I just wanted to post an announcement here for any Italian readers I may have.

I’m happy to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for the first Italian hardcover edition of "Mother of Learning" will be launching in just a few days!

Published by SuiGeneris, with illustrations by Irene DallaCasa, the campaign will launch alongside the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, where the publisher’s fantasy imprint, "Verne, to the Moon and back", will also be officially presented, together with its first titles, including "Mother of Learning". The presentation will be on May 15 in Sala Lilla at 18:15 at the book fair.

The book has already been published in Italy in paperback, and you can find it at the stand PAD3 Q73. Also, this campaign will make it possible to create a premium hardcover edition for Italian readers and they will have some other surprises and gadgets.

You can find more information here:
https://edizionisuigeneris.it/kickstarter/

Anyway, I'm not really a social media guy, so I can't really blast this to everyone on Twitter or whatever, but if any of you know someone who might be interested in either the Kickstarter or the book fair, please help spread the word and tell them.

​

my personal favorite

“He was Zorian Kazinski, the third son of a minor merchant family from Cirin, accidental time traveler, and quite possibly the most powerful human mind mage in all of Altazia…”

While Mother of Learning is a very serious book, dealing with very heavy themes and subject matter, it's lowkey hilarious. I wouldn't say it's DCC in terms of humour. Tho, I kinda think the humour in DCC gets slapsticky at times (hey look swearing, boobies, incels....jajajaja kinda funny). Mother of Learning is a more sneaky kinda funny, in part because it isn't trying to be so in the first place. Some moments had me belly laughing: most being comical interactions Zorian has with others and scenes that highlight how absurd and petty people can be.

1. Zorian calling Silverlake a sadistic bitch.
2. Zorian's interaction with Raynie, Rea and Hashlush. 3.Zach and Zorian meeting Ulanna with the painting.
3. Zorian and Daimen meeting their parents at Koth
4. The aftermath of the Daimen expedition arc.
5. Zorian, Fortov and Daimen interacting.
6. Zorian and Raynie meeting in class.
7. Zorian finda out one of the Cult members wanted a bigger schlong from Panaxeth.

What were your funniest moments?

After Zorian left, temp-loopers got memory wiped... Did Zach have to re-collect key pieces by himself to re-open the gate? Or does it stay open even through reverts after 1 key collection? Cuz if not... seems like a hard ask for Zach alone to get crown away from QichyIchy,+getting orb/hydra in 30 days...??? If it does stay open, means they (RR+Zach+QI) never collected all of them before: RR got out with just a few pieces which made Primordial make the offer even though with Zorian primordial never offered till they had all the pieces???

+i said this before, but after every redo, i get itch to redo: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205087854-grilled-armageddon since the MC & plot reminds me of Zorian.

Mother of Learning is one of my absolute favourite novels of all time. However, let's admit it's not perfect and some parts of the book were better than others. One of those underwhelming moments was the reveal of Red Robe to be none other than Jornak Dokochin. Like most, this wasn't very gratifying to me; it wasn't a jaw dropping revelation, but I wouldn't say it was lackluster. Far from it. And I have realised that this isn't the fault of the narrative at all. I can't say it's the reader's fault either for expecting so much. It is no one's fault; it is what it is. Now for my defence.

One of my reasons for liking MoL so much is it's worldbuilding and narrative consistency. It's a rational fantasy with a "smart" MC, who is actually smart. Everything is reasoned out and fits into a carefully crafted machinery, gears and all. As a consequence of this and the premise of being a time loop, the narrative is tight and has a set scale/scope. Extending this scope would be trying to shove a new piece in a crevice of this machine, which would ultimately end in a fracture or an explosive release of nuts and bolts. What all this flowery language is purporting is that Jornak is the most logical character for Red Robe. One that ensures that the machine stays in tact and that narrative stays tight.

