I've created a new list of haremlit stories on the site for those who like harem stories. My harem choices are more urban rather than fantasy and no NTR or swinging (although Ordinary Adult Sex Life 2 is an exception).
https://storiesonline.net/ul/478/favourite-haremlits
There are a bunch of stories by JRyter, FantasyWriter, Best of Both Worlds by Dilettante, a bunch of Dual Writer "Florida Friends" stories.
Probably hundreds of others.
I read the Best of both worlds - it was nowhere close to the stories on my list. Very ho hum. Gave up after the 2nd chapter. Florida Friends were bad. Will check out JRyter and FantasyWriter.
Super list. I love Tantrayaan's stories too! BD is also a favorite of mine. Didn't like the Arlene one. Couldn't make it past the first few chapters. Too much of that smoking kink and the cheating/non-consent part was a bit much.
The smoking bit pretty much goes away someplace in the first story. I don't remember it even showing up in part two.
Didn't like Arlene much either. The story was weird and there were too many people to follow.
Agreed. The biggest point for me is that the first chunk of Arlene and Jeff is hugely different from the rest of the story. Certainly, by the end of 'Book 1', it's heading off in a wildly different direction than one would have thought at the start.
Pretty much, if you don't like the smoking, don't worry. It's almost all gone soon. If you don't like the revenge subplot ... eh. There's certainly some 'revenge' later, but it's wildly different, both in terms of what happens and the stakes.
But, yes, there are a lot of characters, and it's mostly a science-fiction story with a harem.
And sometimes Roust really gets into the nuts and bolts of how to do a thing, far more than most readers will care about it.