Lord of Mysteries, Vol. 1: The Clown, Part I (Volume 1)

Lord of the Mysteries is a steampunk eldritch fantasy in a world that is entrenched with magic, divination, top-hat wearing gentleman wielding guns and tarot cards, gothic madams who can appear out of nowhere erase you without a trace, and secret organizations of every flavour. And did I mention eldritch horror? Interlaced between all that is an abundance of wholesome moments as well. It has great characters, a thought provoking power-system, and a setting full of mysteries just like the title suggests. And the reveals end up making for a true delight. I was personally hooked from the start. Others might get hooked within 30 chapters. And if not so, then definitely by the end of the first volume. So here is the absolute barebones summary of the beginning to get you started: our main character does a "luck enhancement ritual" at the beginning of the series after a series of really bad luck. However, instead of improving his luck, his soul gets sent to another world and he assimilates with the person whose body he enters. Basically an isekai/transmigration story where he doesn't outright replace the person, but somewhat truly merges with him and gains his memories and knowledge. Now he's trying to survive and go back to earth, avoiding detection and learning about the world he is inhabiting. Overall, I love the entire series. I have some gripes I will share in reviews of other volumes, but for volume 1 I have very little to say in terms of negatives. I absolutely love it. Some people say that the pacing is way too slow. I disagree and think that it's well done and adequately sets up the rest of the story. We shall see how that opinion changes in further re-reads, but for now it's excellent. Now, a little bit on how this series is structured. There's going to be 18 physical books. Each volume/arc is 3 books. The first physical book released (Volume I: Part 1) covers until chapter 76. It ends in a relatively satisfying place too. It 571 pages, spaced appropriately in attempt to maximize readability and fit in as much as possible. It doesn't feel too small, nor does it feel too big. Just right. Now, another good thing about this book is that this it cleans up the initial chapters where the translation and prose were a bit iffy in the online version. As such it is well-edited and makes for a great read. So once you're done with this, you can go find the entire series somewhere online like on webnovel.com or wherever it's supposed to be located and read the rest of it. Or if you're like me, you can both read and listen to it. Beware of the wiki and social media for the series for there are major spoilers always floating about. For example, if you look someone up, the wiki page or your search engine's AI summary might just spoil incredibly major plot points before you can even look away. Just go to the reddit.com/r/lordofthemysteries and ask questions if you really want answers, but don't browse carelessly. If you want to ask me specific questions about the series, look up "Ayszed" wherever. That's about it, enjoy the ride!

I shall preface this by saying: this was a lot. And that's not necessarily a bad thing - I picked this up knowing it would be a long series, but by the time the first volume I arrived I realised that it about twice as long as I had anticipated and I dare say this first volume with it's near 600-pages just scratches the surface of where this series is headed. Lord of Mysteries has immense worldbuilding, and while it is a lot to take in - especially this early in the story - it is incredibly well done and one that pays off. So yes, this first volume is very dense and some people might struggle to get through it. The very short chapters do definitely help getting through this more easily. Nevertheless, whilst enormous, this is world building done right and it is fascinating to see this world unfold. What truly carried this book for me was the main character Klein Moretti aka Mingrui. This is an isekai/portal fantasy and that alone already adds some interesting cultural mixture: Mingrui isn't quite sure what happened, but he finds himself waking up n the body of a Klein Moretti who lives in a Victorian-like world with plenty of steam punk vibes. This leads to some fun commentary of Klein observing this world both from the point of view of a contemporary and Chinese in this new world. So as not to attract too much attention, he embraces Klein's identity and essentially takes over his life which includes siblings and a job interview right around the corner. Klein's main goal remains the same throughout though; find a way to get home. And for that, he needs to dig into the mysteries of this world. Whilst by and large a pretty standard historic setting, there are gods and so called Beyonders involved; regular people who have developed special powers by means of drinking special potions. In an attempt to uncover the truth, Klein gets himself involved in super natural crime investigations, secret organisations and underground movements - add to that his domestic life with his siblings and more of a quadruple than a double life he's leading! This book also doesn't shy away from horror and gore elements, be it rotting corpses or grotesque monsters. While we haven't all all too much of either yet, they do already set the tone for the series. And despite being thrown into all this, Klein remains a very level headed character throughout; I absolutely loved him as a narrator. He is kind and humorous, admits fear but generally stays calm in the face of the extreme. I find him a very compelling and intelligent character which makes him perfect for all the roles he is trying to pull off. I also enjoyed all the different elements; the more crime and detective side of things. The magic system which feels akin to an RPG, the horror and mysteries. While we haven't gotten to know the rest of the cast well - it is an immense cast but non of whom feel one too many - but they are all interesting and I look forward to learning more about them. While this first volume was fairly slow due to all the set up and worldbuilding, this first volume ended with a bang and I am very curious to see what Klein finds out next. And just in case I didn't highlight it enough: fantastic world building and an even better main character.

