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]

One of the problems with not working is forgetting the day of the week. Oops. Sorry, this is late!

I've started reading The King's Avatar, and though it's super long, it's actually not that bad now that I've started it? The chapters are pretty short! I'm at around chapter 15 now.

(and then I got distracted because I started playing Love and Deepspace...)

[larryhammer]

Ooo -- have fun with that.

Though, and I'm going to speak vaguely to avoid spoilers, but it's not a big reveal to say, of a story involving tournament gaming, that there are several tournament arcs. Those were, to me, the least interesting parts -- more fun are the parts when the MC is playing on public servers effing everyone's shit up.

[geraineon]

I do enjoy tournament arcs in sports anime/manga so perhaps it will be fun actually XD

[larryhammer]

I often do myself. In this case, though, the free flow of server shenanigans was more entertaining.

[halfcactus]

LOL I hope LaDS brings you some level of comfort and companionship. XD

[geraineon]

I dived head first into this pit and now I am obsessed XD

[dayadhvam_triad]

yay TKA! I enjoy both the in-game server shenanigans and the tournament-style arcs, they appeal to me in different ways. :D

[geraineon]

I usually enjoy tournament arcs too (battle shounen, sports anime and stuff like that)~

[duckprintspress]

that's good to know re TKA. I watched the LA, I'd like to read the book sometime...I've definitely been intimidated by the length tho.

[geraineon]

Yeah, the length is intimidating until you see the actual length of the chapters! Really not as bad as it seems.

[larryhammer]

Still c-novel adjacent: Sagacious Blade, the final volume of the Sagacious series was published yesterday. I'd like to say I've been devouring it, but I've had to adult too much to do that -- got about 3 chapters in at bedtime before crashing. :(

More after work, I hope.

(I did while waiting for it to come out poke at a dumb but fun cultivation novel I read about a quarter of last year: Realizing This is a Wuxia World After Cultivating for 300 Years. Still fun, but still dumb.)

[geraineon]

That title does sound like popcorn fun type of cnovel! Did you finish that novel?

[larryhammer]

Nah -- too dumb to read more than a dozen chapters at a time.

[douqi]

I'm still stuck 75% of the way on Across the Empire because my hell job somehow became even more hellish and now I have a really bad cold (I suspect the two things are connected, somehow).

On the other hand, the baihe comm group subtitling project for Soul Sisters is progressing, and I've somehow managed to hack out most of a first draft translation for Chapter 13 of To Embers We Return, so... win?

[geraineon]

Oh no!! I hope you feel better soon (and yeah, stress definitely makes one more susceptible to illnesses, and makes them last longer too).

(wong lou kat time? ahaha)

Yay for Soul Sisters subtitling project and To Embers~!

[douqi]

Thank you! And would you believe I was this close to breaking out the pei pa koa...

[geraineon]

Pei pa koa tastes good at least! (... I am reminded of the PPK ice-cream from Malaysia)

[larryhammer]

Feel better! Rest as much as you can!

[douqi]

Thank you!

[aurumcalendula]

I hope you feel better soon!

[douqi]

Thanks! Slowly recovering now though still not 100%.

[halfcactus]

I hope you feel better soon!!! And congrats on the subtitling + translation progress... I genuinely don't know how you can juggle so many projects all year long.

[douqi]

An irl friend suggests that the many projects may be contributing to the illness, but I'm just not listening to them.

[aurumcalendula]

I'm caught up to chapter 8 in Pale Mirror's translation of Seeking Immortality in Vain by Jian Gen Qianbi.

I love seeing Jiang Changbai and Song Juguang dealing with palace politics and their interpersonal dynamics continue to be really enjoyable. Like Jiang Changbai is wary of Song Juguang, but so fond of her! Song Juguang's feelings are more opaque, but she imho she doesn't see Jiang Changbai as someone who's only useful as a puppet.

I'm nearly finished with Pale Mirror's translation of Reading the Remnants by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (there's some extras that haven't been translated yet).

This has become one of my favorite baihe novels! I love how evocative the writing in in this! I really enjoyed the combination of supernatural adventures and romance (I particularly liked the episodic adventures that feature more in the first half of the story). Highlight for spoilers! *I'd gathered from the start that Song Shijiu was at least partially supernatural, but I hasn't expected all the reincarnation connections that get revealed.

