A large part of my reading the past 5-6 years has been Asian fantasy
and science fiction webnovels (translated). This is a 3-part
description of the genre intended for those who aren't familiar with
it.

Part 2 (this part) describes where to go to find Asian webnovels and
reviews and gives my raw reading log (one sentence plus rating) of
those I've tried.

If you want to look into reading Asian F&SF webnovels that may appeal
to your tastes, there are three sites that you should know about.

1. https://www.novelupdates.com/
A fantastic site. There are no webnovels here. Instead, the site
attempts to track and link to every translated chapter of any Asian
webnovel (only non-pay-walled/not commercially available). The site
is massive; just the forum has over 430,000 members and 5,500,000
posts.

Every webnovel has full details of the original language webnovel,
translation status and group, genre, tags, what recommended lists it
appears on (I find this very useful for browsing), synopsis, ratings,
and the all-important decent quality reviews. The links to individual
chapters are all dated so you can see how active the translation is.

2. https://www.webnovel.com/
A non-fantastic site. Webnovel.com is an English language subsidiary
of Qidian, the huge Chinese webnovel site and legal owner of the vast
majority of Chinese webnovels. About 6 years ago they bought out a
number of fan translation sites and contracted with a large number of
fan translators to continue their work, legally now, and share the
profits.

It worked quite well for a year or two but they over-expanded, leading
to often poor translation quality and dropped translations (very
annoying when you've read 1100 chapters of a 1500 chapter book and it
gets dropped.) Rather than fix the problems they pivoted to
supporting original English language webnovels.

At the moment it's almost impossible to find their high quality translated
webnovels. The following link might work for you:
webnovel.com/ranking/novel/all_time/power_rank?rankName=Power&timeType=1&sourceType=1&sex=1
Once you find one, it will be extremely expensive to read - their only
pricing model at the moment is geared to support production of new
chapters of original work. For example, one work of 1600 chapters
that due to legal quirks has two translations, is available from
Amazon for a reasonable $45 but would cost $260 to read on webnovel.com.

I'm now down to reading and supporting one webnovel being translated
on webnovel.com. If I want to binge read an existing webnovel.com
novel, I admit I find a pirate site that scrapes webnovel.com, read it
there, and then gift of appropriate amount to the story on
webnovel.com.

3. https://www.wuxiaworld.com/
Wuxiaworld is the other major legal source of Asian translated novels. Run
by a long-time fan translator (the first major translated Chinese
webnovel _Coiling Dragon_ in 2015), it offers high quality legal
translations of mostly Chinese and Korean webnovels. Active
translations are free (you can support and read chapters ahead) but
you need to pay a reasonable amount to read the finished books (most
also available as ebooks and some available on Amazon.) They have
an excellent review system and have actively commenting readers.

Their catalog of both completed translations (~60) and translations
in progress is much smaller than webnovel.com's, but it's a good place
to look around and get the feeling of Asian webnovels (especially Korean).

WHAT I'VE READ
The rest of this post is just a straight dump of my webnovel reading log
that I update every so often so I don't lose track of my reading progress.
(I'll get back to some of these I haven't touched in 3-4 years, honest!)
It is meant to give titles to lookup on the three sites above, especially
novelupdates.

Ratings are even more uncertain than normal. As well as normal
subjectivity, how do you rate a 1600 chapter novel (20 paperbacks)
with one rating, especially if it becomes boring after 1200 chapters
(as unfortunately several do)? Anything 8.5 or above I would recommend,
above 7.5 may be good.

Mostly chronologically ordered (the completed novels in order of completion)

