Fans of Sword Art Online, a series taking place between various virtual realities, and whose plot kicks off when players find themselves stuck within the game, have a lot to enjoy, from sci-fi to RPG elements and even a romantic storyline. But before it was an anime or a manga, the story started out with web and light novels.
There are other light novels that have similar elements— like people finding themselves in different worlds and getting to experience a game character's life firsthand— to what Sword Art Online offers. And many of them have also inspired manga and anime to indulge their readers as well.
10 Goblin Slayer
In a world where the characters don't even have proper names, a young priestess is tasked with helping a group of adventurers take on a goblin nest, only to be ambushed and picked off one-by-one until only the priestess herself is left. Luckily, a figure dressed in worn armor comes to save her and eradicate the nest: The titular Goblin Slayer. Eventually, despite her horrifying start, the priestess will fight alongside him.
The series is notable for having originally been posted online, with ASCII art illustrations, before it was picked up as a light novel. In addition to the original 12 volumes, there have also been a few spin-off books.
9 So I’m A Spider, So What?
Magic from a parallel reality breaks into a Japanese high school, killing everyone, but also reincarnating them into said magical world. One nameless heroine, known unofficially as Kumoko, who was a fan of RPGs and video games in her past life, finds herself reborn as a small spider monster.
Despite being born as a low-level creature in this world, Kumoko eventually grows into a powerful fighter. It helps that while the illustrations make her look like a cute little spider, and it's made clear that it's just for the reader's benefit as she's actually much more monstrous in-story.
8 In A Different World With A Smartphone
Often, when a character finds themselves trapped within a new world, they have to struggle to adjust to the technology the world has to provide or lack thereof. This light novel series decides to have a little more fun with that.
After Touya Mochizuki is killed by accident, the powers that be allow him to return to life, albeit in another world. He decides to live in a fantasy world on one condition: He gets to bring his smartphone with him. It can't call people from his old world, but is otherwise functional, like having a GPS. Using it, he will travel to new lands and form new allies within this world.
7 Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?
Bell Cranel lives in a world that resembles a real-life RPG who seeks adventure in a mysterious maze known as the Dungeon. And this rookie adventurer has a simple reason: He wants to meet girls. Instead of rescuing some damsel-in-distress, however, he ends up being rescued by Aiz Wallenstein, a more established adventurer, from a minotaur, subsequently falling in love with her. But she's not the only person interested in him, a group that even includes the goddess Hestia.
In addition to manga and anime adaptations, there's also a light novel spin-off series called Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria.
6 The Irregular At Magic High School
In an alternate version of the world, magic is real, is codified by technology, and is managed by genetics. In this world, Tatsuya Shiba is a magically inept student who attends a magic high school with his sister, Miyuki, serving as her bodyguard.
But things aren't necessarily as they appear, including just how powerful Tatsuya really is, causing him to be seen as something of an "irregular," or just where his sister exactly came from.
5 Accel World
Fans of Sword Art Online might take a special interest in this series, as it comes from the same creator: Reki Kawahara.
Lonely, unpopular Haruyuki Arita uses the virtual world to escape reality, allowing him to meet "Kuroyukihime," a popular girl from his school. who introduces him to a secret program called Brain Burt, a program that essentially allows people to stop time. Eventually, however, the program gives way to a fighting game where people can earn abilities, and Kuroyukihime wants Haruyuki to help her defeat powerful figures in the game as well as meet its creator.
4 Marchen Madchen
People who love to read might enjoy stories about other people who enjoy reading themselves. Hazuki Kagimura is a bit of an outcast bookworm who stumbles upon the chance of a lifetime when she bumps into an unusual woman and enters a portal to another reality, where she enrolls in a magical school.
At this school, girls called "Madchen" are chosen by books in order to become mages and Hazuki has been chosen by the classic tale Cinderella.
3 Lost Universe
These light novels, which later inspired a manga and an anime, are something of a sister series to Slayers. Set in the Black World, where mysterious, intelligent "Lost Ships" fill the setting, the story revolves around Kane Blueriver, who inherits such a ship.
Forming a trio with his sidekick Millie and the ship's computer, Canal, they face the ever-growing threat of the Nightmare Syndicate, who seeks to take over the universe. All the while, the mystery of where the "Lost Ships" came from looms in the background.
2 Rocket Girls
Set in the Solomon Islands, in a world where a Japanese corporation wants to send people into space, but only has the technology to send people the weight and height of average female high school students, the heroine Yukari Morita is pressured into becoming an astronaut while visiting the islands to look for her long-lost father.
She eventually joins up with a native girl named Matsuri, who might have a closer connection to her than she thinks, and a genius girl named Akane Miura, all while space awaits.
1 The New Gate
In this universe, an online game called "The New Gate" traps players and puts them in a life-and-death situation. Its greatest player, Shin, is just about to save the day, only for him to be mysteriously transported 500 years into the future right before he takes on the final boss.
Unable to return home, Shin must search for information as he quests and encounters figures from his own past.