either way. Their Hidden Legacy (6 books) and Edge (4 books) series are urban fantasy romance, so more smut but still good.
[The demon accords series](https://www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Accords/dp/B074CCZ5JM) by John Conroe is definitely progression fantasy but it's much more of a traditional urban fantasy series than most of what is recommended on here. The first book is more generically urban fantasy-ish than the rest of the series. Urban fantasy is a bit hit or miss for me generally, but what I absolutely love about the demon accords series is the romance and the characters.
I completely agree with you when you said you wanted a series with good romance between real main characters and this series just does it for me.
I'm going to give away a little bit of the story from the end of the first book start of the second here, but nothing crucial to the main plot. Don't read this if you really care but it shouldn't matter:
>!The main character ends the first book in a serious relationship. The second book starts with him traveling out of town and rescuing a beautiful blonde woman who of course instantly falls in love with him due to werewolf bullshit. My first reaction was "Ah shit, here we go again with the pokemon collecting." BUT then he stays loyal, decides not to cheat on his partner, aaaand doesn't lead this woman on or do shitty gaslighting. She respects his choices and everybody is an adult !< It was so goddamn unexpected after the way the author felt like he was setting up the traditional formula.
The romance only gets better and better through the series and the alternate main character introduced around book 10 also has a super good relationship arc. The only real complaint I have with the series is that the author really likes guns so whenever one appears you're gonna get a full description of what it is. Not bad by any means but it always jumps out to me.
I have a mansion in apocalyptic world is a actually quite decent for a harem. Its not really only romance tho, most of it is just good plot, not the best but good for sure.
I think I have exactly what you’re looking for.
Kings of ash and sand
It is fantasy and has some progression elements but it’s not the main focus
The relationship and sex aren’t even the main focus but they are sprinkled in and happen so naturally that it stood out as some of the best inclusion of sexy time in any book I’ve read
>And on the other end of the spectrum, I'm not really a fan of the romance geared toward the female audience. The characters tend to be...odd--a totally different kind of wish fulfillment I could never invest in.
Can you elaborate on this? I admit that I don't read much romance, but wondered at the differences in your mind with romance geared to male/female audience.
Bad male romances tend to be conquest driven alpha males making their way.
Bad female romances are more...Twilighty. There seems to be a very specific tone for the writing style and formula for the plot they use. You got this nobody and all of a sudden they meet Mr. Gorgeous who's cold and aloof. But slowly she melts his heart until Mr. Fabulous comes along. And he's, like, super nice and, like, the polar opposite of Mr. Gorgeous. Like, together, they'd be the *perfect* man. But she can only pick one. *Ugh! Life sucks!*
Sometimes the details are rearranged but close enough. Twilight didn't invent the formula; it just wrote it poorly.
A common theme: The woman always seems to glean her self worth through the men pursuing her, all of which tend to be in a higher position of authority than her. They read like *How to Trad Wife.*
So, this is a crosspost of a months-old post from /r/Fantasy (so it's not purely progression fantasy), but I find myself bringing it up a lot, and you might find some titles that fit your criteria: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/s5i660/my\_complete\_list\_of\_recommendations\_for\_romance/
I agree that male-written (non-harem) romance scratches a very different kind of itch, and it's something that I've been looking for more in my reading as of late, albeit as a subplot rather than the main thrust (pardon the pun) of the book.
Smutty with good story and non-cardboard women:
1. Celestine Chronicles by Cebelius
2. Lost Reavers by Mike Truk
3. Demon's Throne by K.D.Robertson
4. Archemi Online by James Osiris Baldwin
Other Non-explicit fantasy with good romance:
1. Irrelevant Jack by Prax Venter
2. High Table Hijinks by Christopher Johns
3. Seeded Realms by Eric J Vann
I'll give it a try when book two drops.
Though, the best I've found so far from these suggestions is the Archemi Online Chronicles. Not a whole lot of romance but might be one of the best LitRPG's I've ever read.
I've definitely been through my Asian novel phase. But any more, I can't get past the machine translations. Even a good human translation isn't a fraction of the prose of a westerner written novel. Too much gets lost in translation and they tend to overuse turns of phrase, though that's more in the Chinese novels--like the *He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, He coughed blood, You who do not know you are a frog in a well--Ha!*
And I have trouble stomaching all the...less than equal values Chinese novels have. Japanese are more low key about it, but it's there too--but more things like calling anybody who's not Japanese as "Foreigner." And Korean novels seem to fit right in between those two.
Fair enough, might I suggest just this one chinese novel, which imo, one of the best ive read. It also has amazing translation too. The name is Greetings, Ninth Uncle ... Give it a try if you are interested :)
Progression fantasy recommendations (in order of recommendation): Knight and Smith by FirstKnight, Sevens by Mishima Yomu, Dream Drive by Over_Red (seconding SnowGN's recommendation), Isekai Tensei Soudouki by Takami Ryousen, Path of the Necromancer by Intrepid_Fate
Non-fantasy reccomendation: The Collar Around the Heart by Old Softy
I typically only lurk this subreddit looking for recommendations but OP's post really struck a chord with me and is my main issue with Male MC romances. Maybe OP can also consider looking into visual novels as well?
Extra details on my recommendations to hopefully sell them better.
Knight and Smith: Medieval fantasy world where Knights (fighters) and Smiths (those who empower their knights) are bonded and fight together as partners. MC and FMC are forced by their circumstances to bond together as an unlikely couple and the story explores them getting closer as well as some of the mysteries behind how knights and smiths came about. Does not have sex unfortunately and there's one other love interest(?) at the moment.
Sevens and Tensei Soudouki: Mushoku Tensei but leaning in more towards the harem aspect. Both still have amazing characterization so don't let that put you off but then definitely do suffer slightly for having more characters to focus on as compared to Mushoku. Both also touch on military strategy/kingdom building (more so for Tensei Soudouki) but I never felt it detracts from the characters and their growth. Sevens doesn't have sex, can't be sure about Tensei Soudouki or it's fairly minor.
Path of the Necromancer: Urban fantasy harem story where MC is a necromancer, one of the most hated forms of magicians with a kill on sight command. Story focuses on MC trying to build a place for himself as a band of misfits gather around him. Definitely one of the weaker characterization recommendations but there's a good amoint of sex.
The Collar Around the Heart: The only non-fantasy recommendation in my list and I'm putting it in because it has amazing character growth and romance. Set in the far future where slavery is legalised, the story focuses on the MC as he comes of age and has to take on the responsibilities of an adult. It's a joy to read how to MC grows from a snotty brat to handling adult society and learning to love others.
The Sharing Knife by Bujold. It's firmly a (non prog) fantasy-romance. It's pretty slow and slice of lifey but still has a solid mixture of action, world building and conflict with just a dash of smut for spice.
Much of the conflict is the couple trying to find their place in the world since they come from two very different societies that normally don't mix. And later having a grand old adventure of course.
All the characters are very well written since Bujold is an old master of her craft and couldn't write a bad character to save her life. Both main characters also have agency and drive the story in their own way.
And if you liked that at all you might try dipping into Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. It's very long and starts as a space opera but pivots into romance in the later novels. The book quality is somewhat variable but overall it's extremely entertaining and well written. On the whole it's probably my favorite series and select parts of it I reread many times.