_COMPLETED WEBNOVELS_
8 Coiling Dragon - 804 chapters - I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese classic . Many people's first (+me) . Upon rereading, a bit YA,: simplified world, cultivation, conflicts
9.2 Way of Choices (Ze Tian Ji), 1184 chapters - Mao Ni - Chinese, xianxia, leveling,good characters
7.5 Shura's Wrath - 850 chapters - Mars Gravity - Chinese, game-playing isekai. stakes kept increasing past game-playing world to real world to entire universe.
8.5 Only I Level Up, 280 chapters, Korean, game playing isekai, leveling
10, The King's Advocate, 1729 chapters, Butterfly Blue - Chinese. reality game playing, great characterization and consistency, re-read 2.5 times
7.8, Release That Witch, 1498, Er Mu - Chinese, isekai European feudalism
7.5, Night Ranger, 735 chapters, -Dark Blue Coconut Milk - Chinese, isekai, leveling
7.5, Full Marks Hidden Marriage: Pick Up a Son- Get a Free Husband, 2165, Jiong Jiong You Yao - Chinese, pure modern romance (my one trial), not wuxia
7.5, Seeking the Flying Sword Path, 740 chapters, I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese, xianxia
7.5 Desolate Era, 1567 chapters, I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese, galactic xianxia
8 Renegade Immortal - 2088 chapters - Er Gen
8 Ancient Godly Monarch, 2053 chapters, Chinese, xianxia
8.5 The Unrivaled Tang Sect, ~2000 chapters (622-4), Tang Jia San Shao - Chinese xianxia, duoluo dalu(soul land)#2
8 Duoluo Dalu - 340 chapters. Tang Jia San Shao - Chinese xiaxuan duoluo #1
7.8 A Will Eternal - 1315 chapters- Er Gen - Chinese xianxia
7 Rebirth of the thief who roamed the world - 995 chapters. gaming reincarnation, very shallow . Mad Snail author.
7.5 Castle of Black Iron - 2015 chapters - Drunk Tiger - Chinese xianxia. good but improbable reset
7.5 Zhu Xian - 260 chapters -Xiao Ding - AKA: Xiakeluojiao - Chinese Xianxia pretty standard, weak later.
8.5 Martial World - 2277 chapters - cocooned Cow - Chinese Xianxia
8 Gate of Revelation - 767 chapters - Dancing - all world is characters in game
8.5 Skyfire Avenue - 901 - Tang Jia San Shao - Chinese sf/xianxia, galactic
8.5 City of Sin - 1439 chapters - Misty Rain of Jiangnan Fantasy kingdom building
9 Demon Hunter - 1058 chapters - Misty Rain of jiangnan - super powers post-apocalyptic
9.5 Library of Heaven's Path - 2268 chapters - Heng Sao Tian Ya - Chinese xianxia, comedy, overpowered but humble.
8.5 Warlock of the Magus World - 1200 chapters - The Plagiarist - Alchemy, heartless protaganist.
8.8 Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - 551 chapters - Sing-Shong - Korean, stuck in world of favorite webnovel that only he read.
8.5 Otherworldly Evil Monarch - 1277 chapters - Feng Ling Tian Xia - Chinese xianxia, reincarnated assassin, harem, separate human.beast,mystic,outer on same level. pagoda.
8.5 Heavenly Jewel Change - 903 chapters - Tang Jia San Shuo - Chinese xianxia, not duoluo dalu but similar
8.7 Joy of Life - 746 chapters - Mao Ni - Chinese, involved politics. less wuxia, excellent characterization, in-depth novel.
8.7 I Reincarnated for Nothing - 203 chapters - Toika Toy Car, Korean. leveling, humorous, good touches, demon lord reincarnated as hero. very aware of genre.
7.2 Upgrade Specialist in another World - 1356 chapters - Endless Sea of Clouds - competent, reasonable characters, shallow world
6.0 Child of Light - 357 chapters - Tang Jia San Shao - His first novel and it shows. written as by a jr high schooler.
8.7 King of Gods - 1585 chapters - Fast Food Restaurant - xianxia, well-done. Ancient God Eyes.
8.8 The Monk that Wanted to Renounce Asceticism - 1512 chapters - A Golden Millet Dream - Chinese Buddhist temple monk in modern world, gaining powers by doing good. Quiet, more slice of life. insights into daily Chinese life. more heart-warming, well translated.
8.4 Returning from the Immortal World - 1434 Chapters - Jing Ye Ji Si - reverse isekai (most action in modern China with cultivation). overpowered in too many disciplines and transition off-Earth not well done at 1200+ chapters.
7.0 MMORPG:Rebirth of the legendary guardian - 856 chapters - Flying Alone - gaming. poor imitation of Reincarnation of the strongest sword god. Very repetitive battles with balance issues (hero massively overpowered but rivals are always close?)
