Discussion Friday

[geraineon]

Time for Discussion Friday again!

Let's talk about modern setting/contemporary novels!

Do you read them? Why/why not? What kind of contemporary setting novels do you enjoy (e.g., showbiz, e-sports, school setting, etc.)?

And if you have not read any, do you read modern setting/contemporary novels in other languages?

Comments

[geraineon]

I've read school, e-sports, showbiz, and I do enjoy them. Showbiz novels can be fun because it's like reading novels in novels, when the story goes more than surface level on the shows that they are acting in. E-sports... well, that's just sports manga in novel form XD

[aurumcalendula]

I don't tend to read a ton of contemporary setting novels in general, especially lately (I tend to prefer either historicals or sf/f).

Cnovel wise, I haven't read that many contemporary set works yet (although I keep thinking of ones as I type this), but I particularly enjoyed End of the Bridge, Top of the Tower.

[larryhammer]

I do read them, but not consistently -- mostly romances or adventures. What I'd love to find is more contemporary setting wuxia / xianxia stories, especially ones that aren't ghost hunter / tomb raider tales.

[lee_bella]

I read contemporary novels from time to time. I would read just about anything if it's by an author I like. Other than that, I tend to read suspense and mystery. It's always fun to follow along and see if I can figure out who the culprit is. I also like stories about the supernatural and stories like Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire, where the past plays an important role in the present.

[douqi]

I've found that whether I enjoy a contemporary setting novel has nothing to do with the particular subgenre, and everything to do with whether it has messy, INTENSE emotions and a setup that allows them to be unleashed. This makes it actually very difficult to work out in advance whether I'll enjoy a particular novel or not.

[liliacs]

I've read a variety of contemporary novels, but they're not my favorite. I mainly read them if they're by an author I like, or a friend recced the novel to me.

When it comes to subgenres, I think I enjoy modern fantasy the most. I like plot-oriented novels with a lot of drama, and I feel like they're the subgenre most likely to have that. I have the lowest interest in gaming and showbiz; I was also gonna say SoL but I feel like that label is too broad... I'm not very interested in novels that are just, idk, engineer MC and doctor LI falling in love with not much else, but I really like Priest's Dage, which covers the life of the protagonist as he grows up and deals with hardships. But also, that could just be because I like Priest's writing, since I still have low interest in the genre overall (and Dage isn't even one of my favorite Priest novels).

[dayadhvam_triad]

I prefer mostly historical cnovels and some SF/F, which is also the case when I read English-language fiction. I'm willing to check out non-SF/F modern/contemporary setting cnovels, but I don't really go looking for them and am pretty disinterested in school, showbiz, slice-of-life, romance-centered stuff, though I'm more open to mystery/suspense. This preference carries over to my track record with cdramas too lol. (The ones I love—The King's Avatar; End of the Bridge, Top of the Tower—are very much the exception rather than the rule.)

[duckprintspress]

I do read them, tho I don't usually enjoy them quite as much. Historical stuff has always been my favorite no matter what genre I'm reading (historical mystery! historical romance! historical fantasy! historical wuxia! historical xianxia! etc.) Copaganda aside, for modern stuff I tend to like mysteries/police procedural ones best, like Modu.

[halfcactus]

I've been gravitating towards modern-day settings in Chinese-language media in general, maybe because they tend to be easier to follow and require less attention... And I think also less distracting to read in translation? I checked out the first chapter of Saye (7S translation) last week and it was a much better experience than, say, Shapolang (7S translation) which I bounced out of because I found the English translation unwieldy.

Plus lately I've found myself more compatible with books that have, idk, more barebones but straightforward writing? Something like 我五行缺你/My Five Elements Lack You by Xizixu but... better. Or something similar to those Japanese mystery/thriller novels (I am open to recs!). And standard novel length because I'm just a very slow reader lol. I'd started one of Ding Mo's novels a while back but it seemed like a multi-volume series so I didn't bother continuing. Not that any of this matters because I'm not reading much of anything these days!