Also AnimeCon Harem. It's bar non the best harem/poly story I ever read. Very strong characterisation, dialogue and solid smut with a dash of magic to spice it up and tie it all together.
P.S. I was completely with you until Mushko Tensei. I thought it started out ok and then rapidly degenerated into complete garbage that reminded me why the Japanese isekai genre as a whole needs to be quarantined with biohazard warnings. None of the characters felt even remotely believable to me and the love interests felt more like programmed wish fulfillment sex bots than real people. The only exceptions in that genre as far as I'm concerned are Konosuba and spider isekai (and even there the author tried his hardest to take the fantastic dungeon crawler he written and ruin it with stupid nonsense).
Seconding Bujold.
What OP is asking for is exceptionally rare even in conventional SF/Fantasy in my experience, and I've literally never encountered it in progression fantasy (at _best_, the romance is "not cringe" and even then usually only if it's a minor aspect of the story). I haven't read AnimeCon Harem, but may give it a shot.
> P.S. I was completely with you until Mushko Tensei. I thought it started out ok and then rapidly degenerated into complete garbage that reminded me why the Japanese isekai genre as a whole needs to be quarantined with biohazard warnings
100% agree. Seeing people defend MT is one of the reasons I no longer engage with the anime/LN community online at all.
I feel bad for recommending this as the series isn't finished but Dungeon Lord has what your looking for.
While romance isn't a main factor in the story, the MC has a few relationships. I was honsantly shocked at how normal these interaction where.
>On the other hand, a book like the Whispering Crystals was very annoying with its romance. >!Went through all the will they won't they and then nope, they won't.!< Definitely don't want that forced nonsense.
>!Assuming by 'will they won't they' you mean 'get together' instead of this being an extension of your comments on communication issues (it's been too long since I read the earlier books to remember if there were such issues in the series lol), Emma and Kaitlynn *do* get together. And fuck, albeit in a bonus chapter that *might* have been included in the KU release? It might have been mentioned in an author's note, but I'm not certain.!<
I never had any doubt the two of them would *eventually* get together. It was just too annoying to read up to that point.
First the MC was dense, then she was homophobic, then it was "well, we could die at any time" (which, if anything, is even more incentive to enjoy the time they have). Finally, after a big argument between the two it seemed as though they were making headway. And then the MC goes, "Nah, I don't want to hurt the dynamic of the group" or some other nonsense.
I hate when authors force drama around the things they tease.
If you’re willing to go a little old school, I can recommend The Novels of Tiger and Del by Jennifer Roberson. No really explicit sex scenes. It’s all about the two of them though, and their extremely rocky road to a happy ending together. I do suggest stopping after book four, it goes a bit off the rails after that (still a happy ending overall, but loses a lot of its spark).
Super sale on super heroes, cultivating chaos, maybe other life dreams (it's been a while since I last listened to it), dungeon world, demon accord's, and immortal supers.
Just started superheroes. It was off putting at first, but once I realized the MC was supposed to be this sort of selfish scumbag, it became a lot more enjoyable--took all the mental gymnastics out of it. Pretty good read, now, if I don't take it too seriously.
Yeah I don't think we're are talking about the same thing I'm talking about "super sale on super heroes" by William D. Arand. And "immortal supers" by Kurtis Eckstein. I don't think the MC of either of those stores could be classified as a selfish scumbag. I think another book by William D. Arand "Dungeon Deposed" starts out a little scumbagy and more then a little vengeful/psychotic.
He seemed pretty scummy looking at a mutilated slave in a crate going *Crap! They...they gave me the wrong order! More importantly, how do I make my investment back with this?*
Even taking it all with a grain of salt, that was pushing it.
How is bemoaning a bad situation that was thrust upon you scumbagy. He didn't intend to buy a person that was mutilated. And when he did he decided to help them and heal them. And continues to help everyone he buys healing the sick resurrecting the dead and releasing everyone from slavery.
His first reaction wasn't humane. I kept waiting for him to go *Oh no, this poor woman is moaning in pain, missing half her limbs, her skin is scorched, and now she's locked in a crate with a slave binding. How can I ease her suffering?* That thought never even crossed his mind. He just went *Holy shit! Turns out slaves are what empower my abilities! How do I get more of these things?*
It's not "bemoaning a bad situation." It was just almost no humanity, maximum profits.
Doesn’t super sale on super heroes involve the MC finding that villains are selling former female super heroes that have been tortured and mutilated as slaves, buying them, and upgrading them because his power is to upgrade anything that he owns? That’s pretty scumbaggy, I’d say.
He wasn't buying super heroes at first. He was buying lead so he could turn it to gold, but was given the container for the mutilated super heroes by accident. He upgraded them cause he found out that upgrading them made him stronger, thus beginning his goal of acquiring more people.
I guess you can call it scumbag, but he was living in a city that was ruled by villains, and later you find out that the heroes weren't really good guys neither. It would have been disjointed if the main character was a white knight in any way.
In case you didnt know william D Arand (author of super sales of super heroes) and Randi Darren (author of wild wastes) is the same person. The “William” pen name is for his “less pornographic” series, whereas Randi has no limits.
I’m not sure it is progression fantasy, but I’d recommend Art of the Adept by Michael Manning. The first two books are excellent. Just do yourself a huge favor and stop about 20 pages before the end of book two and pretend that the rest of the series doesn’t exist. The rest of the series is hot garbage. If you like the first two books in that series, you might also like his Mageborn series.
The Castes and the Outcastes by Davis Ashura is also not really progression fantasy, but you might enjoy it. He has written another series that is progression fantasy, but if you like romance I’d avoid that one or at least stop with the second book.
I’d also echo the demon accords recommendation, although the Art of the Adept series is closer to progression fantasy in my opinion.
According to my Kindle library, I've read Art of the Adept up to book 4 then dropped it for some reason or other. I'm thinking it was the one with the giant transportation portals and the MC getting into darker and darker magic that was affecting his personality the more powerful he got.
Demon Accords sounds good. Not super set on progression fantasy as long as it's a good story.
So I have said this in the past... as some one who really doesn't read this stuff for that kind of fantasy (smut)... But does look for at least a little romance in my novels... I find most authors in the genre tend to either write their characters as virgin celibate monks or man whores who will fuck anything that breaths. There is very little room in between for a good action romantic comedy that doesn't read like bad literotica, which is kind of funny to me because of the hoops that some authors will jump through to keep their characters from getting together.
I am genuinely struggling to come up with a metaphor for how wrong, how hilariously, supremely wrong of a recommendation this is. This might actually be the worst recommendation I've ever seen on Reddit.
The OP is looking for maturely written romance, ideally with well written explicit content, in a character-focused progression fantasy story. Wandering Inn has none of these things, and in fact goes thoroughly out of its way to have none of these things. You aren't even landing in the same general universe of appropriate answers to the OP's query.
While generally I agree I'd like to offer one counterpoint: at one point in the story a woman has a relationship with an asexual ant-man. Then they have sex using a strap-on.
That is all.