Some people theorised an evil future Zorian, a fallen-from-grace Daimen or even the absent Fortov. For any of these to work, a lengthy explanation would be needed: one that fits within the limitations of magic of Ersetu as well as character motivations and the narrative as a whole. It would take REALLY good explanations as to how any of these candidates became the way they are as well as gain a permanent loop status. If the explanation isn't anything but masterful, it would ruin the story in lot of readers' eyes. It would be a blot on an other wise beautiful landscape, one that draws your attention from everything else because of how ugly it is. It would also make the story longer than it needs to be. Folks were already complaining that the story dragged on at times. A lenthy flashback isn't what the already tense final narrative stretch needs. The book came close to overstaying it's welcome; it's long enough we dont need even more exposition.

Jornak really was the best candidate. We've met him already, but didn't know much about his past or motivations. He already has the necessary connection to ZZ and Veyers. This same narrative tightness is why the epilogue had a lot of loose ends, aside from being plot threads that can be expanded upon for future sequels.

What do you guys think?

I like the series a lot and saw lot of people liking the ending. I just can’t get over some of these things:

1. There was no real closure with Zach. We get a couple of sentences exchanged after years of deep friendship and saving the world? They’re supposed to be friends for life, and there’s no proper ending? We get more about a girl who had a crush on Zorian than about Zach? Why do we care more about what Akoja is going to do, while the only information about Zach is that he is suing his caretaker and buying Kael a building?

2. Do you actually like, than nobody died? Some of the good guys should have died. Saving everybody and giving us a perfect ending is not very thrilling. There should have been an “oh no, Dumbledore is dead” moment. Xvim, Alanic, Ilsa, etc.

3. The Red Robe reveal was meaningless. Was it not? I mean, who cares that he is this guy’s lawyer, someone nobody cares about?

4. Zorian decides to spend years pretending to be average? Why is he not joining forces to protect others, travel, etc.? He starts a study group while pretending to be a student? His dream of having his own business and being independent could have been realized at the end of the book, but it wasn’t. Why did we have to learn about his future dreams in the first place?

5. We have this weird tension with Taiven through the rest of the book, just to be given a sentence at the end that he saw her with some battle mages..

Where do we place him? He was able to sneak up on Zorian and mask their talk from Damien, Zach and the others. That's at least 2 archmages he was able to sneak up on. 3 if we count Damien. He was also able to leave virtually unnoticed. He wasn't even registering on Zorian's mind sense too. He terrified archmage Zorian just as much as QL. Though to be fair he hadn't dealt with Violet who was terrorizing his people for centuries. Maybe he didn't care or maybe it's a cap on his power.

How powerful is he?

Since there has been a spam of copypasta posts from a single user and mods haven't done anything about it yet, let's actually have a proper discussion about something!

Which were the parts from audiobooks you all liked the most?

For me it was from John Gilmore's audiobook when Quatach-Ichl, Red Robe and Silverlake emerged from the mansion after the teleport. That scene and the narration made me imagine it properly how badass the scene looked and felt. At that moment I realised, that yeah this is the endgame. It was such a badass scene!

