Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details> <b>Highlight for spoilers!</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

I've managed to read a bunch of baihe translations lately!

The other day I read the short story Jianghu by L Si X Xi Y and the novella Who Moved My Ashes by Si Jing Qu. I really enjoyed both of them!

Dragon Subjugation Incantation by Shi Wei Yue Shang continues to be so good imho! As of chapter 67 Highlight for spoilers! *Luo Qingci is still being a bit slow on the uptake re: Ruan Li's feelings towards her, despite the system basically spelling it out. I'm really enjoying the action scenes and can't wait to see Ruan Li face the ancient dragon (I really like how the action stuff is written/translated).*

I've started reading Pale Mirror's translation of Reading the Remnants by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (I'm currently on chapter 24). I'm really enjoying the adventures so far and I particularly like Li Shiyi  and  A Yin! Highlight for spoilers! *I'm a bit spoiled on an endgame pairing (Li Shiyi/Song Shijiu), and am curious how the romance will strike me as it develops.*

I've also started rereading JWQS and it's neat to pick up on some stuff I missed the first time around. Highlight for spoilers! *Like, I didn't pay much attention on my first read to the stuff about the emperor prior to Nangong Rang in chapter 2, but in retrospect it definitely impacts a lot of things.*

[geraineon]

Talking about Reading the Remnants, I was watching this last weekend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE-8_XXDtyU

A fan edit to create a whole movie for Wen Guan! It's amazing!

I didn't realize there's so many more chapters translated (when I checked, it was chapters 1-10 only). I guess that's what I'll be reading next then.

[aurumcalendula]

Ooh neat!

Last I checked this one only had a few chapters and earless tls' was at chapter 9, so this was a nice surprise (I'm inhaled 78 chapters of it as of now).

[alterkrmn]

I finished chapter 150 of Global Examination last night. I feel I can finish it before the year ends!

[geraineon]

yay. it's been fun reading you reading the book~

[larryhammer]

I've read another few chapters Assassin Farmer, which hasn't yet lost me but also hasn't pulled me back in again, or at any rate didn't have the strength to keep me from getting distracted by an RPG and then Kipling.

[geraineon]

Haha, which RPG distracted you?

[larryhammer]

Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle!

[douqi]

I'm nearly done reading Delany's Nova (which I've enjoyed, despite/perhaps because of the usual Delany-isms, including all action pausing just so the narrator's expy can deliver a lecture on history, literature and philosophy). Need to write up my review of In Love with a Substitute next, and then I can get stuck in with Yu Shuang's contemporary romance.

[aurumcalendula]

That reminds me I should read Nova at some point - I have a copy from somewhere but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[larryhammer]

It is, honestly, one of his better novels -- it and Babel-17 are classics for good reason.

[geraineon]

whoops, missed this reply!

The Delaney-isms sounds charming tbh! Added to my tbr - the summary sounds like something I might enjoy.

[douqi]

I would rec it, as well as his earlier novel Babel-17. Very interesting sci-fi (and also Delany himself had an amazingly colourful life).

[gekidasa]

Still slowly rereading Fourteenth of Chenghua and taking notes. SuiTang have moved in together, and Sui Zhou has told his family to think of Tang fan as family now ❤️

[geraineon]

<3 Quite married by now it seems!

[duckprintspress]

I love them. I love how Tang Fan is like "dum de dum cohabitating with the bestie" and Sui Zhou is like "this is my idiot husband. treat him with respect."

[gekidasa]

They're so great, i love them so much

[ehyde]

Welp, it's period-typical transphobia o'clock in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (actually I shouldn't say that, I don't actually know what's period-typical). Dongfang Bubai is fine! And Linghu Chong's reaction to them has me going hey, wait, you're supposed to be a good guy aren't you, please stop. Sigh.

(This is in chapter 31 for anyone else who might be reading. Douqi warned me in an earlier post and I appreciated the warning).

[geraineon]

ah /pats/ I think anne is reading but I don't remember if she's been warned...

[larryhammer]

Ah. Yes. That chapter. I wasn't warned. I wasn't surprised, given the author's time and culture, but still.

[douqi]

Yes, sigh.

In fairness, I think it's genre-atypical for the time period. I only remember one other canonically queer character in a wuxia novel from the period, and that's a secondary character who is the worst caricature of a mean-spirited gay man.

The mainland adaptations do NOT know what to do with Dongfang Bubai. The 2013 one makes her a cis woman, and the 2018 makes her, as far as I can tell, a cis man (and seems to make Yang Lianting a cis woman). The adaptations that interrogate gender, gender identity and identity perhaps the most are Tsui Hark's Swordsman trilogy, especially the second and third films.

[duckprintspress]

I did end up starting The Husky and His White Cat Shizun vol. 7 (reread). The knives start immediately. I am not ready. I'm glad I've got a fluffy read after, I think knives then fluff was the right call, reading-order wise.

I also used birthday money to buy 17 (!!!) books from Via Lactea. I'll be getting Lip and Sword (3 vols) by Jin Shisi Chai, Dawning (3 volumes) by Ice, Soul Vibration (3 volumes) by Dr. Solo, To Rule in a Turbulent World vols 1 and 2 by Fei Tian Ye Xiang (writing as Gu Xue Rou), and I preordered I Can't and I Won't (3 vols) by Yan Gui Kang and Painting Against the Natural Grain (3 vols) by Qing Lv. Cheers to a favorable Canadian Dollar to US Dollar exchange rate, lmao.

Guess that's all my reading for 2025 planned, lmao.

[geraineon]

17 books!! That's more than 1 a month XD

I keep forgetting about Via Lactea when it comes to books.

[duckprintspress]

their stuff is definitely not as well edited as some of the other publishers. Rose and Renaissance was pretty clean but like Salad Days and Silent Hearts kept making my eye twitch. But nonetheless, they're translating a lot of modern stuff, and it's not like I'll be able to get these stories anywhere else once they're licensed and sold for North American distro, so I'm going for it.