7.5 Seoul Station Necromancer - 208 chapters - Korean - similar? to Only I Level Up. parts good.
8.7 The Second Coming of Gluttony - 489+60 chapters - Ro Yu-jin - Korean, isekai (dual world - modern Earth and Paradise(gods)) Seul
7.2 Destroyer of Ice and Fire - 702 chapters - Innocent - light-hearted, chinese wuxia,good-hearted main character.
6.7 Poison Physician Consort - 489 chapters - Chinesename - it couldn't make up mind whether it was romance,wuxia, political - romance won. Bad priorities of importance throughout.
9 Divine Throne of Primordial blood - 1158 chapters - Zero Fate - Chinese, quite well done and thought out throughout. Nice balancing of powers and growth. Su Chen lost eyes for 3 years.
9.1 Emperor of Solo Play - 191 chapters - D-Dart - Korean game playing. well done, short. reincarnation as necromancer. good characters
8.5 Elixir Supplier - 1006 chapters - Tangcu Yu - Chinese modern - Ancient Chinese Pharmicist, well-done, Chinese elites have all power - not empathetic MC
8.7 Battle Frenzy - 1212 chapters - Skeleton Wizard - Chinese - well done. good complete world building.
8.7 Sevens - 18 volumes - Waka/Yume Yume - Japanese, feudal, MC inherits jewel with 7 generations of ancestors, learns from each to combat possessed sister. political/social as well as powers.
8.5 The First Hunter - 162 chapters - D-Dart - Korean, combat, monsters invade modern world. hard-nosed army assassin is greedy to become over-powered so can wipe out monsters.
7.5 The Great Storyteller -394 chapters - Han Baeg? - Korean reincarnated great modern author liked but was ignoring the writing details, qualifies as literature
8.8 Immortal Devil Transformation - 850 chapters - Not Guilty - Chinese xuanhuan, MC back in time 10 minutes. Well done, politics good, good MC
8 The Charm of Soul Pets - 1689 chapters - Fish's Sky - Overall novel/characters well done, plotted from beginning, details weaker (eg numbers ridiculous)
8.7 Fields of Gold - 743 - Tranquil Fine Rain - Chinese, Female slice of life, transmigration into fishing village girl, able to accelerate farming
9 Mother of Learning - 108 chapters (3000 pages) - Nobody103 (Domagoj Kurmaic) - Original English(Royal Road), time loop. Nicely done, well thought out world and plot
8.9 Lord of the Mysteries, 1430 - Cuttlefish that Loves Diving - Chinese xuanhuan. Reincarnator in Victorian-like era dominated by real-life Tarot powers. Extremely well developed magic/psychological system.
8.5 Moon's Labyrinth - 362 chapters - Hungry Panda - Korean, down and out ex-entrepeneur becomes magical powerful Connector. Well done
8.7 The Lazy King - 16 (long) chapters - Tsukikage - Japanese. Unique story, most chapters told from a different POV, MC does little but sleep as he becomes most powerful god.
8 Gourmet of Another World - 1851 chapters - Li Hongtian - god of cooking, leveling up through dishes
8.5 Reincarnation of the Strongest Sword God - 2918 - Lucky Old Cat - Chinese Straighforward MMORPG, mostly well done.
8.8 Scholar's Advanced Technological System - 1682 - Morning Star LL - Chinese - Leveling up through science. From Putnam and other college competitions through Nobel, Fields and beyond. Nive depiction of scientific world.
9.0 The Girl Who Ate a Death God - 34 - Nanasawa Matari - Japanese, Short, quirky dark tragedy of overpowered girl warrior with scythe
8.8 A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality - 2461 - Wang Yu - Chinese - well done wuxia in both overall plot and details. Han Li has liquid to encourage growth. Attention to time details (80 year cultivations).
7.8 Stellar Transformation - 680 - I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese early classic. Flows very smoothly but with no depth (lots of breadth).
8.8 Apocalypse Lord - 80 - Light Clear Clouds (Yun Qing Dan) - Chinese. life-skill woman in game that becomes reality. Nice slice-of-life low conflict apocalyptic novel in which almost everyone dies.
8 (or 4) Invisible Dragon - 50 (5K words?) - Duichidak - Korean, one of 7 forbidden Korean novels. Should not be read until after numerous other webnovels (and perhaps not then).

