Introductions

[geraineon]

Welcome! You can use this post to share a little bit of yourself! Feel free to also just post an introduction to the community instead of replying to this post! You don't have to follow any format, but here are some prompts:

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What is your favourite cnovel?
3. Do you have a favourite author?
4. What are your other hobbies and interests?
5. What do you hope to see from this community?

Comments

[halfcactus]

1. What are you currently reading?
She Belongs to Me by Da Ying.

2. What is your favourite cnovel?
I don't really have one yet... I guess I Ship My Rival X Me by PEPA? I did also like Silent Reading and imprinted on the main character (Luo Wenzhou).

3. Do you have a favourite author?
Not yet. ;__; I'm a very slow reader and I don't read much, honestly.

4. What are your other hobbies and interests?
Journaling. Fandom-wise, vidding and subtitling, though I'm kind of tired of it now haha.

5. What do you hope to see from this community?
I know it's a long shot, but gen (non-romance or little romance focus) novel or manhua recs!

[halfcactus]

*Gen novel recs that are not The King's Avatar because that one is way too long for me aksjd;ajsf; I was thinking more of like... standard novel length.

[geraineon]

Welcome! Someday, someday I will get to I Ship My Adversary x Me (I heard so much good things about it).

Haha, webnovels are extra hard becomes as you said, some of the are so long... Hm, for gen novel recs, I really like (but haven't finished reading) Tai Sui by priest: https://edanglarstranslations.com/ts

Steampunk xianxia, no pairing. Have you read it? (that's the only one gen webnovel I know that I have read some of). If SF novels are okay, Folding Beijing was a short and interesting read, and available here: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/

edited to add: stepped away then thought of it, I think it'll be nice to have a gen novel rec post up later too (hm, maybe we can do themed weekly recs, that's a thought)! I too want to read more gen novels~

[halfcactus]

ISMM really is more of a pick-me-up read haha which I do recommend if you have experiences with RPF. I get so much joy from the audiodrama and manhua adaptations because there are some extra scenes, and they're just a lot of fun.

I actually didn't know that Tai Sui was gen! That, or I keep forgetting when people tell me it is. XD Edanglars translating it will make it more readable for me hehe.

Thanks for the recs and links! I do read SF on occasion, so I'll put Folding Beijing on my list! Am very happy to be in a comm where people seem to read pretty widely. ♥

Some themed posts would be nice!

[geraineon]

I have friends into RPF so I have seen the RPF world haha. Chinese actors RPF too. So I will probably enjoy it!

Hope you enjoy both Tai Sui and Folding Beijing! (I was initially gonna open a danmei webnovel comm but I also wanted to talk about non-danmei books so here we are! Haha. Similarly, I'm happy to see people here read widely!)

[halfcactus]

I’m so glad you decided to go with a general cnovel comm 😭😭😭

[ehyde]

I'll second the rec for Tai Sui and also throw in a rec for The Langya List (the novel Nirvana in Fire was based on) if you haven't read it. The novel is gen -- I gather the drama added more of a romantic element with Nihuang but that's not there in the book.

I think these are the only two gen cnovels I've read -- no, wait. We Live in Nanjing (a sf novel that came up in discussions of last year's hugo nominations debacle) is gen, and it was a fun story, communicating with someone in the future via ham radio to prevent an apocalypse. But there's only an mtl translation for now.

[halfcactus]

I actually have read LYB but found the plot reveals too infodump-y for my brain—which I know is conventional, I’m just bad at processing information haha. I did really enjoy novel!Xia Dong, the outcome of Lin Shu and Nihang’s romance + appreciated the cdrama even more after reading it.

Thank you for the Tai Sui nudge! I have danmei/romance fatigue (which is why I haven’t gotten into Sha Po Lang) but enjoy priest’s writing and Edanglar’s translation enough hehe

[nemainofthewater]

For gen novels, I rec Apocalypse Lord. It's a world where a post apocalyptic resource building game has taken over the real world, and though there is technically a relationship it's very much background to everyone trying to survive. It is also pretty short at only 80 chapters.

[halfcactus]

Thank you!

Yeah I’m not opposed to romance, I’m just not in the mood to read books for the ships/romance right now. Getting recs for anything less than 100 chapters is so exciting omg haha

[douqi]

Priest's second-to-last novel (i.e. the one she released before this current one) 桥头楼上 (I don't think fandom has settled on a title translation on it, so I'm just going to go ahead and call it quite literally End of the Bridge, Top of the Tower) is gen, no romance, and wholly dominated by female characters. It's short, contemporary, very tightly written and does some interesting things with form. Also fully free-to-read on JJWXC! I'm not sure if there's any sort of fan translation out there though.

[halfcactus]

Wait I didn't know she had another gen novel, this sounds perfect, thanks! I'm still waiting to finish She Belongs to Me before starting a new book (it's gonna take a while lol) but short + gen (or at least mostly gen) + all-woman cast in a contemporary setting is so relevant to my interests. Looks like it's mystery too! I think I can do 32 chapters of ~3-5k characters each......... I'm not confident in my reading ability but this seems worth a shot, thank you so much!!!!!!

[geraineon]

+1 I totally didn't know about this either!

"gen, no romance, and wholly dominated by female characters" <- this sounds amazing!

I tried looking, and I couldn't find any... Hopefully it gets picked up for translation by someone someday.