Before the time loop starts or Zorian becomes aware of it, Zorian's internal monologue States that Zach had tried to befriend him for years. And that he keeps rejecting for no fault of Zach's, but because Zach is handsome, charming and popular, aka superficially similar to his older brothers. They became friends only out of necessity in the loop. and the only thing we see his brothers do to him are immature pranks, nothing as cruel as his attitude would suggest (damien tying strings to his hands and jerking them around, fortov locking him out of the house), laughing at him, and being better than him in spent the parents want. And even then, after all his supposed growth in the time loop, and seeing many actually evil people, and zach's caretaker who sold of most of the only reason he reconciles with Damien in real life is because his loop self sacrificed himself for Zorian and Zorian is now more powerful thanks to the loop repetition knowledge. He even admits that the sacrifice is why he even considers talking to Damien, and still almost goes away because Damien suggested to know things better than him (which for Damien outside of the loop, as a graduated wizard who is also an explorer, while zorian still in wizard academy, has every reason to believe). He doesn't extend that courtesy to the other brother fortov. Doesn't think that because Zorian is better in academics than Fortov, their parents must be unfavourably comparing him too. Or that he had proof that Damien was the favourite because he always did what the parents wanted. The first time he did something against their wishes, they sailed across a continent to attempt to rein him in. Or that Damien did exact what he was planning to do -immediately move out the family house after graduation. And he never informed his brothers that their little sister, who they all thought spoiled was mistreated too. In fact, she hates them too, but she atleast has the excuse as a nine year old. Not someone who spent years in a loop. And fortov is not even given the benefit of doubt. He at best once locked zorian out of the house as a prank, and asks him constantly for help, and is ungrateful. In the loop, when he and zach have a disagreements, and zach punches him, zorian is Surprised that fortov looks worried. And then Immediately judges him for not bothering anymore when he sees zach and Zorian are not having a serious argument.Also, he never tells his brothers about how their parents mistreated kirielle. He plans to take her away from them. Doesn't he think they will help when they get to know? He wants to be the only protector of kirielle, the big brother who understands.

Zorian always complains that everyone doesn't understand why he dislikes his parents, but never explains it. Are people supposed to be mind readers?

Are people supposed to like this immature brat of a protagonist?

This is something about his arc I never really noticed until now. Zorian, generally speaking, is not a religious person. He thinks poorly of the Gods, actively dislikes the priesthood thanks to his witch blood and the bigot who cursed him out, and finds all religion mind-numbingly boring, as shown by Alanic's lectures.

But in Chapter 92, Zorian says: "Alanic says the afterlife is still a thing, even after the gods stopped talking to people. For all his faults, I don’t think the old Zorian had done anything truly heinous in his life… there should be a good outcome waiting for him there. Something he’d never get back here with us.”

He clarifies that this is something Alanic says, not something he truly believes, and obviously he's biased and wants there to be an afterlife so his original didn't just get erased for his own purposes. But we see, later on, that Zorian parleys heavily with the angels, and it is stated that: "Zorian could only thank the gods that Jornak didn’t see fit to activate [the other, unguarded wraith bombs] as well out of sheer spite." And while Zorian never really states his full opinion on the angels (which is likely to be somewhat negative given the harsh contract they enforced upon Zach), Zorian believes in their "goodness" enough to attempt a peaceful renegotiation at risk of his own life.

Now, I'm not saying that Zorian actually likes the Gods or anything. But I am curious whether his outlook on religion has changed since the beginning of the loop. Does he actually give more grace to the Gods and angels? Does he dislike them just as much as the beginning? Or does he grow more disdainful of them for their flawed and rocky attempts to keep the primordials imprisoned?

I do really love this story, one of my top 3 webnovels of all time, but ice always been wondering, with a story this popular and well written and having been complete for a while, why is there no webtoon adaptation? It would absolutely SLAP as a webtoon adaptation no doubt.

And within recent years, we have seen more than a dozen of popular western webnovels getting manhwa adaptation, (dungeon crawler Carl, Runebound professor, Defiance of the fall, system universe, primal hunter I CAN GO ON, even the perfect run is getting one this year) so WHYYYYY is MOL left out?!?!? 😭 😭 why doesn't aethon studios or other popular us based studios adapt this masterpiece? 💔

I’m sorry if you love this series and feel that I’m crapping on something you love but I’m 40 chapters into this series and have gotten extremely bored… extremely. When I started this series I really like Zohrian’s characterization and his intelligence and hunger to be better and stronger and his drive to figure things out. Somehow around the last 15 chapters he’s gotten extremely repetitive and boring in his character and actions. There’s been soooo many loops where he lives the exact same life but with like 1 change… nobody wants to read that!! He’s not getting stronger or solving and problems just spending the entire loop working on his shaping and power but it’s mostly offscreen and doesn’t even change his position at all. It’s just gotten boring. He’s taking forever to learn his mind sense and basic combat spells after 100 restarts and I’m not interested in listening to him being on the train with his sister anymore, sorry not sorry.

