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larryhammerI haven’t posted for Reading Wednesday for a while, but I want to call attention to a book I finished this weekend: Ascending, Do Not Disturb by Yue Xia Die Ying (月下蝶影, “butterfly shadow beneath the moon,”*). Specifically, I want to tag skygiants, as I think this is right up your alley.
Ascending, Do Not Disturb is xianxia, a cultivation novel about martial artists advancing their power levels through pseudo-Daoist practices—but this is far from a typical power-fantasy adventure yarn. It’s a fluffy, feel-good romance that’s also scathingly genre-savvy.
At the start of the story, Kong Hou is the youngest imperial princess of the previous dynasty: her father-emperor was overthrown three years ago when she was six, and she’s been fostered by the new emperor as a demonstration of his benevolence. Needless to say, her actual treatment in the palace is not great and she’s learned to survive by weaponizing her innocence and adorability, while still largely remaining actually innocent.
After a fortuitous encounter, she’s taken up by a high-level cultivator and brought back to his sect as his direct apprentice. There, she continues to use her weaponized innocence and adorability to wrap most of the male sect elders around her finger, as she rapidly levels-up. For other guidance, she turns to her addiction: trashy cultivation adventure novels, which judging by dropped references look very much like the xianxia novels of our world. Finally, she reaches the stage where she needs experience out in the wider world to advance—trashy novels still in hand—and the main adventure begins.
The result is a hilarious exploration and reversal of xianxia tropes. Seriously, this is a fun and funny book. There’s also a sweet, lively romance and one character who has something like five different layers of secret identities (one of which Kong Hou still hasn’t discovered by the end). I love it. Recommended even if you don’t know xianxia tropes.
* Best. Romance. Alias. Ever. I knew the author previously via two excellent historical romances available from the same translator. And I want more.
---L.
Subject quote from The Taming of Gilgamesh, rallamajoop.
skygiants, as I think this is right up your alley.Ascending, Do Not Disturb is xianxia, a cultivation novel about martial artists advancing their power levels through pseudo-Daoist practices—but this is far from a typical power-fantasy adventure yarn. It’s a fluffy, feel-good romance that’s also scathingly genre-savvy.
At the start of the story, Kong Hou is the youngest imperial princess of the previous dynasty: her father-emperor was overthrown three years ago when she was six, and she’s been fostered by the new emperor as a demonstration of his benevolence. Needless to say, her actual treatment in the palace is not great and she’s learned to survive by weaponizing her innocence and adorability, while still largely remaining actually innocent.
After a fortuitous encounter, she’s taken up by a high-level cultivator and brought back to his sect as his direct apprentice. There, she continues to use her weaponized innocence and adorability to wrap most of the male sect elders around her finger, as she rapidly levels-up. For other guidance, she turns to her addiction: trashy cultivation adventure novels, which judging by dropped references look very much like the xianxia novels of our world. Finally, she reaches the stage where she needs experience out in the wider world to advance—trashy novels still in hand—and the main adventure begins.
The result is a hilarious exploration and reversal of xianxia tropes. Seriously, this is a fun and funny book. There’s also a sweet, lively romance and one character who has something like five different layers of secret identities (one of which Kong Hou still hasn’t discovered by the end). I love it. Recommended even if you don’t know xianxia tropes.
* Best. Romance. Alias. Ever. I knew the author previously via two excellent historical romances available from the same translator. And I want more.
---L.
Subject quote from The Taming of Gilgamesh, rallamajoop.