On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 12:44:57 +0000, Chris Buckley wrote:

> A large part of my reading the past 5-6 years has been Asian fantasy and
> science fiction webnovels (translated). This is a 3-part description of
> the genre intended for those who aren't familiar with it.
>
> Part 2 (this part) describes where to go to find Asian webnovels and
> reviews and gives my raw reading log (one sentence plus rating) of those
> I've tried.
>
> If you want to look into reading Asian F&SF webnovels that may appeal to
> your tastes, there are three sites that you should know about.
>
> 1. https://www.novelupdates.com/
> A fantastic site. There are no webnovels here. Instead, the site
> attempts to track and link to every translated chapter of any Asian
> webnovel (only non-pay-walled/not commercially available). The site is
> massive; just the forum has over 430,000 members and 5,500,000 posts.
>
> Every webnovel has full details of the original language webnovel,
> translation status and group, genre, tags, what recommended lists it
> appears on (I find this very useful for browsing), synopsis, ratings,
> and the all-important decent quality reviews. The links to individual
> chapters are all dated so you can see how active the translation is.
>
> 2. https://www.webnovel.com/
> A non-fantastic site. Webnovel.com is an English language subsidiary of
> Qidian, the huge Chinese webnovel site and legal owner of the vast
> majority of Chinese webnovels. About 6 years ago they bought out a
> number of fan translation sites and contracted with a large number of
> fan translators to continue their work, legally now, and share the
> profits.
>
> It worked quite well for a year or two but they over-expanded, leading
> to often poor translation quality and dropped translations (very
> annoying when you've read 1100 chapters of a 1500 chapter book and it
> gets dropped.) Rather than fix the problems they pivoted to supporting
> original English language webnovels.
>
> At the moment it's almost impossible to find their high quality
> translated webnovels. The following link might work for you:
> webnovel.com/ranking/novel/all_time/power_rank?
rankName=Power&timeType=1&sourceType=1&sex=1
> Once you find one, it will be extremely expensive to read - their only
> pricing model at the moment is geared to support production of new
> chapters of original work. For example, one work of 1600 chapters that
> due to legal quirks has two translations, is available from Amazon for a
> reasonable $45 but would cost $260 to read on webnovel.com.
>
> I'm now down to reading and supporting one webnovel being translated on
> webnovel.com. If I want to binge read an existing webnovel.com novel, I
> admit I find a pirate site that scrapes webnovel.com, read it there, and
> then gift of appropriate amount to the story on webnovel.com.
>
>
> 3. https://www.wuxiaworld.com/
> Wuxiaworld is the other major legal source of Asian translated novels.
> Run by a long-time fan translator (the first major translated Chinese
> webnovel _Coiling Dragon_ in 2015), it offers high quality legal
> translations of mostly Chinese and Korean webnovels. Active
> translations are free (you can support and read chapters ahead) but you
> need to pay a reasonable amount to read the finished books (most also
> available as ebooks and some available on Amazon.) They have an
> excellent review system and have actively commenting readers.
>
> Their catalog of both completed translations (~60) and translations in
> progress is much smaller than webnovel.com's, but it's a good place to
> look around and get the feeling of Asian webnovels (especially Korean).
>
> WHAT I'VE READ The rest of this post is just a straight dump of my
> webnovel reading log that I update every so often so I don't lose track
> of my reading progress.
> (I'll get back to some of these I haven't touched in 3-4 years, honest!)
> It is meant to give titles to lookup on the three sites above,
> especially novelupdates.
>
> Ratings are even more uncertain than normal. As well as normal
> subjectivity, how do you rate a 1600 chapter novel (20 paperbacks)
> with one rating, especially if it becomes boring after 1200 chapters (as
> unfortunately several do)? Anything 8.5 or above I would recommend,
> above 7.5 may be good.
>
> Mostly chronologically ordered (the completed novels in order of
