Kinda fun at first but poorly written overall.

It's just incredibly rushed. The pacing is practically light speed as it tries to jump from one minor plot point to another. No time is spent on details or character development. No time is spent on anything, really.

A character death that's supposed to be important ends up feeling hollow because the only things we knew about him were his name and that he was friends with another character that we only know the name of. Even calling the characters one dimensional seems like... more>> it would be overstating their level of detail.

The villains get more development than the MC does, but it's all pointless since we already know they'll be dead by the end of the next chapter anyway.

The premise of the story is neat, but like so many other crappy WNs or LNs, it's presented more like cliff notes to the storyboard of what the author hoped would be a manga. And after taking a look at the manga, I'd say that's a pretty accurate description.

I kinda feel bad for the translators at this point. They did a good job. Unfortunately, if they wanted to save this series from itself, they'd have to take so many artistic liberties that it would end up being completely unrecognizable from the source material.

I usually try to keep my criticisms constructive by pointing out some of the things the author did right, but... I couldn't find any. I know I'm technically not that far into it, but this is the LN version. If it was "good enough" to get published, I should be able to expect at least one part of it that wasn't crap. <<less

This is the first time i've ever written a review and the very first 1 star i've ever given.

But after purchasing the first 3 light novel volumes and reading through volume 1 i've never felt so... disappointed.

TL, DR:

This is what Overlord would look like if Ainz played starcraft instead as a zerg player AND threw caution to the wind, as well as not even try to learn about the world he was thrown into.

... more>>

Spoiler

I can not state clearly enough when I say that volume 1 is a honest to goodnesss LITERAL ZERG RUSH that our main character performs to commit actual genocide on the first human nation they find.

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The series is not badly written just hollow, the plot burst forward faster then Sonic on cocaine with no world building or character development on our main characters part.

The enemy faction get's more development then her but it's all very stiff and shallow with wooden dialouge in a poor attempt to show us our main character is a monster.

And speaking of dialouge the 4th wall keeps getting accedently broken by our MC and "villains". They keep talking about each other when they should have no clue about the others existence.

Spoiler

For example near then at the last min a mother with 2 children is introduced by name only for our MC to kill them off a few pages later. And yet the way the scene is written it reads like our MC new this family by name even know they literally never met.

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Others have mentioned it but honestly this reads more like a story board for the mangas which seems slightly more fleshed out, the manga and only moves as fast as a uncoaked up Sonic. <<less

What's the story about?

The simplest way to describe it is if Kerrigan (The Queen of Blades) gets transported into a world of homos, knife-ears and half-men. Ripper Swarm is just like zerglings, digger swarm is the lurker. There'd be hydralisks and mutalisks too soon.

The protagonist is a human girl from our world, commanding a force of arachnid-like swarm. She starts off unsure of herself as she still has humanity. But after the attack on the knife-ear village under her protection by the homos, she decided that "Enough is enough! I've... more>> had it with homos attacking my knife-eared friends!" So she, losing even more of her humanity, decided to massacre an entire kingdom of homos and wipe them all out.

Awesome story. Can't wait for more. <<less

It has a comfy feel. It's essentially war slice of life. Parallels could be made to youjo senki in the way every scene is disconnected from the others while staying on the rails of the story. Instead of following the story day by day, we're following the events.

People who think she is written as a psychopath are wrong, she represents ordinary evil. What humans can do when pushed.

She has a low but constant influence on her mind from the swarm, and she is a coward at heart, someone who would... more>> do anything to survive.

That combination is what makes her both ordinary and interesting.

I quite like the switch in her personality as well. She stays true to what she acted on, but gets less and less aware of what her original thoughts were like. This leads to a slow drift. She loves the swarm more and more, finding more positive points to like as time goes on, and feels less and less interest in human life and values.

Comparisons to Overlord are inaccurate as well. She comes from a real time 4X, Ainz from a MMO. To her, the world holds limited resources that the players snatch from each other, and time not spent doing something useful is time lost. Her army also gets stronger the more she conquers. Meanwhile, to Ainz, his starting resources are likely to be the best he'll ever have, and beating strong enemies incur losses without many positives. The needs of their situations couldn't be any more different. <<less

Once I started reading this I was very interested. The novel takes a heavy inspiration from Overlord. The only difference being it is a FL and not ML, and the kingdom is Arachnae which is essentially a bunch of bugs. However, perhaps due to expectation and comparassions, I was left disappointed. This was a good story first 2ish chaps, but it started goinf downhill from the moment she interacts with people. The MC's personality/actions r too JPN MC meta, and it does not fit this type of story. Although she... more>> wasnt full on isekai MC, u could feel it with how the story portrayed her <<less

This feels more like a draft of a story than a story. Pacing, style, world building, characters, plot - all of it seems like something belonging in draft notes. I can't even call it raw, it isn't complete enough to even be raw.

Generic power fantasy plot wise, but MC is even more unlikable than usual.

The summary presents an interesting premise, but the novel doesn't use its premise at all. None of the units feel like they have anything to do with the game, no tactics are used, no shred of intelligence can be found anywhere, no other interesting game mechanics or any mechanics for that matter.

