Cavesa wrote:You're doing a great job at the overview. I've heard about some of these trends before, but it looks like my info is rather outdated, so thanks for updating me. A random non-sinologist fantasy/scifi fan like me can notice just a few translations on the bookshelves (such as The three body problem), and that's it. This huge world of webnovels is rather hidden away from the external world. You need to already get through several "geek gateways" in the right direction. But it could actually be wonderful and fun material for language learners.
If you're curious to look into it more, the website Novel Updates catalogs a lot of translations for webnovel series, the "series finder" button on the side you can search by different countries/formats/genres/tropes and sort by things like ratings. Although ratings aren't always to be trusted, I've been burned a few times by some more highly rated stuff. Usually its best if you can find someone whose reviews seem to match up with your interests and see what other series they recommend. Some websites that do the translations unfortunately can have a lot of hoops to jump through and complicated subscription models to read the series, but more are starting to be made available in more standard e-book formats.
Cavesa wrote:Some of these series go on for a really long time, and easily go longer than something like Wheel of Time.
Impossible! Do the authors also leave notes, for others to carry the torch and continue?
Hold me, or I'll crazily start learning Mandarin right away!
Heh, in a lot of cases you'll be lucky if the author has completed their own notes while writing it. For the most part it seems like the authors are good at finishing their series, although not always in terms of what best suits the stories. Its pretty common for series to have long filler arcs, or "resets" where the character goes to a new realm/world and is suddenly weak again and then the author can kind of remix their old storylines with different window dressing. A lot of fans also complain about series having abrupt endings sometimes, where there's a lot of buildup and then not such good plan for how to tie it all together and resolve everything satisfactorily.
Its kind of the opposite problem as a lot of these huge unfinished English language fantasy series, where readers are unsure how many years until the next book or if it will ever be finished. Some better authors seem to have a better grasp of the format, and have a solid structure and goal they're working towards while only occasionally putting in filler stuff if they need more time to plan. I think some established authors are trying to start publishing on different platforms where maybe they'll have more control over the pace of writing and can keep things better organized. But I still don't really have a full overview of all the different options writers have, so maybe some are already doing this.
Cavesa wrote:Yes, and it is rather sad. The world of "traditional publishing" is actually much less sexist these days, even though there still a lot to do (female authors struggling more to be published, or being given stupidly romantic covers no matter tha actual story), but a typical reader of fantasy is a woman in many countries these days. In scifi, it may be a bit slower, but it is still happening. There are many more female authors, and men and women read the same stuff.
I find it sad and disturbing, that the new platforms and new ways of publishing are not fighting the barrier, but rather strenghtening it. I read both books typically marketed to males and to females. I refuse to feel ashamed about the "female books", even though it is very hard (because reading such books is considered stupid), but I mostly read "male books". I'm excited by authors, who simply don't give a damn and do not cater to the stereotypes for profit.
We've had a great opportunity, as a generation, to finally get rid of this stupid and harmful stereotype and we've messed up. In our fandoms, we are losing the battle for the very simple right to enjoy anything you want, no matter your gender, without being ridiculed or bullied for it. And that's affecting our youngest co-fans very negatively, with impact on the rest of their lives and culture too.
Yeah, I think in Chinese fantasy genres had a lot of different types of women characters and women as part of the readership, as least as early as the 1930s. The traditionally published books were still I think more dominated by male authors and had their own issues, but I think the writing of women characters in webnovels by male authors has gotten significantly worse, although it may be part of the more general trend away from character development in general. There's a lot of fantasy webnovels by female authors now, but it still seems like they can be restricted more to certain kinds of plotlines and tropes.
I just try to find whatever seems to have more interesting characters and storylines, but there's a lot of stuff that seems designed to find the easiest way to appeal to a certain audience at the expense of good writing.
Cavesa wrote:A pessimist might say, that we are observing the processus of dumbing down the books and the readers, in a downward spiral. Dumber readers, dumber books, etc. However, I still feel that's a phase. It's still very new, but I'd say there will be demand for more quality. And it will be found and created, and sought for. We will surely get some talents through these channels, who would never have been discovered otherwise. At least I hope so.
Yeah, I'm holding out hope for some things improving, there's a lot of aspects of contemporary webnovels I'm not a fan of, but I see certain authors improving in certain areas, so I'm hoping eventually someone can tie a lot of those different aspects together and come up with something much better. I think there's also enough dissatisfaction with certain tropes among the readership, that there's a lot of potential once someone comes up with a good alternative that can really take off. I'm not totally aware of the all the conditions leading to the current state of writing, but it seems like some authors are trying to find other platforms and models, so hopefully its a matter of time before there's some changes.
And as I mentioned, I've mostly stuck to easier authors so far, so potentially some people are already having more success that I just have to get around to reading them.