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I still don't know if people say Er Gen is good unironically or not, though your comment updates me towards the former.
I would say Reverend Insanity, even in its unfinished state, is a 10/10 novel. Contender for best novel I've ever read in fact. I'm trying to hold off re-reading it until my memory fades enough for it to feel fresh again.
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation is a good one, an 8/10 IMO. It was good enough for me to get frustrated reading awful MTL and then track down raws and translate them with modern SOTA LLMs that do a better job.
I never got very far into Lord of the Mysteries, but by all accounts it's supposed to be very good.
Is there an elevator pitch for Reverend Insanity, or is it one of the "anything would be a spoiler, just read 30 chapters" ones?
I see you read a lot of xianxia, so actually it would be interesting to get a pitch on the whole genre. From what I heard of it, it's... I wouldn't like to say "powerslop", but it has the reputation, you know? "Ascending through universes" this, "ruthless MC that"... isekai so you don't have to figure out an in-universe backstory for the MC, "ruthless MC" so you don't have to write the struggle between personal scruples and the next tasty powerup, 100 gorillion chapters because the author didn't bother thinking of any containable scale in favor of numbers going ever up... along with the Jumpchain genre, it feels like not so much "literature" as "concentrated trope fentanyl to inject directly into storyteller brain". (I wonder if the Chinese who were brought up on xianxia think Western fantasy is just "herojourneyslop".)
Of course, the above is all an impression gathered by osmosis rather than reading one of those doorstoppers that make Worm look like a leaflet. But I did play Tale of Immortal. Please tell me how wrong or how correct I am.
Imagine being a Pokémon trainer. Except your body is the pokeball.
"Gu" are mystical creatures, often resembling bugs of some description, that can be captured and tamed, then put to use. They range in power from something you'd find in tall grass outside the starter town to godlike entities that control physics and metaphysics.
(This is a highly unusual setup for Xianxia)
The protagonist is evil. That's not a word I use lightly, he's sociopathic, and even before the story began, he had painstakingly amassed a respectable degree of power, a lot of it through skullduggery, deceit and violence.
Then, through a combination of sheer luck and grit, he managed to catch a Legendary Pokémon, a one-of-a-kind rarity. This attracted the attention of his enemies, who launched an attack on him, while citing minor petty crimes such as the murder of several million innocent people. He was outnumbered, overpowered, and forced to commit suicide while using the Pokémon.
Which turns out to be Time Travel-mon. It brings him back in time to when he was just a teenager, but with the knowledge he had before if not the power. He takes this an opportunity to start over from scratch, but making full use of the knowledge he came in with.
(It's a long elevator ride)
The protagonist is one of a kind. An absolute sociopath, but charming. Intelligent, ruthless and more shameless than words than do justice to. And hilarious, for what it's worth.
The levels of utter shamelessness and depravity he dares plumb will shock both other characters and you, the reader. Think a genocidal warlord nominating himself for the Nobel Peace prize on the grounds there's nobody left to make war levels. He's not psychopathic, just a sociopath with none of the internal flinches that keep normal humans in check. He won't go out of his way to kill you, unless he has something to gain from it. I suppose "amoral" is a better term than evil.
The author is a mad-man. The levels of plotting, counter-plotting and recursive escalation he can hold in his head will astound you. Not a single Chekov's gun will remain unfired on the mantle. You will never find yourself screaming at the characters, wondering why they don't use an obvious ability or trick when apt. And you'll be blind-sided by what they come up with, but never in hindsight will you think it's an ass-pull. That's difficult enough in any novel, let alone Xianxia.
And don't worry about the time travel. It's a power not used lightly, and fickle. The author never uses it as a get out of jail free card.
You are correct. Most of Xianxia is slop with no redeeming qualities, for the reasons you've mentioned.
But as I say elsewhere, most novels in any genre are barely worth reading. If you randomly search all Kindle titles, good luck in finding good novels.
That being said, the ones I recommended are diamonds in a pile of shit. Some combination of world building, character writing and respect for the reader's intelligence elevate them to soaring heights compared to their peers.
Don't pick a random novel in the genre and throw yourself in. That way lies pain and insanity. But look at English-speaking fan recommendations, and you'll fare much better. And when you do find a novel, you'll have a chonker that keeps you busy for months even if you read as fast as I do. That's always a perk in my books!
I've only learned about xianxia through this thread, and I'm intrigued. Have you read "Cradle" by Will Wight? Is that "western xianxia"? How does it compare to Reverend Insanity?
I'd call Cradle "power fantasy slop", but reading stuff like that is my guilty pleasure. Maybe I should give the "eastern OGs" a try...
I haven't read Cradle myself, but I have heard a range of opinions on it. If it was a video game on Steam, I reckon it would be "mostly positive". On the other hand, RI has rave reviews, and I am vociferous in my endorsement.
I do expect that authentic Chinese Xianxia would probably be better, a lot of Western homages don't quite have the same charm.
That's enough for me to give it a try! After 15 minutes of research and several false starts, I've now settled on the Zelsky translation. I found an ePub with 2334 chapters. Does that sound about right, or do you recommend something different?
Eyeballing it, looks fine! Keep in mind the story is technically unfinished due to CCP meddling, but I'd say 90% of the story was done, and you'll only miss out on a bit of closure. If you share a link, I can see if the translation is the one I've read, which was very good.
Cool, thanks! My ePub is identical to this.
Seems legit! I read the same translation, just on a different site.
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