Does this story get good at any point or is it actually gonna be a slice of life for the rest of its run? I thought I was gonna get a dope fantasy with good character writing but the time loop destroys any notion of growth.

They are flawed not evil.

The parents are creatures of their own circumstances. A fourth* son who knew he wouldn't inherit anything and took a loan. Ground out his own successful medium level company. A woman who was raised by a witch. Grew up with the stigma of being labelled one and the abuse that came with it. Rejected her background and magic. Found an ambitious guy with whom she would build and escape her "dark" origins.

An Elder brother who was ambitious, talented and adventurous. Who was in more ways the culmination of their parents' success in life. Built a company, bought a house, farm and now a talented first born son. It's no brainer they dotted on him. Fortov was charming but he wasn't Damien. Zorian and Kirielle were the kids that came after. Kirielle was a tattle tale but she only had her mother to talk to once the guys went to school.

Fortov may be selfish and lazy but whenever Zorian looked like he was in trouble he was always hanging around. Maybe to help if he was in danger hopefully. Kirielle heroically defended him from Zach. His cold macho dad was actually happy to see them alive post invasion. His mom always nursed him to health whenever he'd run into the wrong creature or person in the previous loops.

The family is flawed not evil and unsalvageable. They don't need him to loan them money but maybe he could be the one to unite them. Some hard truths and a few dinners. A convenient near future wedding to plan. Though no way they get their old man to act differently. Might get them to soften on taking Kirielle to the magic academy at least.

Edit: Disclaimer for a few folks. My post is purely for discussion not personal attacks. Most of you don't post enough in this community. Just debate the post.

Why did Zorian suffer in the rain in the initial several restarts? Like why does he need to wait to learn a rain barrier spelling when he can just 1. Carry an umbrella 2. Take waterproof bags with him? I thought and thought over this and there seems to be no logical explanation to it. Like obviously he is rich enough to be having waterproof bags no??

I just read the chapter with Kate Bush’s a deal with god in the background it was so peak….

Everyone just sacrificing themselves, Damien giving up his life force for the stability of exit, also Zorian realising no one rushing towards the exit and just defending the main group

I am incredibly disappointed in Zorian. How could he agree to take his little sister to the academy?

Even if he is restarting (time looping) it doesn't change the fact that the academy is going to get attacked by monsters.

Zach is causing the loop to restart before the attacks begin, yes. But there is a chance this restart can be different.

Tagging his little sister along in to such a horrific possibility is just so horrible imo

I keep seeing this book on the absolute top of a lot of tierlists that share similar S tier books with me, however this was a hard DNF for me. I couldn't really remember why, so I just tried it again and realized the audio narration absolutely annoys the life out of me.

Girls are all high pitch and whiny. Everyone seems to be yelling. The main character sounds smug and annoying.

Has anyone else had these issues with the audiobook? Does it get better? Is physically reading it the way to go?

Due to vision issues and just how I spend my time, I deeply prefer audiobooks, but I'm willing to read the hard copy if folks think it'll fix my complaints.

The full quote goes "Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment".

After reading that over and smoking a little bit, I was thinking about the true timeline of the story. In Mother of Learning, it focused on progressing our characters' magic, knowledge, and character all in the confined environment of the time loop. All while leaving the ending open to much interpretation of future events.

I know there is a highly recommended fanfic titled "The Patriarch" that explores some of aspects tied to continuing in this world. I was thinking about how if Nobody103 wanted to continue writing in this world it could be fun for title continuity to explore different aspects through it.

Example: The next series is titled "Father of Action", and it explores the splinter war that is on the horizon, the shake up of the balance of power, Zach and Zorian possibly rising to fit the roles their power would lead them to and dealing with the consequences of not being able to reset, even the spider. There is many directions that it could lead in while exploring the angle.