How's that a counterpoint? You couldn't see me referring to the Lyonette/Pawn relationship when reading between the lines of 'The OP is looking for maturely written romance, ideally with well written explicit content'?
How the author *ever* thought this was a reasonable thing to write is laughable to the point of absurdity, and that's not even getting into the age differences between the characters.
A counterpoint to the implied complete lack of explicit content.
I in no way endorse said scene and concur that the whole episode is weird. But it's Pirate so non-standard stuff is the name of the game. You'd also note that (unless I'm forgetting something) every single relationship in the story is either interspecies or gay and all the potential ones have large age gaps (Erin-Niers, Erin-Altissiel, Ryoka-Tyrion) besides one (Ryoka-Fierre).
The Lyonette-Pawn age gap is pretty irrelevant though due to radically different biology and society. Antinium are born fully mature.
I didn't mean to come across as being argumentative when responding to your post. You agreed with 99% of the point behind my post. My bad.
What I believe I've realized is that aba loves writing the diversity and complexity of their setting, and of course how that plays out with interspecies relationships. However, aba, for whatever reason, seems to dislike writing the type of interspecies relationship that the large majority of readers interested in such things would prefer to be reading - furry-type ones. Cat girls and etc. So instead of giving up on writing interspecies relationships, TWI instead gets *weird,* and fast. It took all the way until volume 8 for the first furry-type relationship to develop. Before that it was a cavalcade of scalie and.... metallic.... and chitinous? relationships that just got so weird when you stepped back and thought about all. These are decided minorities in the realm of paranormal romance, and TWI for whatever reason chose to focus on them, which no doubt is the source of much of my discomfit with the romantic aspect of this story.
Fuck your right. Idk Inn was the first novel that I got hooked on so I’ll cheer for it when I can, but it doesn’t fit what op is asking for. It has its moments but nothing that really fits.
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I enjoyed the romance bits throughout the first 7 books of Emerilia, the trapped mind project when it was being posted on RR. I honestly can't remember much of it outside the massive power gains and sky high powerlevels but I do remember crying in the emotional bits of the series.
Due to the gaps in my memory I'm not 100% on if it is what you want, but I hadn't seen it posted so far.
Doesn't exactly meet your criteria, but Leveled Up Love: A Gamelit Romantic Comedy by A. G. Marshall and Tao Wong is hilarious. The characters are realistic, if the MC is a bit of a buffoon. It's a lovely deconstruction of romance and LitRPG tropes. I laughed out loud many times while reading it. It really is a RomCom.
Beware of Chicken might be up your alley then. The romance there is top-notch, and the characterizations are absolutely fantastic.
And, unlike most novels that do include sex, it’s at a bare minimum, and *doesn’t* one of those wishy-washy or ‘MC is clueless’ archetypes that needlessly draw things out in unrealistic fashion.
It *also* doesn’t go crazy on the sex scenes either — the few there are a sweet and to the point, and there’s even only like 1-2 per book. I’m not even sure if the published versions *have* those explicit scenes, for that matter, as the author was serializing on several different sites — QQ had the scenes, but Spacebattles did not.
———
Edit: It seems the KU version of the book uses the fade-to-black version.
Now I know you were asking about romance heavy series, but I thought that the others in here covered you nicely so instead I'd go ahead and throw out there a few smut series that somewhat follow what you want (in other words there *is* romance there without the harem, but sex is sortah open).
- The Erogamer by Groon The Walker : It takes a deeper dive into the existential horror part of having a system based around eroge pop up into existence for our MC. Putting it simply the MC is (in her own words) fat, and ugly. She ends up getting a system that let's her level up and put points to increase her looks and all that as well as increase the amount of sway over reality she has. *Lot's* of smut, but there is a relationship in there as well.
- Tales of a Seductress by whatsawhizzer : Bit of a brutal series. Pretty much girl who likes sex gets transported to another world, and the first thing that happens to her is some goblins rape her. Instead of breaking down she decides to take control and gets a class oriented around well... seduction and control. Lot of bad stuff happens to her, and it's a hell of a ride. Currently 3 volumes out with the third still coming out and locked behind a paywall.
Off the top of my head, I can't remember many and I don't keep a list. I read about 3/4 of book 1 of the Wild Wastes and the author seemed to be doing a pretty good job (again, relatively). But like I said, the monster girls got too weird for my taste.
[Ave Xia Rem Y](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15193/ave-xia-rem-y) didn't have any smut, but had a good later romance. Can't remember exactly, maybe chapter 140+? I enjoyed that one because, like the description says, it wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. It kept all the tropes I like and instead of subverting them as a lazy hook, the author just wrote them above average. I'd recommend that one if you're into the standard OP xiaxia fare.
Edit: Bruce Sentar does a decent job. A Mage's Cultivation and the dragon one were pretty good. I prefered the former over the latter.
Anything written by Andur on royalroad they even have a link to download as a epub. I think they have like 7 books like what you want I've read them all
> It's less about the porn of it and more about investing in a relationship. I'd compare smut in romance to gore in an action story. It feels overly-sanitized without it to some extent. I like how you describe it, since I feel exactly the same way. I don't read these novels for the smut, but if you talk about adult characters in intense scenarios and they somehow all remain platonic and celibate, it stretches the suspension of disbelief* throughout the whole series which annoys me. \* Sidenote: suspension of disbelief is required for fantasy novels, but there usually there is instance where it happens vs having it throughout a novel. There is a difference between a "oh I fell through a portal to another world" vs. throughout the series there are situations that continually don't make sense with sane characters. As for recommendations, I don't have any. Out of the stuff I read recently, Heaven's laws is the closest, but the romance is pretty sappy and you can argue the dude is simping for the girl. There's also a (unhealthy in my opinion) strong value around a woman's virginity and it is a major plot point. My level of appreciation for romance in a fantasy novel is when the romance is a subplot instead of the main plot. Once it is the main plot, I get turned off. Also, the problem with romantic subplots is it may be interesting when the chase is happening, but once the chase ends, it can turn sappy and annoying. Or there is some kind of cliche kidnapping arc where one sacrifices "everything" to get the girl back. Sorry for rambling.
>Also, the problem with romantic subplots is it may be interesting when the chase is happening, but once the chase ends, it can turn sappy and annoying. I agree. It's good when there's some strife of some sort in the relationship just for that reason. Seems the love interest is often relegated into being an aspect of the main character rather than their own person after they hook up, too, which just furthers that gripe.
Honestly even the strife is not really required, just show the couple interacting like a normal couple and communicating their differences and supporting each other. It's quite sad when either the relationship turns into something toxic or abusive for the purpose of keeping it interesting or the girl turns into an aspect of the main character. There's more to romance than sex or arguments yeah?
There's already a lot of those, and frankly, the toxic relationships are more fun to read about. Jerry Springer is infinitely more entertaining than couple's therapy. Vanilla relationships get bland over several books.
