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 1 (this part) gives some of the background of Asian f&sf
webnovels, the reasons why you might want to read them, and how the
webnovels of different major Asian countries differ.

Part 2 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.

Part 3 gives more detailed reviews of some of the webnovels that stand
out (IMO) because they are different in either quality or subject matter.

Webnovels, in general, are works written and published on the web a
chapter at a time, perhaps daily for serious webnovels, where a
chapter is generally about 1500-2000 words. Most of the authors are
amateur and semi-professionals (China has more pros). The completed
novels tend to be quite long, often 1000+ chapters.

Translated webnovels started to take off about 8 years ago, on the
same (up to) daily publishing serial basis. In the first 4-5 years the
translators were mostly amateurs doing fan (not legal) translations of
a favorite novel for fun but gradually chances for earning money and
becoming legitimate increased. (I started reading one fan translation
about 1/3 of the way through, started by a high school student. By the
time it finished, it had turned legitimate and she was overseeing a
team that brought in almost $80,000 a month (that's just for the
daily chapter at a time translation of one novel!))

WHY READ TRANSLATED ASIAN WEBNOVELS?

1. _They are different from English novels_. The fantasies are based
on an entirely different mythology; the modern day cultures are also
very different. Very enjoyable, and I was looking for something different.

2. _They are the best of the best_. The average webnovel is ... not
high quality. But in order for a translated Asian webnovel to even
exist, it had to succeed over years in its native language (with
fierce competition: the largest Chinese webnovel site has over
2,000,000 webnovels), be picked as a labor of love by a fan
translator, and have that translator receive enough emotional or
financial support for the years it takes to complete or get established.

3. _Communal reading experience_. Some folks really enjoy talking about
books as they read them. The daily release of chapters allows that; some
novels average over a hundred comments per chapter (obviously site dependent).

4. _Long, epic works_. The complete webnovels I've read average over
1000 chapters each: about 12 modern paperbacks. If you like to immerse
yourself in a world, you can do that here!

CHINA vs KOREA vs JAPAN

The webnovels of each of the major Asian webnovel countries have their
own distinct background and style. (If you read some of strident
nationalism in some of the modern backdrop webnovels, the deep hatred
of some folks to the folks in the other two countries is obvious and
was somewhat surprising to me.) There's tremendous variety in their
webnovels but there is still a "typical webnovel" that perhaps a quarter
of each country's f&sf novels are a variant of, with a substantial portion
of the rest sharing some characteristics.

CHINA

The wuxia/xianxia f&sf webnovels of China are often based on a rich
mythological, cultural, and religious background, much more than the
other countries. Even the serial nature of webnovels had its roots in
the 1950s wuxia (superhuman martial arts) novels that became immensely
popular as they were published chapter by chapter in daily newspapers.

Chinese webnovels were directly monetizable from early on and offered
freedom not found in hard-copy publishing (the government has cracked
down a bit in the last few years). Readers would buy monthly subscriptions
to individual webnovels offered by publishers like Qidian (the
biggest). The output of some of the top authors is amazing - one
recently apologized that he couldn't handle the pace he was writing at
and had to slow down to 8000 words a day instead of the 10000 words he
had been doing!

The typical Chinese xianxia (fantasy) webnovel takes place on a
fantasy world. A young boy Main Character (MC) is given an
opportunity to enter the world of cultivation where increasing his
knowledge of the inner structure of nature, the world, and its
elements (often directly related to Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism)
will increase his power along some very well-defined power scale with
minor and major divisions. The MC's inner strength or hidden heritage
or secret cheat makes him overpowered against like opponents, and he
advances through obligatory tournaments and battles against monsters
and/or humans to become a peak power in the region, only to discover
there is an entirely new power scale that he is just at the bottom of
in the wider realm. Repeat his advance... A single person power
fantasy.

KOREA

Korean webnovel authors rather than escaping government controls are
escaping Korean big corporation control, though many seem to have been
gathered in by now. They are not as highly monetized as the Chinese
scene and stories therefore tend to be much shorter and much more
directly related to modern-day Korea.