> completion)
>
> _COMPLETED WEBNOVELS_
> 8 Coiling Dragon - 804 chapters - I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese classic .
> Many people's first (+me) . Upon rereading, a bit YA,: simplified
> world, cultivation, conflicts 9.2 Way of Choices (Ze Tian Ji), 1184
> chapters - Mao Ni - Chinese, xianxia, leveling,good characters 7.5
> Shura's Wrath - 850 chapters - Mars Gravity - Chinese, game-playing
> isekai. stakes kept increasing past game-playing world to real world to
> entire universe.
> 8.5 Only I Level Up, 280 chapters, Korean, game playing isekai,
> leveling 10, The King's Advocate, 1729 chapters, Butterfly Blue -
> Chinese. reality game playing, great characterization and consistency,
> re-read 2.5 times 7.8, Release That Witch, 1498, Er Mu - Chinese,
> isekai European feudalism 7.5, Night Ranger, 735 chapters, -Dark Blue
> Coconut Milk - Chinese, isekai, leveling 7.5, Full Marks Hidden
> Marriage: Pick Up a Son- Get a Free Husband, 2165, Jiong Jiong You Yao
> - Chinese, pure modern romance (my one trial), not wuxia 7.5, Seeking
> the Flying Sword Path, 740 chapters, I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese, xianxia
> 7.5 Desolate Era, 1567 chapters, I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese, galactic
> xianxia 8 Renegade Immortal - 2088 chapters - Er Gen 8 Ancient Godly
> Monarch, 2053 chapters, Chinese, xianxia 8.5 The Unrivaled Tang Sect,
> ~2000 chapters (622-4), Tang Jia San Shao - Chinese xianxia, duoluo
> dalu(soul land)#2 8 Duoluo Dalu - 340 chapters. Tang Jia San Shao -
> Chinese xiaxuan duoluo #1 7.8 A Will Eternal - 1315 chapters- Er Gen -
> Chinese xianxia 7 Rebirth of the thief who roamed the world - 995
> chapters. gaming reincarnation, very shallow . Mad Snail author.
> 7.5 Castle of Black Iron - 2015 chapters - Drunk Tiger - Chinese
> xianxia. good but improbable reset 7.5 Zhu Xian - 260 chapters -Xiao
> Ding - AKA: Xiakeluojiao - Chinese Xianxia pretty standard, weak later.
> 8.5 Martial World - 2277 chapters - cocooned Cow - Chinese Xianxia 8
> Gate of Revelation - 767 chapters - Dancing - all world is characters in
> game 8.5 Skyfire Avenue - 901 - Tang Jia San Shao - Chinese sf/xianxia,
> galactic 8.5 City of Sin - 1439 chapters - Misty Rain of Jiangnan
> Fantasy kingdom building 9 Demon Hunter - 1058 chapters - Misty Rain of
> jiangnan - super powers post-apocalyptic 9.5 Library of Heaven's Path -
> 2268 chapters - Heng Sao Tian Ya - Chinese xianxia, comedy, overpowered
> but humble.
> 8.5 Warlock of the Magus World - 1200 chapters - The Plagiarist -
> Alchemy, heartless protaganist.
> 8.8 Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - 551 chapters - Sing-Shong - Korean,
> stuck in world of favorite webnovel that only he read.
> 8.5 Otherworldly Evil Monarch - 1277 chapters - Feng Ling Tian Xia -
> Chinese xianxia, reincarnated assassin, harem, separate
> human.beast,mystic,outer on same level. pagoda.
> 8.5 Heavenly Jewel Change - 903 chapters - Tang Jia San Shuo - Chinese
> xianxia, not duoluo dalu but similar 8.7 Joy of Life - 746 chapters -
> Mao Ni - Chinese, involved politics. less wuxia, excellent
> characterization, in-depth novel.
> 8.7 I Reincarnated for Nothing - 203 chapters - Toika Toy Car, Korean.
> leveling, humorous, good touches, demon lord reincarnated as hero. very
> aware of genre.
> 7.2 Upgrade Specialist in another World - 1356 chapters - Endless Sea of
> Clouds - competent, reasonable characters, shallow world 6.0 Child of
> Light - 357 chapters - Tang Jia San Shao - His first novel and it shows.
> written as by a jr high schooler.
> 8.7 King of Gods - 1585 chapters - Fast Food Restaurant - xianxia,
> well-done. Ancient God Eyes.
> 8.8 The Monk that Wanted to Renounce Asceticism - 1512 chapters - A
> Golden Millet Dream - Chinese Buddhist temple monk in modern world,
> gaining powers by doing good. Quiet, more slice of life. insights into
> daily Chinese life. more heart-warming, well translated.
> 8.4 Returning from the Immortal World - 1434 Chapters - Jing Ye Ji Si -
> reverse isekai (most action in modern China with cultivation).
> overpowered in too many disciplines and transition off-Earth not well
> done at 1200+ chapters.
> 7.0 MMORPG:Rebirth of the legendary guardian - 856 chapters - Flying
> Alone - gaming. poor imitation of Reincarnation of the strongest sword