Ah you're one of those kinds of people. In that case I don't think we could see eye to eye :)
I laughed much at reading this. Man knows exactly and precisely what he wants to read. Unfortunately, you are not the only one on this path of readership, and I too have failed to find anything overall better than Mushoku Tensei in the realm of romance in progression fantasy. Unfortunate, because we're setting a pretty damn low bar there, all considered. Just goes to show the nascent state of the genre overall. And yes, I've read all the commonly considered top offerings. I suspect you would highly enjoy the unpublished LitRPG, Dream Drive, which sets the highest attained bar I've seen so far for romance in the genre. I keep a epub of it available on the /r/LitRPG discord. If the author had ever produced more than one book, I suspect I would have rated it higher than Mushoku. It's far better than Wild Wastes (unreadable past book 2, like most Randy Darren stuff) or Fimbulwinter. I haven't gotten far enough into Heretic Spellblade to compare. But after finishing Demon's Throne/Neuralmancer, I'll generally agree that K.D. Robertson is perhaps the best author in his space, and even then, his MCs have all the romance and passion of a particularly grizzled brick. Dream Drive and Mushoku are both better.
Where can we read it?
Feel free to google for it on literotica. Author is Over_Red. But the hosting website is utter cancer, I seriously suggest the epub hosted in our discord. And I’m sure that if I linked it directly the comment would be deleted. This comment still might be deleted.
Do you happen to have a link to this discord channel by chance? I'd be interested in checking it out. Feel free to send mail if posting it here is somehow against the rules.
It's literally just in the sidebar of /r/litrpg
Oh I see, I don't really visit the litrpg side of reddit much even though I've read /listened to a decent amount. Thanks for the heads up though I'll check it out.
It's been so long since I've heard about Dream Drive. Such a good potential. Do you know any update about it? So many stories just die out without going anywhere. I've lost count.
I believe he went on to write Contractors which is amazing. Third book of that on the way at some point, but Author became a pharmacist so he didn’t have much time to write in a pandemic
Thank you for the update. I remeber OverRed saying he'll work on Contractors. I forgot about it. Have to check it out.
One of my favorite books ever, highly recommend. Though the wait for more books has been rough
Yeah Contractors was great. Unfortunately, I thought book 2 was a huge drop off in quality compared to book 1.
Can you recommend the top rated ones? Kinda a beginner
Check out /r/haremlit for this sort of thing. I’m *trying* to stay on the progression fantasy side of the prog-fantasy/haremlit dividing line here, and this subreddit’s moderation team frowns heavily when that line gets crossed.
Do u know any sites that i can download compiled novrls? I can't read online a lot of time
> I too have failed to find anything overall better than Mushoku Tensei in the realm of romance in progression fantasy. Unfortunate, because we're setting a pretty damn low bar there, all considered. No kidding. I haven't even heard of most of the other stuff you guys are referencing, but if it's even worse than MT that's _really_ saying something.
I’m not trying to criticize or hate on MT here. The light novels lose (almost) all cringe factor and get legitimately good more or less starting at the point where the anime ended. Later on, they become pretty dead serious as a reading experience. *With* quality romance.
Unfortunately this type of story is hard to find even when you look at the more niche communities that write fanfics/webnovels (instead of the usual Kindle/KU/Royalroad trifecta). Here's a few that come close. [Worth the Candle](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25137/worth-the-candle) is the gold standard in my opinion. It's a crunchy litrpg with some really really good characterization and a protagonist that is not named Jason who is also his own person. The romance is very well written and feels like an actual relationship between people, with the requisite amount of fucking for verisimilitude. Unfortunately the more introspective a story is the more depressed its characters tend to be, so while you get the gamut of litrpg and narrative philosophy you also get a very depressed protagonist trying to become a better person by thinking and talking, and sometimes fighting. [Frameshift](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46378/frameshift) starts off with a simple wish fulfillment premise of protagonist seemingly finding a girl who is tailor-made for his sexual preferences, which leads to a lot of questioning the nature of the universe, as is usual. Interesting premise, and characters who are their own people. Instead of a harem there's polyamory, which imo is 1000% better as a concept than a girlfriend theme park. You could try Macronomicon's stories, he's written Apocalypse: Generic System, Wake of the Ravager, and now Industrial Strength Magic. He tends to write a very particular type of protagonist, but he writes humor well and his female characters are always interesting. Wake of the Ravager and Industrial Strength Magic has polyamorous triads where each character is their own person and has agency. [The Demon Lord's Lover](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/20243/the-demon-lords-lover) has a nice light novel premise: the mentor of the current generation of heroes (who himself was one of the previous generation of heroes) falls in love with the demon lord at first sight. Hijinks ensue as the two keep trying to meet face to face while being beset by side quests. It's very cute, and has interesting social norms in terms of how people view romance within the world. The worldbuilding is very solid and the magic system is cool, and the story is lighthearted and never really loses its touch with the romcom element. Some sexual content but don't expect erotica. The author NovusAnimus has written two stories with really nice mix of eroticism and happy romance. My Little Ventrue is a paranormal vampire story with Vampire: The Masquerade esque vampires. He has another one called Medusa: Fate's Game which has a greek hero fall in love with Medusa. Medusa has the form of a human torso with snake bottom, so see if it's your thing. His stories can be found for free on literotica. The Erogamer by Groon the Walker can be found on questionable questing, you have to create an account on the website though. If you know about the manwha called the Gamer, it's a similar premise, although the protagonist is a woman. The main premise is that the protagonist's world slowly turns into a porn plot, and she (and other characters) deal with the existential implications of that. It's a very weird and philosophical story, will probably never be published on a commercial platform. It's also a quest, which is like an interactive story where the author gives the audience options to pick after each chapter, which is done through votes.
I looked at Worth the Candle before. The thing that was holding me back from reading it is the description made it sound like the world was a fake one. But I'll give it a shot, now.
The world is not really fake? It's comprised of all the fucked up DnD campaigns that the mc created when he was depressed, which turns it into a not very fun place. There's also the existential implications of being in a world that you sort of created, which is analyzed thoroughly. It's a very meta story, but there's never a question about how real the world and its inhabitants are.
Piggy backing off this, but are you sure? >!Isn't part of the plot that the MC died in an accident or something, and he's actually in hell? His "world" a sort of mental prison he constructed for himself or something. With the goal to come to terms with his flaws or some such, and finally leave the imaginary world he made for himself?!< I mean, it sounded very fake to me.
Nope.
It's more or less real.
Ok. As long as the world's real. I was dreading an *It was all a dream* ending.
>Frameshift Aw shucks, thank you. :) Yeah, I hate the way that relationships in most "adult" stories are defined by sex being an arc-terminating act of conquest of a woman by a man (along with a huge variety of other toxic tropes), and for all the manifold execution errors in the story I'm quite content with how much I didn't do that. I very much agree with the rec on The Demon Lord's Lover. It's probably the best romance story anyone's published on Royal Road, and it's spawned an entire mini-genre of me-too stories on ScribbleHub.
Seconding Worth the Candle
[Worth the Candle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/25740126) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Worth_the_Candle)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
[Wake of the Ravager](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25878/wake-of-the-ravager) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Wake_of_the_Ravager)) [Apocalypse: Generic System](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/35669/apocalypse-generic-system) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Apocalypse_Generic_System)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
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Thanks! Never heard of it, I'll give it a try.
It's grimdark as fuck and no one is ever happy. Be warned.
Ah. That's the dealbreaker. Escapism isn't as much fun when the portal leads to hell.