The typical Korean f&sf webnovel MC is an adult male game player.
Korea has become (or is becoming) infested with dungeons where
monsters will pour out of the Gates of the dungeons if they are not
prevented. As both the MC and the monsters level up, Korea becomes a
heavily damaged battleground. A battle for survival of both the MC
and Korea.

JAPAN

I haven't read as many Japanese webnovels in part because there aren't
as many completed ones and fewer are translated. The Japanese public
has an insatiable demand for printed works. Any decent webnovel that
lasts a hundred or two chapters becomes the target of light novel
publishers who will offer to do the work of converting the webnovel to
printed form. Eventually, the original webnovel gets abandoned as the
author concentrates on the light novel form - that's where the money is.

Fan translators are less interested in translating a form that might
soon be edited and improved in light novel form. And if the sales of
the light novel are high enough, there's enough of a market for
commercial US publishers to translate and sell an English version so
there's less need for a fan translation. Those of you who have been
reading James Nicoll's reviews have seen his many reviews of American
published translated Japanese light novels.

The typical Japanese webnovel is an isekai novel where the MC (either
male or female) is a typical Japanese citizen. They are hit by
truck-kun (search for it) and are transferred in some form to a
fantasy world. There they introduce typical modern day approaches to
the problems of that world and succeed tremendously. So success for
an average citizen going into a new world.

NEXT

Part 2, with suggestions of how to find webnovels you might like, should
appear tomorrow.

--
Chris

Thanks for the recommendations. Unfortunately, I find amateur
translations of Asian Web novels to be -- on average -- difficult
to enjoy. There are some exceptions like the original translation
of _So I am a Spider, So What?_, but they are few and tend to
die young, only to be continued by other, less capable amateur
translators. Even supposedly professional translations of light
novels can be wooden.

The only Asian Web novel that I found to be worth my time in
spite of a poor translation was _Evil God Average_, which was
quite funny and relatively short. It was one of the first Asian
Web novels that I read based on a recommendation by Eliezer
Yudkowsky, the author of _Harry Potter and the Methods of
Rationality_. I suspect that it was its novelty that kept me
reading.

_Release that Witch_ had an interesting premise: a modern
engineer finds himself in a fantasy world where magic
practitioners are persecuted and tries to uplift it. I managed
to read a bunch of chapters in spite of the quality of the
translation, but eventually I gave up.

On the professionally translated side of things, I enjoyed the
following "isekai" light novel (i.e. Japanese) translations:

1. So I am a Spider, So What?
2. Faraway Paladin
3. Overlord (the fan fic _Valkyrie's Shadow_ is also very good)

_Saga of Tanya the Evil_ had an interesting premise and an
interesting protagonist, but the writing/translation was turgid.
The anime was more enjoyable and the fan fic _A Young
Woman's Political Record_ was very nice.

The following light novels were mildly amusing:

1. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (vols. 1-5)
2. Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody
3. Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next
Life?! (vols. 1-3)
4. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (v.1)

_Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight_ and _I Was a Sword
When I Reincarnated_ were readable. _In Another World
with My Smartphone_ was almost readable for a generic
"YA isekai harem".

_Mushoku Tensei_ is a curious case. The protagonist was
a sorry excuse for a human being in his first life. When he
was reincarnated in a fantasy world, he resolved to do better.
At first he failed more often than not, but many readers
find his determination relatable and his adventures
interesting.

Oh, and volume 1 of _Vampire Hunter D_ (1983) is worth
reading for its impact on the field if nothing else.

On 2022-06-17, Ahasuerus <ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the recommendations. Unfortunately, I find amateur
> translations of Asian Web novels to be -- on average -- difficult
> to enjoy. There are some exceptions like the original translation
> of _So I am a Spider, So What?_, but they are few and tend to
> die young, only to be continued by other, less capable amateur
> translators. Even supposedly professional translations of light
> novels can be wooden.

There is no question that translation quality is an issue, for both
webnovels and light novels. The good ones are quite good but the poor
ones are terrible - some of the later webnovel.com translations that
they contracted to supposedly professional translators were not much
better than MTL (machine translation). How much translation quality
matters to me depends on the type of webnovel. I need a good
translation for subtle character based, philosophically oriented, and
politically oriented webnovels, but can make do with average
translations for pure action oriented webnovels. That's one of the
more important features of having good reviews.

