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

[geraineon]

... So now I'm sick, again! But well, I did manage to read a book on my flight. I finished volume 1 of Lie Huo Jiao Chou (Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire), and hm, I really enjoyed how it started but I find the pacing to be both too fast and too slow in the second half of volume 1.

Still, I'm interested enough to continue!

[halfcactus]

Oh nooooo get well soon!

[aurumcalendula]

I hope you feel better soon!

[ehyde]

Hope you feel better soon!

Hm, I previously had some issues with LHJC and didn't manage to finish, but that was later on--I think it was more the translation than the pacing, but I can see the pacing doing that too. I haven't given the Rosmei translation a try yet.

[douqi]

Oh no! Feel better soon!

[silverblade219]

Hope you feel better soon also 🍀

[sam_gardener]

Hope you feel better soon! and that you get a chance to rest and recover.

[dayadhvam_triad]

oh no ;__; hope you feel better soon!

Think I mentioned it before in the intro post, but yeah agreed—while I really like priest's prose style and the types of characters/themes she gravitates towards, the pacing could be better. I've left too many of her stories hanging in reader's limbo of "partially read, will return to it later" b/c something about the pacing trips my brain up >_<; (I didn't have this issue with 桥头楼上 b/c it's so short haha)

[halfcactus]

Just donghua which may or may not be based on cnovels:

Soulmate Adventure: Finished S1, loved the girls and the soulmate adventuring, but I'm really not cut out for wuxia OR plot; I zoned out every time other characters were onscreen, oops! The New Year special was so good though omg 10/10.

哑舍 Ya She: Each episode features a different character and artifact (the main character runs a magical antique shop, which is sort of like Yuuko's shop in xxxHolic in that it attracts people with wishes and ~fate~). I've only seen the first two eps and wasn't particularly moved by the stories, but I do like the concept and format so I might pick it up again. CW for stylized visions of animal harm in ep 1 (the animal will be fine).

百妖谱 Bai Yao Pu: I've only finished three eps but this is shaping up to be my favorite donghua and I'd be interested to know if there are more donghua like this. The main character is a traveler who assists the spirits she meets along the way and is kind of morally dubious. She is joined by a baby monk and a gray fox. Customer-of-the-week format with a quietly emotional atmosphere, folk fantasy, and nice storytelling. Seems pretty gen too! But while I'm usually kinda neutral/forgiving about subtitles, it aggravates me that yao is translated as "fairy" throughout the show (the official English title is Fairies Album, which is why I kept scrolling past it 😂).

(Outside of cnovels, I finished the Run with the Wind novel and loved it and now want to rewatch the anime.)

[aurumcalendula]

I've enjoyed what I've seen of Soulmate Adventure! I really need to catch up on season 2 (although I've heard it ups the wuxia plot considerably).

[douqi]

Oh yay Soulmate Adventure!

Have you seen the original MV that started it all off? Super cute.

[geraineon]

I do like the customer of the week/story of the week format ala xxxholic/mushishi/Natsume. Will check out!

And lol, yao as fairies is so weird. So many things get translated into "fairies"...

[larryhammer]

Not a c-novel, but adjacent: I'm rereading Sherwood Smith's The Phoenix Feather, a four-volume wuxia-inspired story that engages with the genre (and with historical c-dramas) at a deeper level than ye typical tropes. I read this as each volume first came out, but am now bounding straight through in preparation for reading the sequel and the recent prequel.

Highly enjoyable. Parts of it chime interestingly with the author's earlier Inda (also four volumes) but it's entirely its own story -- not to mention clearly wuxia.

[ehyde]

Oh, cool! My high school friend group was very into the Crown Duel/Court Duel duet, ages ago, but I haven't read anything else by Sherwood Smith yet. I do know she's written Nirvana in Fire fanfic though!

[geraineon]

Ah, I haven't read anything by Sherwood Smith. I do like a good wuxia/wuxia-inspired story!