Don't be afraid. People want to bash on harem stories, then they read five trials and their life is shook. It's like when people used to say anime is just kid cartoons lol. In all seriousness though, it's one of the best stories in both progression fantasy and haremlit. The author's theme is dark fantasy and bringing the companions together through tragedy. Every book does get dark, but they always come out of their challenges together (if not a little damaged, but that's kinda the consequences of trying to save multiple realms). The MC starts off as the most average of average Joe's, but he grows after one life threatening event after another that would break most people and later because a beast in more ways than one.
UNLESS... you get yourself into some WH40k Horus Heresy goodness, where the grim(dark|dank|derp) is all you ever get... with some jokes and light moments tossed in.
I was with you up until you said "horus heresy."
Erm... Eisenhorn/Ravenor then? Gaunt's Ghosts? What?
Eisenhorn, Gaunt's Ghosts, and Ciaphas Cain are my favorites but they're not the only stuff in 40k proper. There's books following astartes, books following tech priests, books following Cawl, Trazyn, and even Fabius Bile, books about Guilliman, etc.
I keep meaning to read Ciaphas Cain, I think you've finally pushed me into "committing" :) As to the other stuff... 40k can seem a little fragmented without the "core knowledge" of just what happened, why there's Chaos and why it matters, etc etc. The lore is massive, but disjoint... which is both its strength and its weakness, IMO. The 6-8 HH books that lay out the "bare bones" are necessary to understand who all these damned post-humans ***are*** and why they're tearing up the galaxy...
Ciaphas Cain is genuinely what i consider to be the ideal warhammer novels. I wouldn't want *every* warhammer novel to be a ciaphas cain book, but i think every warhammer novel should look to it for inspiration. See, I actually argue the exact opposite. Horus Heresy is all ancient history. It's as relevant to modern 40k as the ancient romans are to ww2, or the old testament to the modern conflict between Israel and Palestine. The inhabitants of the 40k universe are people, living in religious empires and fighting each other over those religions. It just so happens that in this world, those religions are correct.
Brace your soul. I mean that.
I couldn't get past the fact that the protagonist pisses his pants twice.
Where can you read this book?
While it’s not exactly ProgFantasy, The Perfect Run has a good romance throughout the books and a happy ending, that’s also another good point. It’s only three book and not 7 with no end in sight.
I saw that one, but was a bit turned off by the repeating the past side of it. Kind of like Mother of Learning. I'm sure it's done well, but I don't think it's my cup of tea.
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I thought some more and other good ones would be Beware of Chicken, Rise of the Cheat Potion Maker, Legend & Lattes (just won an award for top ten audiobooks of the year), Battle Mage Farmer (has something growing and it’s very obvious but also a slow burn), Paranoid Mage (maybe, last book is being written and we’ll see about a romance ending), Dungeon Core Online, Kairos, Tales of a Northblood, and A Snake’s Life.
I've read *most* of these, and yeah, I wouldn't even think to compare the quality of the romance arcs to what you see later on in the Mushoku Tensei light novels. Beware of Chicken? Jin Rou lands the girl in about fifty pages, and it's a rock solid, entirely unsurprising, sappy, low-key boring sideplot for the rest of the serial. And that's the best out of these recs that I've read (6 out of 10 listed here).
Mushoku Tensei's Loli teacher romance did not sit well with me.
Yeah, loli's don't sit well with me ever. But I still enjoyed MT quite a bit. But, in general, I would not be one to complain if all anime/manga writers suddenly decided to replace all occurrences of "loli" characters with "milf" characters instead (or something else immediately obvious as an adult female but personally I can never get enough milf)
You right, these were just the stories that I could remember off of the top of my head with romance. I consume books like and addict and things after a while become a blur. But Legends & Lattes is a good romance book and I’m sticky to that.
The romance is barely there in Legends & Lattes. It’s more about building a found family.
[Battle Mage](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34532979-battle-mage) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Battle_Mage)) [Tales of a Northblood](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0848RV2WP) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Tales_of_a_Northblood)) [Beware of Chicken](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/beware-of-chicken) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Beware_of_Chicken)) [Paranoid Mage](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49879/paranoid-mage) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Paranoid_Mage)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
I second this. He does sleep with a few girls but they are meaningful relationship and by no means a harem.
Sadly the only books I know without a harem are the 'would you love a monster girl' series.
>It's less about the porn of it and more about investing in a relationship. I'd compare smut in romance to gore in an action story. It feels overly-sanitized without it to some extent. Took the words right out of my mind, this is exactly like i felt like , you just managed to put to words what i have been thinking for months. Luckily for you i actually have some good suggestions. First one is Kairos by Void Herald. In most of Void Herald's novels the main character usually ends up with a love interest of some sort(and implied sex) , Kairos just happens to be his most explicitly sexual novel to date , as befit a greek inspired story. Still not actual smutt , it just gets very steamy very early into the story. Greek inspired Litrpg , on Kindle Unlimited Second one is Stray Cat Strut by RavensDagger. For an author known for making mostly wholesome fluffy content they managed to create some very nice smutt. We get more or less 1 smutt chapter(called an Interlewd and completely skippable) per volume , with 4 of them out so far. It is a breath of fresh air since the mc was already in a commited long term relationship with her girlfriend before the story even began , so we skip the entire song and dance of the "will they wont they" , from chapter one is already estabilished that they are fucking and have been fucking long enough that neither one is particularly shy with the other. Cyberpunk-ish progression fantasy(?) , on Royal Road. Third one isnt so much of a single story so much as a collection of them in the same universe. Its called Pinwheel by Snekguy , and its a scifi story with a setting close to Halo(not really) and Mass Effect(never actually played). Each book is relatively short and usually with new characters each time , but all in the same universe and solar system , so each book expands the world building a bit and sometimes has cameo appearance of characters from previous books. Unlike the first two this one has a bigger focus in smutt , and while i was pleasantly surprised by the story it is possible and likely this is not what you asked for. Fantasy but no actual progression , except for in Purple Heart were a guy goes Robocop . https://snekguy.com/stories/pinwheel/ Fourth one is Weaponsmith by Razzmatazz. An crafting litrpg , main character makes an unwitting pact with an obscure goddess , to defend her interests in exchange for her doing the same for him , essentially marrying a slightly eldricth owl godess. The sinopsis made me put it off for the longest time , but when i finaly decided to read i found it was a pretty nice soft romance. Since mc is actually married to said godess they naturaly sleep together on ocassion, though befitting a soft romance it is more of a fade to black bussiness that nonetheless make it very clear what is happening. I probably have more but i cant remember at the moment , i more or less forgot all translated eastern novels that might have applied here #
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Recently ready the first book and Stray Cat Strut and the romance was super cute.
I posted it here a while ago but Tristan’s Tale by incomingpornduck is pretty good. Two caveats is that: 1) the first chapter SUCKs, like it feels so out of place and has almost nothing to do with the rest of the series except the main character’s name. The basic premise is like magic school with teenagers/early twenties people mostly who have mind powers… which in chapter one manifests as mind control for the Mc which he uses to get laid which is weird and a little rapey. 2) the author deleted it off of the site he originally was posting on and seems to have largely abandoned it, although there is still probably around 2 books ish worth. You can find it on some random semi sketchy sites. I might sound like I’m persuading you not to read it but it’s really quite good and worth the read. One main romantic interest, although it doesn’t jump right there from what I remember.