> The only Asian Web novel that I found to be worth my time in
> spite of a poor translation was _Evil God Average_, which was
> quite funny and relatively short. It was one of the first Asian
> Web novels that I read based on a recommendation by Eliezer
> Yudkowsky, the author of _Harry Potter and the Methods of
> Rationality_. I suspect that it was its novelty that kept me
> reading.
>
> _Release that Witch_ had an interesting premise: a modern
> engineer finds himself in a fantasy world where magic
> practitioners are persecuted and tries to uplift it. I managed
> to read a bunch of chapters in spite of the quality of the
> translation, but eventually I gave up.

_Release That Witch_ ended up with a decent translation for at least
the later chapters. I don't remember anything in particular about the
quality of the initial chapters but I know there were several teams
involved. Where did you read it? When webnovel.com took it over, they
started translating some point after chapter 300 and later went back
and re-translated the first 300 chapters.

> On the professionally translated side of things, I enjoyed the
> following "isekai" light novel (i.e. Japanese) translations:
>
> 1. So I am a Spider, So What?
> 2. Faraway Paladin
> 3. Overlord (the fan fic _Valkyrie's Shadow_ is also very good)

Yes, _So I am a Spider, So What?_ was quite good. I saw the anime
of _Overlord_ (first season was good) and agree that
_Valkyrie's Shadow_ is very good. I've been reluctant to read the
light novels of _Overlord_ because I don't expect them to be
as interesting to me as _Valkyrie's Shadow_ - I'm enjoying the "what-if"
political/social construction of a society that when you think about
it is fairly abhorrent in places, but is well suited for this world.

> _Saga of Tanya the Evil_ had an interesting premise and an
> interesting protagonist, but the writing/translation was turgid.
> The anime was more enjoyable and the fan fic _A Young
> Woman's Political Record_ was very nice.

The anime of _Tanya_ was excellent, and the first light novel
wasn't bad. I had to force myself to finish the sixth and have
completely given up. The author was interested in repetitious war-gaming
ideas and had abandoned any notion of character development or even
anything new with the characters.

> The following light novels were mildly amusing:
>
> 1. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (vols. 1-5)
> 2. Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody
> 3. Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next
> Life?! (vols. 1-3)
> 4. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (v.1)

_Slime_ I thought was somewhat interesting, but didn't handle
things well once the MC became overpowered - things worked out much too
well for him. Perhaps I didn't read far enough...

> _Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight_ and _I Was a Sword
> When I Reincarnated_ were readable. _In Another World
> with My Smartphone_ was almost readable for a generic
> "YA isekai harem".
>
> _Mushoku Tensei_ is a curious case. The protagonist was
> a sorry excuse for a human being in his first life. When he
> was reincarnated in a fantasy world, he resolved to do better.
> At first he failed more often than not, but many readers
> find his determination relatable and his adventures
> interesting.

That's on my list of novels to read.

> Oh, and volume 1 of _Vampire Hunter D_ (1983) is worth
> reading for its impact on the field if nothing else.

Thanks!

Chris

On Saturday, June 18, 2022 at 10:41:07 AM UTC-4, Chris Buckley wrote:
[snip-snip]
> _Release That Witch_ ended up with a decent translation for at least
> the later chapters. I don't remember anything in particular about the
> quality of the initial chapters but I know there were several teams
> involved. Where did you read it? When webnovel.com took it over, they
> started translating some point after chapter 300 and later went back
> and re-translated the first 300 chapters.

I am afraid I don't recall where I tried reading it. It's been a few years.

I believe the first few chapters were decent. Then the quality of the
translation dropped -- around the time another POV was introduced --
and I gave up. Perhaps it was due to another team of translators
taking over.

> _Slime_ I thought was somewhat interesting, but didn't handle
> things well once the MC became overpowered - things worked
> out much too well for him. Perhaps I didn't read far enough...

There were some moderately interesting supporting characters later
on, but nothing out of the ordinary.