[ehyde]

I finished the first volume of Thousand Autumns and am waiting for more from the library. In the meantime I'm reading The Imperial Uncle, which is--different! I'm honestly not sure what to make of it yet.

[headstone]

Eager to hear where you eventually land on The Imperial Uncle! I loved it but it's a bit divisive and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it until some time after reading.

[geraineon]

Imperial Uncle is pretty interesting! Hope to hear more about what you think once you're done~

[duckprintspress]

I'll also be curious what you think about The Imperial Uncle. It definitely threw me at first, but I ended up absolutely adoring it.

[alterkrmn]

I finished my assignmet at work and I'm finally reading Married Thrice to Salted Fish again. I'm on chapter 92

Spoilers

Gu Fuzhou is away in the Northwest, and Lin Qingyu made Prince Xiao Li smile. I kind of think the third transmigration is going to happen soon (there's an author note at the end of this chapter that hints at it). Maybe I'm wrong, but a prince whose soul is "missing" seems like the perfect vessel for the young transmigrator's soul 👀​

[geraineon]

*zips lips and smiles*

[headstone]

Read the first volume and a bit of Ballad of Sword and Wine (aka QJJ) and have been having a real "now THIS is podracing" time with it. I'm a little worried it'll lose me along the way because seven is a lot of volumes, but it's so far been delighting me at every turn (except for the horrific donkey chapter, which was very effectively written but also, dear god.)

[aurumcalendula]

I'm glad you're enjoying it so far! (and yeah that donkey scene was horrifying) I think it's my favorite cnovel at the moment.

[aurumcalendula]

I'm about halfway through volume 4 of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish. So far there's a bunch of kidfic and palace intrigue stuff (although I think the latter might be mostly resolved now). Highlight for spoilers! *I wish Prince Jing's muteness hadn't been something that could be cured, but at least it wasn't instantaneous and he had to do some speech therapy.* tbh I'm more into the fish identity shenanigans than kidfic, but I'm still enjoying it.

I'm also really enjoying To Embers We Return and Wen Guan (both fan translations updated this week)!

[geraineon]

I think ppl in this community are pretty in agreement about not finding the kidfic part as compelling xD

And yay for updated translations!

[douqi]

I'm halfway through an American urban fantasy (The War for the Oaks by Emma Bull, I've forgotten how nice it is to read competently-written genre fiction again) and then Across the Empire is the next c-novel on my list.

I really, really do need to find time to write up my reviews for the last couple of baihe novels I read though.

[aurumcalendula]

I should reread that sometime! I think that was one of the first few urban fantasy novels.

[duckprintspress]

I finished Sha Po Lang!!! I really liked it, tho not quite in the "damn well now I'm feral about these characters" way. Some people had mentioned not loving the extras but I didn't mind them much, though I do wish we'd gotten more of the immediate aftermath of the main story. oh well, that's what fanfiction is for.

Then, yesterday, I started The Missing Piece by Kun Yi Wei Lou...and kinda sorta accidentally mainlined almost the entire main story, hardly putting it down. It wasn't actually that it was that *good* so much as the pacing was quick and more answers always felt just a few pages away (and usually were). It's got some fucked up weird dark stuff going on, and a lot of porn, but I am enjoying it and the endgame is surprisingly fluffy (even if it did jumpscare me with kidfic. why. stop giving my blorbos children. I have children already. I need a break. I am begging.) The translation is both better and worse than the other Via Lactea titles I've read; overall it's cleaner but the errors that did get through seem especially egregious, like, some really ridiculous typos, extra words. Still, it's about what I expect from them and obviously hasn't been enough to get me to stop reading their books so *shrug*.

My next read is not a C-Novel, though it is by R. F. Kuang lol (Babel); after that I'll be reading the new Rosmei translation of vol. 1 of Global Examination (I've read the fantranslation and the manhua).

[geraineon]

Glad you liked SPL!

Via Lactea's quality overall sounds kinda shoddy... I wish they could have taken more care to fix at least all the glaring errors.