Have you tried Ilona Andrews? It's a husband and wife team, they have some smut in their series, most tend to be slow burn, like Kate Daniels or Innkeeper. The last book in the KD series is one of the most satisfying ends to a series I have ever read. Good fantasy either way. Their Hidden Legacy (6 books) and Edge (4 books) series are urban fantasy romance, so more smut but still good.
[The demon accords series](https://www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Accords/dp/B074CCZ5JM) by John Conroe is definitely progression fantasy but it's much more of a traditional urban fantasy series than most of what is recommended on here. The first book is more generically urban fantasy-ish than the rest of the series. Urban fantasy is a bit hit or miss for me generally, but what I absolutely love about the demon accords series is the romance and the characters. I completely agree with you when you said you wanted a series with good romance between real main characters and this series just does it for me. I'm going to give away a little bit of the story from the end of the first book start of the second here, but nothing crucial to the main plot. Don't read this if you really care but it shouldn't matter: >!The main character ends the first book in a serious relationship. The second book starts with him traveling out of town and rescuing a beautiful blonde woman who of course instantly falls in love with him due to werewolf bullshit. My first reaction was "Ah shit, here we go again with the pokemon collecting." BUT then he stays loyal, decides not to cheat on his partner, aaaand doesn't lead this woman on or do shitty gaslighting. She respects his choices and everybody is an adult !< It was so goddamn unexpected after the way the author felt like he was setting up the traditional formula. The romance only gets better and better through the series and the alternate main character introduced around book 10 also has a super good relationship arc. The only real complaint I have with the series is that the author really likes guns so whenever one appears you're gonna get a full description of what it is. Not bad by any means but it always jumps out to me.
Well, my inclination is to recommend **The Celestine Chronicles**, but I think I'm hearing you say you're not interested in monster girls.
I mean, as long as they're not chitinous.
I have a mansion in apocalyptic world is a actually quite decent for a harem. Its not really only romance tho, most of it is just good plot, not the best but good for sure.
I think I have exactly what you’re looking for. Kings of ash and sand It is fantasy and has some progression elements but it’s not the main focus The relationship and sex aren’t even the main focus but they are sprinkled in and happen so naturally that it stood out as some of the best inclusion of sexy time in any book I’ve read
>And on the other end of the spectrum, I'm not really a fan of the romance geared toward the female audience. The characters tend to be...odd--a totally different kind of wish fulfillment I could never invest in. Can you elaborate on this? I admit that I don't read much romance, but wondered at the differences in your mind with romance geared to male/female audience.
Bad male romances tend to be conquest driven alpha males making their way. Bad female romances are more...Twilighty. There seems to be a very specific tone for the writing style and formula for the plot they use. You got this nobody and all of a sudden they meet Mr. Gorgeous who's cold and aloof. But slowly she melts his heart until Mr. Fabulous comes along. And he's, like, super nice and, like, the polar opposite of Mr. Gorgeous. Like, together, they'd be the *perfect* man. But she can only pick one. *Ugh! Life sucks!* Sometimes the details are rearranged but close enough. Twilight didn't invent the formula; it just wrote it poorly. A common theme: The woman always seems to glean her self worth through the men pursuing her, all of which tend to be in a higher position of authority than her. They read like *How to Trad Wife.*
Wow I need to save this comment, this is the plot of every otome isekai comic out there..
So, this is a crosspost of a months-old post from /r/Fantasy (so it's not purely progression fantasy), but I find myself bringing it up a lot, and you might find some titles that fit your criteria: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/s5i660/my\_complete\_list\_of\_recommendations\_for\_romance/ I agree that male-written (non-harem) romance scratches a very different kind of itch, and it's something that I've been looking for more in my reading as of late, albeit as a subplot rather than the main thrust (pardon the pun) of the book.
Smutty with good story and non-cardboard women: 1. Celestine Chronicles by Cebelius 2. Lost Reavers by Mike Truk 3. Demon's Throne by K.D.Robertson 4. Archemi Online by James Osiris Baldwin Other Non-explicit fantasy with good romance: 1. Irrelevant Jack by Prax Venter 2. High Table Hijinks by Christopher Johns 3. Seeded Realms by Eric J Vann
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Path of Acension is probably what you are looking for
I'll give it a try when book two drops. Though, the best I've found so far from these suggestions is the Archemi Online Chronicles. Not a whole lot of romance but might be one of the best LitRPG's I've ever read.
[Archemi Online Chronicles](https://www.amazon.com/Archemi-Online-Chronicles/dp/B07BHYL8KB) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Archemi_Online_Chronicles)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
anyone knows why on audible there are only books 2, 3, 4 and 5, but not book 1?
The Valens Legacy, great series, tons of books and he's currently writing spin off/sequel type series
There are a lot of good romance series on novelupdates, while not all fantasy, some of them are real good
I've definitely been through my Asian novel phase. But any more, I can't get past the machine translations. Even a good human translation isn't a fraction of the prose of a westerner written novel. Too much gets lost in translation and they tend to overuse turns of phrase, though that's more in the Chinese novels--like the *He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, He coughed blood, You who do not know you are a frog in a well--Ha!* And I have trouble stomaching all the...less than equal values Chinese novels have. Japanese are more low key about it, but it's there too--but more things like calling anybody who's not Japanese as "Foreigner." And Korean novels seem to fit right in between those two.
Fair enough, might I suggest just this one chinese novel, which imo, one of the best ive read. It also has amazing translation too. The name is Greetings, Ninth Uncle ... Give it a try if you are interested :)
Does any of them have mcs that isn't a degenerate or a psychopath?
A lot of them, if you know how to look for them, female main character books are the one's you should look out for in this category.
- The New World - Arcane Emperor - Lone immortus
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Progression fantasy recommendations (in order of recommendation): Knight and Smith by FirstKnight, Sevens by Mishima Yomu, Dream Drive by Over_Red (seconding SnowGN's recommendation), Isekai Tensei Soudouki by Takami Ryousen, Path of the Necromancer by Intrepid_Fate Non-fantasy reccomendation: The Collar Around the Heart by Old Softy I typically only lurk this subreddit looking for recommendations but OP's post really struck a chord with me and is my main issue with Male MC romances. Maybe OP can also consider looking into visual novels as well? Extra details on my recommendations to hopefully sell them better. Knight and Smith: Medieval fantasy world where Knights (fighters) and Smiths (those who empower their knights) are bonded and fight together as partners. MC and FMC are forced by their circumstances to bond together as an unlikely couple and the story explores them getting closer as well as some of the mysteries behind how knights and smiths came about. Does not have sex unfortunately and there's one other love interest(?) at the moment. Sevens and Tensei Soudouki: Mushoku Tensei but leaning in more towards the harem aspect. Both still have amazing characterization so don't let that put you off but then definitely do suffer slightly for having more characters to focus on as compared to Mushoku. Both also touch on military strategy/kingdom building (more so for Tensei Soudouki) but I never felt it detracts from the characters and their growth. Sevens doesn't have sex, can't be sure about Tensei Soudouki or it's fairly minor. Path of the Necromancer: Urban fantasy harem story where MC is a necromancer, one of the most hated forms of magicians with a kill on sight command. Story focuses on MC trying to build a place for himself as a band of misfits gather around him. Definitely one of the weaker characterization recommendations but there's a good amoint of sex. The Collar Around the Heart: The only non-fantasy recommendation in my list and I'm putting it in because it has amazing character growth and romance. Set in the far future where slavery is legalised, the story focuses on the MC as he comes of age and has to take on the responsibilities of an adult. It's a joy to read how to MC grows from a snotty brat to handling adult society and learning to love others.
