Purpose and Methodology.

Hello, you might wonder who am I? What is this blog? What differs me from Novel Updates?

Well, I am a 19-year-old college Sophomore at NYU studying Economics and Computer Sciences and an avid Wuxia reader. Being home for the summer and relatively bored, I have decided to commit myself to sharing more about some of my favourite novels by reviewing them in a Holistic manner and decidedly there will be a sprinkle of bias, but no review can be objective so I hope that does not deter you from reading through my reviews.

Methodology:

As shown in the flowchart above, I will be splitting all of my reviews into 5 major aspects:

• Translation Quality

I will rate the overall quality of the translator and translation on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest. Seeing as translators grow more adept the more they translate, I will only rate the overall quality as it would be unfair to debase the translator when the novel I am reviewing could very well be one of their earlier works. Having read both completed and on-going translations, I will try my best to provide an accurate overview of the translation quality. 

• Narrative Content

Narrative content will solely focus on the ability of the Wuxia author and whether or not I felt the content is good. I do not believe that debasing an author solely on their sticking to stereotypical elements of wuxia is fair since the authors are writing this to make a living and the system encourages longer/filler chapters as I understand it thus forcing them to stick to some repetitive tropes. However, I will still be critical of the work and provide an accurate overview of the plot and whether it is well done or it is not the best.

• Character Development 

Wuxia novels are notorious for the inclusion of a host of characters who turn out to just be useless ways to boost the protagonist's power level/romance/ other common usages. I aim to comment on the ability of the author to elicit an emotional response from myself and then use those moments to judge the overall character development. This may be a bit unusual, but I feel that development is a biased opinion, therefore, I will try and give insight in the most objective way I can.

• Personal Thoughts

In this section, I will be highlighting what the novel meant for me and why I chose it in the first place. This section will be a lot more personal detailing my experience reading the novel and also highlight a bit of personal reflection and what I learned from the novel. Overall this section is more for me to divulge to readers what experience I went through and why the novel might be a good fit.

• Concluding Remarks

This section will consist solely of a succinct summary of the entire review and other relevant links. Will usually contain the translator's social media handles, official website, and link to the novel itself. From time to time I will try and include an interview with the translator if possible and/or some other interesting information I can find about the novel itself.


And that covers it for my introductory post! Look forward to a review of I Shall Seal the Heavens by Er Gen and translated by Deathblade

Follow @deathbladeISSTH