I've been reading another web serial recently (I've previously talked about
Worm and of course
HPMOR). This one is slightly harder to recommend as whole-heartedly as the other two... but I'll save that for the end.
The story is
"Mother of Learning," and here's how the author totally undersells it:
It's a lot more fun than he makes it sound. The main character is great. He starts off as a grouchy teenage misanthrope who just wants to be left alone to do his own thing, but he grows and learns a whole lot over the course of the story, while never losing his core. He's not absurdly overpowered or a great hero or a chosen prophesied one or anything like that--another character fills that role. Zorian is just stubborn and a little bit paranoid and willing to buckle down and do the hard work.
Time loops are something you don't see a lot of outside of fanfiction. They're much easier in fanfic because the reader already knows all the characters, all the places, all the events that are supposed to happen. In an original story that all needs to be set up, and the author does an excellent job of it. We're introduced initially to a small but key portion of the world and characters and events, and then get to see everything from different angles and get a sort of depth perception. One of the things done really well is the development of even minor throwaway characters into interesting people who clearly have their own lives and their own plans.
The world feels something like a mashup of Harry Potter and Dungeons & Dragons at first, though it soon develops a depth of its own, with enough details dropped here and there that it feels like a lived-in place. The magic system is well-designed and interesting to learn about (after a few initial expository hiccups), which is just as well, since our guy is at a school of magic.
The author also makes great use of foreshadowing and dropping clues. Some minor things we see early on turn out to be really important. Some things we thought we understood on the first go-round turn out to have always been about something else entirely. And then, of course, sometimes a cigar is just a red herring. At least for now.
Which leads me to the downsides, both of which are substantial. First, the story is unfinished. It's been going regularly for years at this point, but I'm pretty sure it's only about two thirds of the way through. Meaning it's likely to be at least a couple more years before it's totally done. Sorry. Second, and probably worse, the prose is... kind of rough. Not just in the "Brandon Sanderson writes middling prose" sense of being pedestrian and sometimes clunky, but in that there are poor word choices, odd stylistic issues, and a really irritating tic of the author's where random verbs will be in present rather than past tense. He seriously needs an editor or at least a proofreader. That said, the storytelling and character development and so on are enjoyable enough that I can grit my teeth and wade through the bits in the prose that bug me.
I have to give the author props for avoiding a few common failures of Groundhog Day-style time loop stories. One is repetition. Despite the title, repetition is actually kept to a minimum. The most prominent thing that's repeated each go-round is Zorian's annoying little sister jumping on him to wake him up at the start of each loop. Otherwise, anything that's just going to be the same is skipped over, or at worst skimmed through in narrative summary. Another common failure is a lack of danger or tension. If your hero just wakes up anew every time they die, what could they possibly have to fear? ... Oh, but that would be telling.