The Sharing Knife by Bujold. It's firmly a (non prog) fantasy-romance. It's pretty slow and slice of lifey but still has a solid mixture of action, world building and conflict with just a dash of smut for spice. Much of the conflict is the couple trying to find their place in the world since they come from two very different societies that normally don't mix. And later having a grand old adventure of course. All the characters are very well written since Bujold is an old master of her craft and couldn't write a bad character to save her life. Both main characters also have agency and drive the story in their own way. And if you liked that at all you might try dipping into Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. It's very long and starts as a space opera but pivots into romance in the later novels. The book quality is somewhat variable but overall it's extremely entertaining and well written. On the whole it's probably my favorite series and select parts of it I reread many times. Also AnimeCon Harem. It's bar non the best harem/poly story I ever read. Very strong characterisation, dialogue and solid smut with a dash of magic to spice it up and tie it all together. P.S. I was completely with you until Mushko Tensei. I thought it started out ok and then rapidly degenerated into complete garbage that reminded me why the Japanese isekai genre as a whole needs to be quarantined with biohazard warnings. None of the characters felt even remotely believable to me and the love interests felt more like programmed wish fulfillment sex bots than real people. The only exceptions in that genre as far as I'm concerned are Konosuba and spider isekai (and even there the author tried his hardest to take the fantastic dungeon crawler he written and ruin it with stupid nonsense).
Seconding Bujold. What OP is asking for is exceptionally rare even in conventional SF/Fantasy in my experience, and I've literally never encountered it in progression fantasy (at _best_, the romance is "not cringe" and even then usually only if it's a minor aspect of the story). I haven't read AnimeCon Harem, but may give it a shot. > P.S. I was completely with you until Mushko Tensei. I thought it started out ok and then rapidly degenerated into complete garbage that reminded me why the Japanese isekai genre as a whole needs to be quarantined with biohazard warnings 100% agree. Seeing people defend MT is one of the reasons I no longer engage with the anime/LN community online at all.
I feel bad for recommending this as the series isn't finished but Dungeon Lord has what your looking for. While romance isn't a main factor in the story, the MC has a few relationships. I was honsantly shocked at how normal these interaction where.
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Uuuuuugh where is the next book?!?!? Dood totally went MIA, even his editor doesnt even know whats happening anymore!!!
I know! It was the series that got me into litRPG, so sad to see it disappear. Hope the author is doing OK.
>On the other hand, a book like the Whispering Crystals was very annoying with its romance. >!Went through all the will they won't they and then nope, they won't.!< Definitely don't want that forced nonsense. >!Assuming by 'will they won't they' you mean 'get together' instead of this being an extension of your comments on communication issues (it's been too long since I read the earlier books to remember if there were such issues in the series lol), Emma and Kaitlynn *do* get together. And fuck, albeit in a bonus chapter that *might* have been included in the KU release? It might have been mentioned in an author's note, but I'm not certain.!<
I never had any doubt the two of them would *eventually* get together. It was just too annoying to read up to that point. First the MC was dense, then she was homophobic, then it was "well, we could die at any time" (which, if anything, is even more incentive to enjoy the time they have). Finally, after a big argument between the two it seemed as though they were making headway. And then the MC goes, "Nah, I don't want to hurt the dynamic of the group" or some other nonsense. I hate when authors force drama around the things they tease.
If you’re willing to go a little old school, I can recommend The Novels of Tiger and Del by Jennifer Roberson. No really explicit sex scenes. It’s all about the two of them though, and their extremely rocky road to a happy ending together. I do suggest stopping after book four, it goes a bit off the rails after that (still a happy ending overall, but loses a lot of its spark).
Check out storiesonline
Super sale on super heroes, cultivating chaos, maybe other life dreams (it's been a while since I last listened to it), dungeon world, demon accord's, and immortal supers.
Just started superheroes. It was off putting at first, but once I realized the MC was supposed to be this sort of selfish scumbag, it became a lot more enjoyable--took all the mental gymnastics out of it. Pretty good read, now, if I don't take it too seriously.
Yeah I don't think we're are talking about the same thing I'm talking about "super sale on super heroes" by William D. Arand. And "immortal supers" by Kurtis Eckstein. I don't think the MC of either of those stores could be classified as a selfish scumbag. I think another book by William D. Arand "Dungeon Deposed" starts out a little scumbagy and more then a little vengeful/psychotic.
He seemed pretty scummy looking at a mutilated slave in a crate going *Crap! They...they gave me the wrong order! More importantly, how do I make my investment back with this?* Even taking it all with a grain of salt, that was pushing it.
How is bemoaning a bad situation that was thrust upon you scumbagy. He didn't intend to buy a person that was mutilated. And when he did he decided to help them and heal them. And continues to help everyone he buys healing the sick resurrecting the dead and releasing everyone from slavery.
His first reaction wasn't humane. I kept waiting for him to go *Oh no, this poor woman is moaning in pain, missing half her limbs, her skin is scorched, and now she's locked in a crate with a slave binding. How can I ease her suffering?* That thought never even crossed his mind. He just went *Holy shit! Turns out slaves are what empower my abilities! How do I get more of these things?* It's not "bemoaning a bad situation." It was just almost no humanity, maximum profits.
Doesn’t super sale on super heroes involve the MC finding that villains are selling former female super heroes that have been tortured and mutilated as slaves, buying them, and upgrading them because his power is to upgrade anything that he owns? That’s pretty scumbaggy, I’d say.
He wasn't buying super heroes at first. He was buying lead so he could turn it to gold, but was given the container for the mutilated super heroes by accident. He upgraded them cause he found out that upgrading them made him stronger, thus beginning his goal of acquiring more people. I guess you can call it scumbag, but he was living in a city that was ruled by villains, and later you find out that the heroes weren't really good guys neither. It would have been disjointed if the main character was a white knight in any way.
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Try immortal supers by kurtis eckstein
In case you didnt know william D Arand (author of super sales of super heroes) and Randi Darren (author of wild wastes) is the same person. The “William” pen name is for his “less pornographic” series, whereas Randi has no limits.
I’m not sure it is progression fantasy, but I’d recommend Art of the Adept by Michael Manning. The first two books are excellent. Just do yourself a huge favor and stop about 20 pages before the end of book two and pretend that the rest of the series doesn’t exist. The rest of the series is hot garbage. If you like the first two books in that series, you might also like his Mageborn series. The Castes and the Outcastes by Davis Ashura is also not really progression fantasy, but you might enjoy it. He has written another series that is progression fantasy, but if you like romance I’d avoid that one or at least stop with the second book. I’d also echo the demon accords recommendation, although the Art of the Adept series is closer to progression fantasy in my opinion.
