Do you guys read published harem authors and if so what do you think of them?

[BLIGHT_ZERO]

I'm talking like tamer-king of dinosaurs

 

[Paul__Michaels]

They are fun when starting out but if the harem becomes too big then characters you like could be put on the wayside and it's hard to find good ones where the harem has good character development.

Most of the harem novels I've read in the past where on our favorite site "WebNovel" anyway I haven't gotten into any new ones.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I've yet to branch out into reading harem written in english. So far only read translations.

 

[beast_regards]

Yes, depending what is available on the audible and isn't immediate turndown.

Though, you could argue that "audiobook" doesn't count as "reading" I suppose. But they are still works from an officially published author, so relevant for this thread.

 

[shawarma]

I've enjoyed most of Bruce Sentar's work. Returner's Defiance and Ard's Oath are probably my top ones.

 

[John_Owl]

(shameless self plug, as a harem author) I don't usually read them, but I watch a lot of isekai (my wife's favorite genre), which usually includes a lot of harem. That said, i don't mind reading harem, as long as the harem stays a reasonable size. My rule of thumb is main + 1 member/day of the week in-universe. If the days of the week are explicitly stated, I assume it's 7.

for my own harems, I tend to go with a days - 1 model. So a 7 day week would mean 6 max members, not counting the main. I also like to do inter-harem play, though in the case of bisexual harems, I don't do NTR (so girl member+girl member is fine, but girl member+boy member isn't, unless the main is present and active in the scene as well)

 

[Deleted member 166076]

I like to read reverse harem mangas. There are also plenty of fans of my "Her Beasts" series. As for harem, I tend to find those are too 2D with the women characters and is more for the sort of readers who like power fantasy and self-inserts rather than caring about the story telling process itself.

 

[PancakesWitch]

out of all my novels probably eighty percent of them are harem, though i write it on a different way, i'm mostly forced to do it because I write very endearing characters that develop romance and love for the main character through several hundreds of chapters, so it feels bad if the mc endds up abandoning them. I dont particularly like reading or watching harem stories though, maybe when i was a teenager, but right now they all make me cringe because it's always about the sexual appeal and never about actual real romance developed through a great story. I dont mind it if the story is centered on something completley differnet, but a novel that sells itself as harem above all else are always just terrible, also the sex scenes are bad too, these people dont know a single thing about foreplay and different positions.

 

[Spacerunner357]

I'm talking like tamer-king of dinosaurs

I think I read some of one and the characters do some pretty funny things!:D!

 

[BLIGHT_ZERO]

out of all my novels probably eighty percent of them are harem, though i write it on a different way, i'm mostly forced to do it because I write very endearing characters that develop romance and love for the main character through several hundreds of chapters, so it feels bad if the mc endds up abandoning them. I dont particularly like reading or watching harem stories though, maybe when i was a teenager, but right now they all make me cringe because it's always about the sexual appeal and never about actual real romance developed through a great story. I dont mind it if the story is centered on something completley differnet, but a novel that sells itself as harem above all else are always just terrible, also the sex scenes are bad too, these people dont know a single thing about foreplay and different positions.

(these people are me)

 

[Anonjohn20]

I'm okay with harems except when the harem gets too large for all the lovers to receive equal attention. There are two stories I gave a shot here in scribblehub where there are simply too many lovers to remember them all, might as well make a large glossary to help readers if thats their plan

 

[Gray_Mann]

I've read/are reading a few of them. To me personally, most are mediocre. Some are downright awful. Some are pretty good.

Most people I've known would say most are awful, some are mediocre and a few are good. I find that they usually just don't like harem. Most aren't awful or good, they are just meh.

If this question is concerning the size of Harem's, I personally wouldn't go beyond 5 members of the harem if I was writing it myself. As for reading them, a lot of Xianxia novels screw it up by adding too many members to the Harem like 10 or 11. I'd say the limit for me would be 5....maybe 6. But no more than that.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

I created and finished a 20-volume novel with 20+ harem members. The problem with 'screentime' is there, but it's what I want to write, and I'm not keen on getting popular anyway, so ?

As for reading harem stuff, yeah, I read a lot. I just drop/avoid ones with one-dimensional characters.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Never intentionally read one. Read a book that had one briefly before they became an "internet thing" but they are not my cup of tea. Have a romance novel in progress that almost becomes a reverse harem, but then does not...

 

[RileyMarino]

+1 for Bruce Sentar. He's just released the latest Dungeon Diving book, btw, and I'm currently reading Dragon's Justice. It's fun.

Also +1 for writing harem. I agree with the 'it gets too large and the characters disappear' issue, and I'm absolutely not doing that in my own story. I want all my characters to be real and have a role to play in the story, and at this point I'm thinking I'll probably cap at 3, maybe 4. There's enough differentiation on the character's personalities at that level, and the other problem I have with Harem is that when it gets too large, you begin to see the same stereotype cropping up again. I don't get the point of that.

Progression Fantasy is, by definition, more-is-better, but I don't think that needs to translate to the harem.