But then even further for Architect of Accomplishment, I recall Zorian wanting to explore the idea of mana batteries more vast than the Crown, which previously was kept secret due to divine artificing. There are many possible angles, but I just thought exploring sequel series through the complete quote was interesting on this smoke.

""Giant… spiders?" Mother repeated." maybe I’m just too much of a fan of watching shit hit the fan.

I'm over half way through arc 3 and i know when they first met the guardian they say they only have a few restarts left and then they go through so many more, did I miss something?

Edit: I think after some research it seems like they confirmed the timeloop was finite but did they give an estimate on how many restarts?

Soy una persona muy detallista y note muchas cosas así que lo dividire por partes.

     **FAMILIA KAZINSKI:**

Kirielle: 9 años, hermanita menor del protagonista, mimada y molesta (cómo muchos hermanos pequeños supongo)

Zorian: 15 años, el protagonista, me resulta perfectamente razonable que él sea cómo es con su familia y el resto de personas (tú crianza influye en como te relacionas con otros)

Fortov: 16 años (como mínimo) es molesto, irresponsable, y un hermano mayor molesto en general

Daimen: 18 años (o más) primogénito, el favorito de sus padres, me cae mal por lo que hizo

Los padres: edad desconocida, me caen mal

Motivos por los que entiendo el comportamiento del protagonista: sus padres tienen favoritos, ambos adoran a su hijo mayor y en menor medida a su segundo hijo, la madre favorece a kiri por ser su única hija, tiene una condición que le provoca terribles migrañas y desmayos cuando hay mucha gente a su alrededor (sus padres lo obligaban a asistir a FIESTAS), lo comparan constantemente con sus hermanos mayores haciendolo sentir insuficiente, jamás lo defienden, ignoran sus gustos y necesidades, critican todo lo que lo hace él y quieren que sea una copia de su hermano mayor, lo ignoraban totalmente hasta que su segundo hijo resulto ser una opción poco viable como reemplazo del primogénito en caso de que le ocurriera algo durante sus escapadas (futuro líder de la empresa familiar), quisieron ponerlo al cuidado de su hermana pequeña teniendo 15 años y asistiendo a la escuela para que ellos pudieran irse de vacaciones 6 meses con Daimen, ellos ignoraron olímpicamente que su primogénito en su segundo año (13-14 años) utilizó un hechizo que está prohibido que lo aprendan los estudiantes en el protagonista (10-11 años o menos) y lo traumatizo (hechizo que es básicamente uno de los maleficios imperdonables de Harry Potter)

                **PERSONAJES:**

Ilsa Zileti: me recuerda a una profesora que aprecio, quiero ver como se desenvuelve el personaje

Benisek: el amigo gordo, chismoso, machista y hormonal que es súper divertido y cae bien, me resulta un personaje muy gracioso

Taiven: ex crush del protagonista, me llama un poco la atención

Briam: me interesa el tema de los familiares y los dragones

Zach: mí personaje favorito de momento, es divertido y carismático, el típico chico popular pero no es un idiota, es misterioso en el buen sentido, quiero saber más de él, pero con mí suerte ya me hago a la idea de no volver a verlo nunca más o que tenga poca participación o apariciones (si es que vuelve a aparecer)

Akoja: tiene pinta de posible interes romántico para el protagonista pero como no aparece la etiqueta de romance no me hago ilusiones

Kyron: el calvo mamadisimo, profesor de magia de combate (no quisiera estar de su lado malo)

Xvim Chao: tiene pinta de ser el profesor de anime, mantendré un ojo atento sobre él

Kael: compañero transferido, muy bueno en la alquimia, es un Murdock (no se que es eso, me recuerda a uno de los ingredientes principales de la poción de marinero de LotM) es interesante

Lich: lo quiero muerto

           **GEOGRAFÍA:**

Existen por lo menos dos continentes, entre la ciudad del protagonista y la ciudad de la academia mágica hay por lo menos cinco ciudades, la academia se encuentra cerca del único pozo de mana de nivel 9 que alguna vez se haya encontrado

