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cnovelsVery against my better judgment and in breach of all my usual rules (never translate a novel that's still ongoing being the top one), I've started translating Ning Yuan's currently-serialising historical cyberpunk baihe novel To Embers We Return (焚情, pinyin: fen qing). This is primarily for the purpose of making people scream as loudly over Chapters 17 and 18 (and a bunch of other chapters, actually make that most of them) as I did.
The first chapter is now up, together with the timeline and dramatis personae (to be updated as new events and characters are revealed). You can read it here.
Based on my current work rate, a new chapter should be posted every ten days or so. I don't plan on making myself work faster, as it would both undermine the quality of the translation and negatively impact my enjoyment of the process (and I am enjoying it, at least so far, though I did spend much of the morning trying and failing to figure out the difference between two shades of red mentioned in the novel).
For people who find these things useful, there's also a NovelUpdates page and a carrd.
There's an official summary for the novel on its JJWXC page, which I translated here. Here's a slightly more Anglo-publishing-style synopsis that I wrote for the translation's landing page and the carrd:
My current estimate is that it's going to take me upwards of five years to finish translating this (if she ends it at the length I think she's going to end it at — she could surprise me, it's happened before!), so I'm going to take this opportunity to wish myself continued good health. May I not regret this very ill-advised life choice.
The first chapter is now up, together with the timeline and dramatis personae (to be updated as new events and characters are revealed). You can read it here.
Based on my current work rate, a new chapter should be posted every ten days or so. I don't plan on making myself work faster, as it would both undermine the quality of the translation and negatively impact my enjoyment of the process (and I am enjoying it, at least so far, though I did spend much of the morning trying and failing to figure out the difference between two shades of red mentioned in the novel).
For people who find these things useful, there's also a NovelUpdates page and a carrd.
There's an official summary for the novel on its JJWXC page, which I translated here. Here's a slightly more Anglo-publishing-style synopsis that I wrote for the translation's landing page and the carrd:
'How I fixed my wife: I opened her up and put my heart into her body.'
It's the Tang Dynasty, but not as you know it. Hovercars criss-cross the sky; drones whisk back and forth; and the commander of the city guard's favoured weapon is a Gatling gun. The rich augment themselves with a wide array of cybernetic implants, while the poor have to scrimp and save for even the most basic prosthetics. The empire's machinists make a lucrative living crafting, installing and maintaining implants and neural modules.
When Shen Ni, the empire’s foremost machinist, returns home victorious from battle against their long-standing foe, the emperor showers her with rewards, including the hand in marriage of the woman she had loved in her youth — Bian Jin.
Bian Jin had once been the empire’s sharpest blade: a weapon in human form whose very name made their enemies cower. After a string of near-fatal battlefield injuries, however, she’s battered, broken, and stands accused of high treason, though she claims to have no memory of what transpired. Shen Ni takes on the onerous task of retrieving Bian Jin's lost memories and repairing her much-battered cybernetic spine and neural core, but Bian Jin seems to be keeping something back. Can they trust each other? And can they trust the empire?
Veteran baihe author Ning Yuan’s most ambitious work yet, this historical cyberpunk novel tells the story of a group of determined women whose lives become ever more intertwined as they seek to uncover secrets both past and future, and make a place for themselves in a turbulent world.
My current estimate is that it's going to take me upwards of five years to finish translating this (if she ends it at the length I think she's going to end it at — she could surprise me, it's happened before!), so I'm going to take this opportunity to wish myself continued good health. May I not regret this very ill-advised life choice.
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Date: 2024-10-27 09:18 pm (UTC)I guess the only way to help you not regret is to read this and then yell at the chapters you yelled at xD
(I'm gonna promo this all over too 👍)
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Date: 2024-10-29 10:10 pm (UTC)Hoping I can do the original justice (I say, as I pester my engineer sibling with questions about the type of alloys likely to be used for cybernetic limbs).
no subject
Date: 2024-10-28 04:18 am (UTC)Enjoying your translation and artistic choices very much 👀
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Date: 2024-11-01 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-29 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-01 11:07 pm (UTC)