> god. Very repetitive battles with balance issues (hero massively
> overpowered but rivals are always close?)
> 7.5 Seoul Station Necromancer - 208 chapters - Korean - similar? to
> Only I Level Up. parts good.
> 8.7 The Second Coming of Gluttony - 489+60 chapters - Ro Yu-jin -
> Korean, isekai (dual world - modern Earth and Paradise(gods)) Seul 7.2
> Destroyer of Ice and Fire - 702 chapters - Innocent - light-hearted,
> chinese wuxia,good-hearted main character.
> 6.7 Poison Physician Consort - 489 chapters - Chinesename - it couldn't
> make up mind whether it was romance,wuxia, political - romance won.
> Bad priorities of importance throughout.
> 9 Divine Throne of Primordial blood - 1158 chapters - Zero Fate -
> Chinese, quite well done and thought out throughout. Nice balancing of
> powers and growth. Su Chen lost eyes for 3 years.
> 9.1 Emperor of Solo Play - 191 chapters - D-Dart - Korean game playing.
> well done, short. reincarnation as necromancer. good characters 8.5
> Elixir Supplier - 1006 chapters - Tangcu Yu - Chinese modern - Ancient
> Chinese Pharmicist, well-done, Chinese elites have all power - not
> empathetic MC 8.7 Battle Frenzy - 1212 chapters - Skeleton Wizard -
> Chinese - well done. good complete world building.
> 8.7 Sevens - 18 volumes - Waka/Yume Yume - Japanese, feudal, MC inherits
> jewel with 7 generations of ancestors, learns from each to combat
> possessed sister. political/social as well as powers.
> 8.5 The First Hunter - 162 chapters - D-Dart - Korean, combat, monsters
> invade modern world. hard-nosed army assassin is greedy to become
> over-powered so can wipe out monsters.
> 7.5 The Great Storyteller -394 chapters - Han Baeg? - Korean
> reincarnated great modern author liked but was ignoring the writing
> details, qualifies as literature 8.8 Immortal Devil Transformation - 850
> chapters - Not Guilty - Chinese xuanhuan, MC back in time 10 minutes.
> Well done, politics good, good MC 8 The Charm of Soul Pets - 1689
> chapters - Fish's Sky - Overall novel/characters well done, plotted from
> beginning, details weaker (eg numbers ridiculous)
> 8.7 Fields of Gold - 743 - Tranquil Fine Rain - Chinese, Female slice
> of life, transmigration into fishing village girl, able to accelerate
> farming 9 Mother of Learning - 108 chapters (3000 pages) - Nobody103
> (Domagoj Kurmaic) - Original English(Royal Road), time loop. Nicely
> done, well thought out world and plot 8.9 Lord of the Mysteries, 1430 -
> Cuttlefish that Loves Diving - Chinese xuanhuan. Reincarnator in
> Victorian-like era dominated by real-life Tarot powers. Extremely well
> developed magic/psychological system.
> 8.5 Moon's Labyrinth - 362 chapters - Hungry Panda - Korean, down and
> out ex-entrepeneur becomes magical powerful Connector. Well done 8.7 The
> Lazy King - 16 (long) chapters - Tsukikage - Japanese. Unique story,
> most chapters told from a different POV, MC does little but sleep as he
> becomes most powerful god.
> 8 Gourmet of Another World - 1851 chapters - Li Hongtian - god of
> cooking, leveling up through dishes 8.5 Reincarnation of the Strongest
> Sword God - 2918 - Lucky Old Cat - Chinese Straighforward MMORPG, mostly
> well done.
> 8.8 Scholar's Advanced Technological System - 1682 - Morning Star LL -
> Chinese - Leveling up through science. From Putnam and other college
> competitions through Nobel, Fields and beyond. Nive depiction of
> scientific world.
> 9.0 The Girl Who Ate a Death God - 34 - Nanasawa Matari - Japanese,
> Short, quirky dark tragedy of overpowered girl warrior with scythe 8.8 A
> Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality - 2461 - Wang Yu - Chinese -
> well done wuxia in both overall plot and details. Han Li has liquid to
> encourage growth. Attention to time details (80 year cultivations).
> 7.8 Stellar Transformation - 680 - I Eat Tomatoes - Chinese early
> classic. Flows very smoothly but with no depth (lots of breadth).
> 8.8 Apocalypse Lord - 80 - Light Clear Clouds (Yun Qing Dan) - Chinese.
> life-skill woman in game that becomes reality. Nice slice-of-life low
> conflict apocalyptic novel in which almost everyone dies.
> 8 (or 4) Invisible Dragon - 50 (5K words?) - Duichidak - Korean, one of
> 7 forbidden Korean novels. Should not be read until after numerous
> other webnovels (and perhaps not then).
>