The last couple chapters of the main story felt a bit anticlimatic (especially after what came before), but still generally worked for me. I liked seeing some of the backstory of Li Shiyi's shifu and A Yin's mother (even though it was bittersweet) in the first extra and am looking forward to the next five.*

I'm hoping more people will check it out now that there's a complete English translation of the main story!

I also finished Miaoyea's translation of End of the Bridge, Top of the Tower by Priest.

I think this is the shortest work I've read by Priest (it's 32 chapters in total). I found all the meta stuff really interesting and I thought it was neat that the vast majority most of the characters were women. It's definitely a heavy read w/r/t themes, but it did end much happier than I expected.

[halfcactus]

Oooh good to see that the full Bridge, Tower translation has been posted! I'd like to (re)read it but my heart isn't ready haha.

[aurumcalendula]

I totally get that!

[dayadhvam_triad]

Yeah, I love that the ensemble cast is almost all women, and very different kinds at that. iirc priest mentioned she originally considered a BE but ultimately decided on HE (for which I'm thankful :')).

[aurumcalendula]

Exactly! (I love that they's so different) I could see a BE working, but I'm so glad she decided on a HE.

[halfcactus]

I was trying to read the new (!?) Modu / Silent Reading extras and draw my vocabulary list but then I got sidelined by an excessively cute cat adoption manhwa... Luo Yiguo would approve.

[geraineon]

djlsfgk omg that cat is indeed very very cute! Thank you for sharing, my heart is healed

[dayadhvam_triad]

I caught up on Haoli's latest updates to her Song dynasty story, then started rereading the earlier chapters—and this sounds a bit morbid maybe, but w o w I love how she writes character deaths, I didn't realize till now just how many I remember because they left such a deep impression on me... understatement at its finest with silent knives. /rolling around in my fandom of one orz

[geraineon]

Character deaths!!! They are so good when done well. I love deaths. Ugh, I got distracted from my plan this year which is to write about 50 deaths that I've enjoyed... this reminded me I should get that rolling.

[duckprintspress]

I'm a bit over halfway through the Rosmei translation of Global Evaluation, and through the second story arc, and definitely starting to remember why Jiuhuo make me so feral...

[geraineon]

They are a very good pair. Enjoy the rest of your reread!

[ehyde]

I picked up Cyan Wings' Evil Weapon's Self-Cultivation which is not as well translated as the other Cyan Wings novels I've read (it's edited mtl) but it's a fun story. It's a "powerful ancient character adjusts to the modern era" story, which I always enjoy, with the added bonus that the powerful ancient character is literally a sword. Another fun thing about this one is that instead of setting the story in a fictional modern setting (City A, etc) this is explicitly an alternate version of modern China, with an actual laid out alternate history that led to more of a martial arts world presence in the modern era (with a bonus "gay marriage has been legal for fifty years" thrown on top). I'm not sure how common that is--I don't think I've come across it in any of the other cnovels I've read, but to be fair there's a lot of modern era stuff I haven't read. The main character is a little *too* powerful and there isn't much of an overarching plot; I wouldn't rate it as high as the other Cyan Wings books I've read (and not just because of the translation), but it's a fun turn-off-brain read.

[geraineon]

Hopefully it gets picked up for a proper translation someday. It does sound like a fun story (like all the other Cyan Wings I know of so far!)

How deeply does it go into the alternate history?

[ehyde]

Not very deep at all, lol. It basically goes "here's a quick summary of what went down 400 years ago to explain why modern China has wuxia-style martial arts families that are fully integrated into modern society, but is otherwise exactly the same" but like. If you actually followed through on the alternate timeline it is very unlikely that it would be otherwise exactly the same. So it's a fun touch but not what I'd call serious worldbuilding.

[silverblade219]

To Rule in A Turbulent World. It is slightly different than I expected but technically is probably still in the set up stage, though I am up to the second arc.

Third Prince

People keep trying to warn the main character not to join the Third Prince’s faction since he is so unfavored, but You Miao is focused on them bonding and becoming friends during an random bandit hostage situation. You Miao even says something on the lines, it isn’t like the Third Prince will rebel!

All the other mentioned friends of the Third Prince are military officers. I am pretty sure this is leading to a coup or something on those lines.

I am also amused at how fast burn the romance arc is.

[geraineon]

I have this book on my TBR... maybe someday I will get to it. But what were your expectations and how did the story differ?

[silverblade219]

The family drama is a bit different than what I expected based on the novel updates reviews, but in an interesting way actually. And a transition point happened a bit earlier than I expected (I guess I thought there would be a time skip), but it does makes sense for the narrative to play out this way.