I am only giving this 4 stars for the problems with the translation. The actual book is amazing, great cover art, amazing story, but some of the changes in the translation are not good. My biggest gripe is how they completely remove all instances of the word "lampoon", which is used so heavily in the original translations it's seen as a staple characteristic of the protagonist to fans. They also altered The Fool's honorific title, which I don't like partly because the last line has different incorrect implications. Another instance of a word change I don't like is the change of "cogitation" to "trance". "Cogitation" much more accurately describes the act being done in the book. I'm hoping the translators will see this and make some changes in the future books. Some things I want to commend the book on especially are the full page illustration featured in the book (and in the second book) which are super sick, the translation/authors notes which are very insightful, and the stylized illustrations/writings for letters and notes in the book.

One of the best novels ever written. Note that reviews written before August of 2025 are probably not related to this original edition sold by Yen Press. I don't understand the reason behind this, but a while back someone was selling non-official and bad translated copies of the book, and since it was under the same name, once the real thing show up in Amazon it took the previous reviews with it. English is not my main language, but after reading a few chapters I can tell is well written/translated. A good detail is that some documents found by the protagonist show up as "pictures" in the book that imitate hand writing which I think is a pretty cool detail! Also, thoughts are showcased with a different font so you will know when you are reading the protagonist's thoughts, same for dialogs between characters. Minor complains: The book came with a few small scrapes, I wish there was a hardcover edition available :c It doesn't cover the whole volume 1 of Lord of Mysteries, while this was expected since is the same for the Chinese edition.

I've read the web novel and this is a fantastic translation! It's cleaned up a lot of the flaws left in and explained some concepts better. This is a phenomenal story with some of the best worldbuiling there is. The characters are great and three dimensional, and they have humongous relevance to the store. There are no throw away characters, real ones that stick around but don't do anything. This is a tight, well planned series and this first book only scratches the surface of the mysteries of the universe. Klein is a fantastic POV character, and we hear a lot of his internal stream of consciousness.

Excellent book! I watched the anime then decided to try and read the book. The story telling is fantastic!

Fantastic book! It has a slower start with more world building. When I first tried to read it, I quit about 15 chapters in. I started it a second time months later and am so glad I did!!!! Now I love it and am over 1,000 chapters in, already dreading when it's over. For this one (the first book) its the slowest moving but honestly once it hits its stride, it's amazing. The series has very relatable human characters you want to root for. I love this series. Great mix of humor, poignant moments, lore, and action. Also from what I've seen so far, paperbavk translation is good. Watch out for Kindle version, those reviews should honestly be seperated. Paperback is beautiful.

I picked this up in the hopes that it would illuminate the Chinese animation currently running on Crunchyroll made from it. The latter is very richly animated, though with more horror than I care for, but rather incoherent. Trying to figure out what's supposed to be going on is a bit of a slog. This translated webnovel does indeed do the job I wanted of it, explaining the world and story. Typo-free, but with an odd, awkward prose style in English of a sort that I've encountered before in translated light novels and webnovels. (The translator does not seem to know the difference between the pupil of the eye and the iris, which leads to some peculiar descriptions, and whatever headgear is intended by a "half top hat"? And so on.) Nonetheless, if one can muscle past the prose (I have practice) the story it's trying to convey seems interesting, with engaging world-building and a protagonist with a pretty congenial head-space to be in. Yet another transmigrator tale, with our young modern Chinese hero transported into a sort of Victorian steampunk world with magic. It has an interesting start, as the local young man into whose body our hero transfers has just shot himself in the head, oops... Kick the rating down a star if you are style-sensitive.