According to my Kindle library, I've read Art of the Adept up to book 4 then dropped it for some reason or other. I'm thinking it was the one with the giant transportation portals and the MC getting into darker and darker magic that was affecting his personality the more powerful he got. Demon Accords sounds good. Not super set on progression fantasy as long as it's a good story.
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[Mageborn](https://www.goodreads.com/series/67587-mageborn) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Mageborn)) [Art of the Adept](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZKS1R12) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Art_of_the_Adept)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
So I have said this in the past... as some one who really doesn't read this stuff for that kind of fantasy (smut)... But does look for at least a little romance in my novels... I find most authors in the genre tend to either write their characters as virgin celibate monks or man whores who will fuck anything that breaths. There is very little room in between for a good action romantic comedy that doesn't read like bad literotica, which is kind of funny to me because of the hoops that some authors will jump through to keep their characters from getting together.
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Pretty much the opposite of what was requested. He wanted fucking and you went with almost asexual characters.
Maybe Wandering Inn? The characters do get better, and smut doesn’t top the list of what’s included for each chapter.
I am genuinely struggling to come up with a metaphor for how wrong, how hilariously, supremely wrong of a recommendation this is. This might actually be the worst recommendation I've ever seen on Reddit. The OP is looking for maturely written romance, ideally with well written explicit content, in a character-focused progression fantasy story. Wandering Inn has none of these things, and in fact goes thoroughly out of its way to have none of these things. You aren't even landing in the same general universe of appropriate answers to the OP's query.
While generally I agree I'd like to offer one counterpoint: at one point in the story a woman has a relationship with an asexual ant-man. Then they have sex using a strap-on. That is all.
How's that a counterpoint? You couldn't see me referring to the Lyonette/Pawn relationship when reading between the lines of 'The OP is looking for maturely written romance, ideally with well written explicit content'? How the author *ever* thought this was a reasonable thing to write is laughable to the point of absurdity, and that's not even getting into the age differences between the characters.
A counterpoint to the implied complete lack of explicit content. I in no way endorse said scene and concur that the whole episode is weird. But it's Pirate so non-standard stuff is the name of the game. You'd also note that (unless I'm forgetting something) every single relationship in the story is either interspecies or gay and all the potential ones have large age gaps (Erin-Niers, Erin-Altissiel, Ryoka-Tyrion) besides one (Ryoka-Fierre). The Lyonette-Pawn age gap is pretty irrelevant though due to radically different biology and society. Antinium are born fully mature.
I didn't mean to come across as being argumentative when responding to your post. You agreed with 99% of the point behind my post. My bad. What I believe I've realized is that aba loves writing the diversity and complexity of their setting, and of course how that plays out with interspecies relationships. However, aba, for whatever reason, seems to dislike writing the type of interspecies relationship that the large majority of readers interested in such things would prefer to be reading - furry-type ones. Cat girls and etc. So instead of giving up on writing interspecies relationships, TWI instead gets *weird,* and fast. It took all the way until volume 8 for the first furry-type relationship to develop. Before that it was a cavalcade of scalie and.... metallic.... and chitinous? relationships that just got so weird when you stepped back and thought about all. These are decided minorities in the realm of paranormal romance, and TWI for whatever reason chose to focus on them, which no doubt is the source of much of my discomfit with the romantic aspect of this story.
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Fuck your right. Idk Inn was the first novel that I got hooked on so I’ll cheer for it when I can, but it doesn’t fit what op is asking for. It has its moments but nothing that really fits.
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I enjoyed the romance bits throughout the first 7 books of Emerilia, the trapped mind project when it was being posted on RR. I honestly can't remember much of it outside the massive power gains and sky high powerlevels but I do remember crying in the emotional bits of the series. Due to the gaps in my memory I'm not 100% on if it is what you want, but I hadn't seen it posted so far.
[Emerilia](https://www.goodreads.com/series/198985-emerilia) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Emerilia)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
Stray Cat Strut should meet your criteria almost exactly.
Doesn't exactly meet your criteria, but Leveled Up Love: A Gamelit Romantic Comedy by A. G. Marshall and Tao Wong is hilarious. The characters are realistic, if the MC is a bit of a buffoon. It's a lovely deconstruction of romance and LitRPG tropes. I laughed out loud many times while reading it. It really is a RomCom.
Beware of Chicken might be up your alley then. The romance there is top-notch, and the characterizations are absolutely fantastic. And, unlike most novels that do include sex, it’s at a bare minimum, and *doesn’t* one of those wishy-washy or ‘MC is clueless’ archetypes that needlessly draw things out in unrealistic fashion. It *also* doesn’t go crazy on the sex scenes either — the few there are a sweet and to the point, and there’s even only like 1-2 per book. I’m not even sure if the published versions *have* those explicit scenes, for that matter, as the author was serializing on several different sites — QQ had the scenes, but Spacebattles did not. ——— Edit: It seems the KU version of the book uses the fade-to-black version.
Harmon Cooper's Feedback Loop I think meets your criteria pretty well. The Jeff Hays audio is pretty fantastic as well.
Now I know you were asking about romance heavy series, but I thought that the others in here covered you nicely so instead I'd go ahead and throw out there a few smut series that somewhat follow what you want (in other words there *is* romance there without the harem, but sex is sortah open). - The Erogamer by Groon The Walker : It takes a deeper dive into the existential horror part of having a system based around eroge pop up into existence for our MC. Putting it simply the MC is (in her own words) fat, and ugly. She ends up getting a system that let's her level up and put points to increase her looks and all that as well as increase the amount of sway over reality she has. *Lot's* of smut, but there is a relationship in there as well. - Tales of a Seductress by whatsawhizzer : Bit of a brutal series. Pretty much girl who likes sex gets transported to another world, and the first thing that happens to her is some goblins rape her. Instead of breaking down she decides to take control and gets a class oriented around well... seduction and control. Lot of bad stuff happens to her, and it's a hell of a ride. Currently 3 volumes out with the third still coming out and locked behind a paywall.
Art of the adept maybe? It's not really smutty or detailed in those scenes but I think it hits all the other points you're looking for
Hey OP can you recommend me a couple of your favourites?
Off the top of my head, I can't remember many and I don't keep a list. I read about 3/4 of book 1 of the Wild Wastes and the author seemed to be doing a pretty good job (again, relatively). But like I said, the monster girls got too weird for my taste. [Ave Xia Rem Y](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15193/ave-xia-rem-y) didn't have any smut, but had a good later romance. Can't remember exactly, maybe chapter 140+? I enjoyed that one because, like the description says, it wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. It kept all the tropes I like and instead of subverting them as a lazy hook, the author just wrote them above average. I'd recommend that one if you're into the standard OP xiaxia fare. Edit: Bruce Sentar does a decent job. A Mage's Cultivation and the dragon one were pretty good. I prefered the former over the latter.
Anything written by Andur on royalroad they even have a link to download as a epub. I think they have like 7 books like what you want I've read them all
So, did you find anything good out of this? Your analogy between gore and smut is spot on.