Character is completely random. First comes off as completely detached kirito clone, but then someone dies brutally and all the sudden its dramatic for no reason. I... more>> guess they're making her a psychopath for plot reasons, but it's just not done well. It just feels like awful writing than a conscious decision.

Side characters are tropes and villains are caricatures. There's just nothing good here. <<less

Decent novel, interesting premise but nothing to shout about, the author has an issue with pacing, character development and there are numerous plot holes and story gaps. I did have pretty low hopes from this after reading the author's other novel but it's fine for a casual read when bored. Wouldnt go out of my way to recommend it if you're looking for world building on the level of Overlord.

It has an interesting plot, one that reminded me much of Overlord, for the entire chaotic-evil country conquering concept. Although it cannot be directly similar to it at all, for it has more flaws than there are otherwise.

A simple and quick read, there are a slim amount of good qualities this novel has. Namely the world building, although lacking in some areas, are still one to look forward to.

An MC leading a insect army was geniunely a interesting idea to ponder about, knowing her actions directly influence all that are... more>> within the swarm. A sincere gripe of mines regarding her character is her consistent complacency in the work she does in regards to her conquest. Her flexibility and insurmountable information network relative to the time period, could be taken advantaged of, but alas, she did not take the initiative and seize the opportunity.

The other characters minor, and major too fall in many cases, a gap in coherent thought when it comes to warfare, ironically enough, this novel being a strategy based isekai.

Frankly, I only continued reading this because I was unoccupied, and this did not cost me that much time. Granted an oppurtunity to read something else, I would have happily done so. If this series was longer than what I had read at this moment, I would have long gone dropped this series at volume 1. <<less

Not sure why some want to compare it to Overlord. It reads more like if a person randomly wakes up as the zerg queen (but units are spider/insect based, MC is still a human tho), and not in the Starcraft universe but something more fantasy based.

Seems kind of fluffy as she doesn't have any clear goals so far besides waging war just for the sake of it. No deep character development or really much character interaction at all.

Anywho I'm liking it so far for its simplicity. Thanks for translating!

Note: I read Her Majesty's Swarm as a light novel (volume 3 is where it was last)

Well, I don't write reviews often but I do read reviews before proceeding the novel.

Anyways, this is not that good or that bad. It's not really that horrific, yet that will depend on you, I suppose. She just became queen of spiders and all that. Descriptions of their (you'll find out who they are) demise are not at all that gory. The wordings may make it sound so light-hearted actually. Like simply saying... more>> Killing all beings indiscriminately is similar to saying It is such a nice day today. What I'm trying to say is, it's like it's being said nonchalantly. I picked it up since it was recommended and it was similar to Overlord. Well, there are slight similarities. Slight, alright? Anyway, Overlord definitely has more depth than Her Majesty's Swarm. The premise might be similar but not executed as nicely as Overlord. Well, it's quite unfair to compare it to Overlord or this is a novel of its own and it has its own style and all that, is what some of you might be thinking and maybe it is. But it really doesn't have much depth and sometimes, the reasoning could be off. It also feels at times that it's so... Ya know, like, it's predictable? I'm not sure. It's more or less straight forward though I wish it could've had more complicated plots and twists. But it's a good read, I guess 👌🏼 I'm still giving 5 stars to help support it and the author and translators. <<less

A lot of people are trying to compare this story to overlord, which I get where they are coming from but if you go in expecting an Overlord-like you’ll be disappointed.
First off the protagonist here isn’t a demi-god bureaucrat, she’s a weak noodle war-monger who’s primary strategy is zerg rushes and burrow ambushes. This is a story not for the political strong arming and complete obliteration of enemy armies with a single spell, its about an isekai’d “Starcraft” player who spent so long on economy she ended up supply capped before even having an enemy. This story is about her building an absurd swarm, and then having to struggle to find an actual reason to use it. Personally I just like that its a story about a weak protagonist who is never once on the backfoot, its fun how this little twig of a girl and her pet spider collection can sweep an entire continent in a week.
Also as a warning they do not hold back on how brutal of a situation it would be, in fact they tend to keep reiterating just how f*cking brutal and heartless the protagonist is towards her enemies

tldr: satisfying stomp with a strategist protagonist instead of a warrior, overlord setup, but goes the route of a full on hostile alien invasion instead of a demon king plotting from his castle.

The war and battle strategies and reasoning were abit confusing and could be questioned in result.. And almost all human were portrayed badly and inhumane lol

The protagonist wanted to take the peace way and coexistence but unable to do so with the humans fickle politic and greed. And so she bulldozed with all the massacre to win the game and finish her role but got caught with the NPC she cared about and couldnt extract herself from it.

But I'll take it since it's a bit out of there idea for... more>> a typical Jpn isekai with hs (?) MC and game play. <<less

i actually like this one, of all strategis war light novel out there this one is quite stand out thank for the lack of drama, it is not like I hate drama or romcom but most of it ruin the wars theme like Micheal Bay 's Pearl harbour, this one straight forward with just tactic, strategis and war and a bit of political layout.

the only down side of this LN is that it doesnt have illustrate other than the cover, and also abit short

reached Light Novel volume 3. The novel was pretty good and the characters were simple to be understood by the readers, the the MC background story is kinda mysterious as the author gives the MC additional goal.

Give it a try, since this novel have a similar vibe as Overlord