Recently read: Are You OK
Sep. 6th, 2021 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ehyde I finished (well, almost - the extras aren't quite all translated) You Yao/Are You OK, and oh boy...it started out so funny...
The premise: transmigration is common. Hundreds of people from the early 21st century have died and found themselves in fantasy ancient China. It's a known phenomenon. Some people try to impersonate transmigrators to earn a position in the imperial court. One of our main characters almost succeeds, until he gets found out for not knowing simplified Chinese.
It's written as a series of short stories, rather than a single continuous novel, which I really liked. The first three focus on different sets of characters, after that, they begin interweaving, and that's when it becomes clear that this isn't just a comedy/genre parody. The author goes all in on the implications of what a world of transmigrators would mean, there are conspiracies, political intrigue, revenge plots, things that you thought were one-off jokes coming back in the worst way, knowledge of the future not being an easy solution, some really interesting characters... it's listed as a danmei but there's barely any focus on romance (in a way that's like - these characters are intended to be shipped, but that's not what we're here for today - and I guess that danmei label is doing a lot of work there, when the shippable moments aren't really more than you get for some noncanon slash pairings in some western media? Anyway.)
So yes, I do recommend this! The main story is fully translated, there's one extra that isn't translated yet. Don't go into this expecting everything to wrap up nicely in a happy ending, though it's not what I'd call a bad ending, either. It's complicated, which kind of feels like the point of the story.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/are-you-ok/
The premise: transmigration is common. Hundreds of people from the early 21st century have died and found themselves in fantasy ancient China. It's a known phenomenon. Some people try to impersonate transmigrators to earn a position in the imperial court. One of our main characters almost succeeds, until he gets found out for not knowing simplified Chinese.
It's written as a series of short stories, rather than a single continuous novel, which I really liked. The first three focus on different sets of characters, after that, they begin interweaving, and that's when it becomes clear that this isn't just a comedy/genre parody. The author goes all in on the implications of what a world of transmigrators would mean, there are conspiracies, political intrigue, revenge plots, things that you thought were one-off jokes coming back in the worst way, knowledge of the future not being an easy solution, some really interesting characters... it's listed as a danmei but there's barely any focus on romance (in a way that's like - these characters are intended to be shipped, but that's not what we're here for today - and I guess that danmei label is doing a lot of work there, when the shippable moments aren't really more than you get for some noncanon slash pairings in some western media? Anyway.)
So yes, I do recommend this! The main story is fully translated, there's one extra that isn't translated yet. Don't go into this expecting everything to wrap up nicely in a happy ending, though it's not what I'd call a bad ending, either. It's complicated, which kind of feels like the point of the story.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/are-you-ok/
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Date: 2021-09-07 08:59 pm (UTC)this sounds fascinating, and a very clever take on the genre.