On 2022-06-18, Magewolf <Magewolf@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 12:44:57 +0000, Chris Buckley wrote:
> I have also completed Ancient Godly Monarch and Martial World from your
> list but it was an effort of will to do it. Both spent a lot of time
> doing the same thing but with bigger numbers attached and different names
> on the punching bags. As well it seemed like in both that every new
> "realm" the protagonist moved into the same thing happened. He would run
> into(sometimes literally) some member of a powerful group in the new area
> and end up in a blood feud with them. And this could have often been
> avoided by some common courtesy or a bit of harmless bowing and scraping.

The repetitive arcs after the MC advances to the next level are
unfortunately quite common in the standard Chinese cultivation
webnovels and _Martial World_ in particular is very standard there
(it established a lot of the cliches).

My casual reading speed is quite quick (300+wpm). But it now soars when
I read the later arcs of such novels - I'm basically scanning to see
if there's any progress in the high-level plot since there isn't anything
new about the low-level details of the current arc. The best webnovels
avoid this.

> Also after reading them I find it hard to understand how you could find
> Tensei Shitaro Slime Datta Ken "overpowered".

The MC of _Slime_ is not battle "overpowered" like some Chinese novels
(battling 33 galaxies for instance), but overpowered in the sense of
accomplishing his goals of things like founding a city/nation much too
easily. You can see that done much better in novels like _Valkyrie's
Shadow_.

> I have not read Only I Level Up (Solo Leveling) but I have come across it
> because it is getting an anime. Which seems to have surprised a lot of
> people because of the virulent anti-Japanese stance the author seems to
> have. The excerpts they posted from the web novel certainly seemed
> rather overwhelming.

As I said, the hatred that exists between the Asian countries is not
something I had really appreciated before reading some of these webnovels!
It is somewhat understandable given their histories, but it is a constant
background in some webnovels.

Chris

On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 03:15:03 +0000, Chris Buckley wrote:

> On 2022-06-18, Magewolf <Magewolf@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 12:44:57 +0000, Chris Buckley wrote:
>> I have also completed Ancient Godly Monarch and Martial World from your
>> list but it was an effort of will to do it. Both spent a lot of time
>> doing the same thing but with bigger numbers attached and different
>> names on the punching bags. As well it seemed like in both that every
>> new "realm" the protagonist moved into the same thing happened. He
>> would run into(sometimes literally) some member of a powerful group in
>> the new area and end up in a blood feud with them. And this could have
>> often been avoided by some common courtesy or a bit of harmless bowing
>> and scraping.
>
> The repetitive arcs after the MC advances to the next level are
> unfortunately quite common in the standard Chinese cultivation webnovels
> and _Martial World_ in particular is very standard there (it established
> a lot of the cliches).
>
> My casual reading speed is quite quick (300+wpm). But it now soars when
> I read the later arcs of such novels - I'm basically scanning to see if
> there's any progress in the high-level plot since there isn't anything
> new about the low-level details of the current arc. The best webnovels
> avoid this.
>
>> Also after reading them I find it hard to understand how you could find
>> Tensei Shitaro Slime Datta Ken "overpowered".
>
> The MC of _Slime_ is not battle "overpowered" like some Chinese novels
> (battling 33 galaxies for instance), but overpowered in the sense of
> accomplishing his goals of things like founding a city/nation much too
> easily. You can see that done much better in novels like _Valkyrie's
> Shadow_.
>

> Chris

I can not argue with that. Most of the town and nation building was on
easy mode.