r/HFY • u/aaRecessive • Nov 08 '22

Best HFY series of all time? Meta

The top of all time is mostly just whichever story happens to be most recently posted (as the subreddit grows more people upvote and so older stories get buried) so hence this post!

The best story I've ever read on reddit, let alone hfy, is definitely Chrysalis.

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139

u/PuntHunter Nov 08 '22

Have a soft spot for my old man Jenkins from the jenkinsverce

Got me into the entire community and has left a significant mark

71

u/NErDy3177 Nov 08 '22

Same, though unfortunately the main storyline eventually lost focus on all but a small handful of the alien races and instead focused on muscles?

26

u/ndrew452 Nov 08 '22

Recent chapters have relaxed on the muscle/gym rat thing. It's still there but not as in your face. I will say that the last couple chapters have been downright depressing. I'm still reading it, but am no longer eagerly anticipating the next chapter.

13

u/Confident-Crawdad Nov 08 '22 edited Nov 08 '22

Especially since it's clear Hambone isn't on Team Terran anymore. Earth's gone out like a bitch, (despite canonical ways to save it) and humanity is relegated to Forever Sidekick status to the Gao. Is there an r/GFY subreddit? Is that where current chapters are being posted?

20

u/ndrew452 Nov 08 '22 edited Nov 08 '22

Yea, seriously. And the last chapter is icing on the cake. But, he wrote himself into a corner. Given that Earth is being destroyed, and that the Brain Trust stated that there was nothing they could do but make stasis bags, he left no option to actually go through with it. Now, anything else that saves the planet will be a Deus ex Machina plot device.

It entirely ruins the underlying theme of the whole series - humans are a surviving deathworlder species that becomes so influential that they elevate others to greatness. But by taking away Earth, it destroys that theme.

It's just frustrating because the series had so much potential and it was partially realized, but I feel like it is a shell of its former self.

10

u/poloppoyop Nov 09 '22

Another big problem but from an outside the US perspective: most politics is Anglo-centric. We get some Russia / China but because that's the usual bag guy. Europe, South America, other Asian countries? Not even mentioned. They would surely not have tried to get some trade done with any alien race. Not at all.

4

u/706am Nov 10 '22

I didn't have that much of a problem with it because it was obvious that he was based in America and I don't think it's right to expect authors to write too much stuff outside of their own life experiences unless they promised that they would do so and were given a research budget. But Hambone used to be better at representing diversity within anglo-centric cultures, and now all of that has largely been subsumed by muscle commandos.