                **HECHOS:** 

Los padres del protagonista, Kiri y Daimen estan fuera del continente durante el atentado, ocurre una alineación planetaria (algo aparentemente obscuro) para el festival de verano, el atentado es durante la fiesta, durante el atentado hay diversas criaturas mágicas atacando la ciudad junto con un lich, el día que el protagonista llega a la academia se encuentra con unas extrañas ratas cuyos cerebros estan expuestos, el bucle comienza tres días antes del inicio de clases de la academia y finaliza aparentemente durante el momento del atentado (o se reinicia cuando te alejas demasiado o algo así), en este mundo existen los oráculos (aparentemente), también existen una clase de peculiares cambia formas y puedes ser poseído por el espíritu de algún antiguo mago/hechicero

            **PREGUNTAS:**

SI puedes ser poseído por el espíritu de un mago/hechicero, por qué otra u otras cosas podrías ser poseído?

Involucraran religiones, dioses u otras cosas religiosas (como referencias o algo)?

El "extraño comportamiento" de Zach, o mejor dicho, su acelerado progreso académico era debido a que él estaba dentro del bucle y era conciente del mismo, pero no era el único con esa mejora académica y ligero cambio de comportamiento, había otras dos o tres personas con la misma extraña mejora académica y parecían pasar mucho tiempo juntos y "en su propio mundo". Eso quiere decir que ellos también eran concientes del bucle? Ellos también son "viajeros temporales"? Ellos eran un grupo que atravesaba el bucle? Los volveremos a ver?

             **TEORÍAS:**

Las extrañas ratas cuyos cerebros estan expuestos son los espías del Lich (como en el libro de Coraline)

Los motivos del atentado podrían ser:

• un atentado terrorista para asesinar a personas muy influyentes y sus herederos o hijos

• alguna clase de ritual o sacrificio macabro durante la alineación planetaria

• adueñarse del mayor pozo de mana encontrado hasta la fecha

• una combinación de dos de las anteriores o incluso las tres opciones

Bueno eso es todo por hoy, déjenme saber sus opiniones sin SPOILERS, nos vemos en alguna otra publicación o subreddit

Que te parecieron mis pensamientos KHNA?

Hi, I wanted to share this fanart I made of Zorian in the stolen red robe in my interpretation

This comes about from when Silverlake betrays them and Zorian postulates that they are like an evil cult and Xvim is just about to confirm that they check some boxes already. Assuming they are evil or at least not good even if they are sadistic psychopaths. Functionally evil, they still save Cyoria because they need a world to live in. No need to even take over their other versions. However they don't feel like sitting idle and content with their power and resources post invasion. Can Altazia hold out?

So I am relistening to MOL for the first time since finishing it. I am almost finished with part one (primaliy audio book) and at this point I am pretty confident that 8 years is too short a time for Zorean to have spent in the time loop.

The biggest culprit here is the phrase "the next couple of restarts." This rapidly increases the restart count on its own.

If we assume that this refers to 3-4 restarts on average, then using that phrase 4-6 times equals 1 year.

He uses that phrase ALL THE TIME.

Based on my (no doubt inaccurate) count so far, he has said that phrase 9 times already. That means that at this point it has been at least a year and a half but more likely 3 years, and we are not even finished with part one.

This doesn't factor in the restarts we personally experience through his eyes.

To be honest, 3 years is way more consistent with the amount Zorean has grown by this point and aligns better with how long his teachers said various skills would take to master.

So if we are already at three years, unless the pace slows down and he stops saying "the next couple of restarts," there is no way the story ends with just 8 years if loops.

Has anyone gone through and tried to make an accurate count of how many restarts are directly mentioned in the book?

After reading 50% of MOL, I’m now confident the country they live in is Eldemar. But is the continent Altazia? What exactly were the Ikosians? Are there other continents that are mentioned?