Hi all, yes it's me again, your translator chuchutrain. Really happy to be taking over to translate once again for Qi Peijia's novels, after finishing The Legendary Mechanic almost a year ago! For those of you who are long term fans of Black Star, come join me in this ride of Sci-fi/game element + some cultivation aspect (new twist that QPJ is planning)! For those new to his books, just sit tight and enjoy how he spins the story :) (p.s. you can take a look at TLM in the meantime)
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LIKERead until around chapter 150. Until now, it is very different from TLM. The world background has nothing to do with TLM. The power system is much more complex and diversified. At this time it is not easy to find similarities. The multiform overall plot structure, the slower rhythm in a certain way, the humor presented in another way, even the type of characters, etc. if i didn't already know that it was the same author, i wouldn't have guessed it. But the quality is still there. Some could argue that the author has levelled a little bit but not that much that it is a breakthrough. Nonetheless, knowing the normal evolution of authors, one may predict that the latter parts of the story will be similar to TLM. After all, it is easy to start anew, but very difficult to stray away from oneself. Overall this is a very readable and enjoyable story for me.
interesting, thanks for the insight my man. yeah i realised he wasn't exactly following his old interstellar trend but since the main world is in the interstellar age I'm betting he has something planned for it (i hoooope)
Yes. All signs are pointing to that. And by the way, thanks for the translation of this and many other novels. I think i can say that we all (most of us) care and appreciate the effort made in writing/translating these works. And no matter how much we readers can be some/many times harsh in our comments, the fact is that after all and in the end, no matter our tastes or situation, we are all fans.
always happy to know that the readers appreciate us translators for making sure the books are readable LOL. I'm sure many of us translators are still doing this despite the mtl and lowered pay because we would like people to enjoy books that are properly translated with explanations rather than just being slammed with a pile of barely readable texts 🙌
Mtl at this time is exactly that: "... a pile of barely readable texts". But i find a little sad that the school of "literal translation" (the so called "purist" that argues for them to be only a simple human version of a MTL) have so much public platform. I have always been of the strong opinion that a good translator is someone that is basically rewriting the entire book (though not to the point of doing a completely new story and changing the style. One should be able to recognize someway the author pen.), because i think that literal translation is an illusion, worse when it comes to chinese to english language and culture. That also means that a good translator must also have good writing craftmanship. And also means that they must have much more responsibility for their work 🧐. As an aside and given the AI invasion, one may remember that in a market there is always different positioning and branding for any product. It doesn't have to always compete on the cheap and affordable "price" range. Quality tends to shine even when covered in mud. Much more so when it present itself with confidence and faith.
thanks for supporting! Usually trial reads last for a week, so by this week I will know if it will be continued. Then after is the voting thru power stones which i cannot control, could be as short as 1 week or as long as 1 month (see the dragon book w over 400k power stones lol)
Noice, welcome again. I didn't finish the last like 100 or less chapters of TLM because I lost interest, but overall it was a fine novel to read. From what I can remember, the author had tendency to skip a lot of plot points and developments that could be expanded into whole arcs (for reference: "I have a bunch of players on Earth"'s author does it too well, to the point that he hit the other extreme) so for me, the whole story's background that had all these expansive territories, worlds, civilizations was wasted. Also what I didn't like in TLM was that the characters were rather soulless, especially the ,,players", they were written like in these copy pasta gamer novels, just a replaceable mob with small presence, none stuck in my memory. They had no fleshed out personality. Conversations between MC and his friends, allies lacked a natural flow, seemed bland, superficial. As if they were stuck at certain progress and no matter what they did or faced, they couldn't just make a breakthrough and experience character growth (for reference: "World's Best Martial Artist" or the previously mentioned novel did it well, there are more characters stuck in my memory from WBMA's 360 chapters than TLM's ~1400 despite reading them near the same time). I haven't checked Astral Apostle yet, but if the author improved these two aspects while not dropping quality in other places where he is great then it will be definitely something to look forward to, perhaps something that could overshadow TLM.
lol its ok story flow > logic for me :D logic can always been explained by plot armor but if story doesn't flow or make sense then the whole purpose of the book will be destroyed. Of cos, there are those books which the logic is so off the charts that it just doesnt make sense...