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Post by kyc on Nov 8, 2020 7:36:02 GMT
I'm reading The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber now, and it's interesting to note the differences between LYS and JY. Since I'm too lazy to read diligently today, I'll just list a few differences I noticed between the two. JY vs LYS:1) JY's plotting is on a higher level to LYS's, at least in the epic novels. JY usually uses secrets and revelations to move the plot forward. Readers will find him more compulsive to read. LYS's inspiration is more "of the moment" and less integrated with the plot. 2) LYS's pacing is faster than JY's. Often, it's too fast. JY, on the other hand, is more solid, more descriptive but slower paced. I'm now beginning to find him a little too slow, probably because I'm more used to LYS's pace now. Maybe the best pacing is somewhere between the two. 3) On the whole, JY is a rationalist while LYS is more of a romantic. JY tries to explain everything, so events succeed one another logically. LYS relies more on spontaneous inspiration. 4) I prefer LYS's dialogue because JY's seem too deliberately mimicking people of the past. JY uses more archaic words and avoids modern terms. LYS's dialogue sounds more natural to me. 5) I notice that LYS's heroes usually have friends of the same gender around the same age. Not with JY. JY usually doesn't allow other characters to hog the limelight. Zhang Wuji, Yang Guo, Linghu Chong etc. don't have male friends of their age. 6) JY is like Shaolin Sect - solid, substantial, no gimmicks. LYS is more like Mount Heaven Sect - romantic, more spontaneous. LYS can be rather messy. Whether you like his books will depend on whether you like that particular hero/heroine or not.
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 8, 2020 20:57:39 GMT
I must have missed something but what on earth happened to Feng Lin's husband Li Zhi? I know he and Feng Lin got together in "The Three Heroines" after misunderstanding her to be "Feng Ying" but he doesn't make an appearance (or I must have missed it) after in later novels. Now that you mentioned it, Li Zhi has indeed mysteriously disappeared from the novel, lol. LYS once again displays his less-than-prodigious memory compared to JY. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten about Li Zhi. I don't remember Li Zhi ever being mentioned in The Heavenly Glacier Maiden or The Jade Bow. Or am I wrong? Logic would dictate that Li Zhi has passed away, because he does not make an appearance during Li Qinmei's wedding. that's one of LYS's biggest plot problems--rather than writing these secondarty/tertiary characters as actual characters with a backstory, they are plot devices: once he's used them the serve whatever plot purpose they were intended for, they disappear and nothing is known about what happens to them.
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Post by Admin on Nov 11, 2020 5:03:27 GMT
3) On the whole, JY is a rationalist while LYS is more of a romantic. JY tries to explain everything, so events succeed one another logically. LYS relies more on spontaneous inspiration. I really like this statement! This is so true! I guess that's why some people prefer JY better, while some people prefer LYS better.
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Post by kyc on Nov 14, 2020 17:02:47 GMT
That's one of LYS's biggest plot problems--rather than writing these secondarty/tertiary characters as actual characters with a backstory, they are plot devices: once he's used them the serve whatever plot purpose they were intended for, they disappear and nothing is known about what happens to them. I'm not sure whether they are used simply as plot devices, but with LYS, you definitely can see which characters are better portrayed. LYS simply introduces too many characters. There are too many bad guys in his novel and they die quite easily too. Concerning the disappearance of his characters, it may not entirely be true, since they often pop up in a sequel novel(s). His novels are all one large interconnected universe, even more so than JY's. For example, he left the ending of Saiwai Qixia on a cliffhanger. Yang Yuncong dies in the first chapter of Seven Swords, the sequel. LYS does have many shortcomings, but many strengths as well. However, I do like LYS's "romanticism" and the fact his characters have many same-gender friends. The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber is solid in structure and JY is on the whole a better storyteller than LYS. LYS can be impatient. As a writer, JY maximizes his strengths and minimizes his weaknesses. That doesn't mean that LYS's novels are negligible, or not worth reading. It's easy to pick on LYS, but LYS has unique strengths. I think he pointed the road forward for JY; JY drew a lot of inspiration from him. LYS once wrote an article commenting on his and JY's works (under an alias), and he admitted that his depictions of evil, heretical or unorthodox characters are vastly inferior to JY's. He also said that he wrote too much and some of his novels dip well below standards.
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Post by kyc on Nov 14, 2020 17:11:34 GMT
3) On the whole, JY is a rationalist while LYS is more of a romantic. JY tries to explain everything, so events succeed one another logically. LYS relies more on spontaneous inspiration. I really like this statement! This is so true! I guess that's why some people prefer JY better, while some people prefer LYS better. I'm glad you agree. I'm reading Heaven Sword/Dragon Saber now and JY is so logical that you sometimes miss the "wildness" of LYS.
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 14, 2020 21:31:41 GMT
kyc yes, it's hard to keep up the quality of one's work when one has such a large output. and wuxia only has so many prototype plots and cliches that it all becomes a big recycling game of mix 'n match to create a "new" story. i'm not saying LYS isn't a good storyteller or that JY is superior across the board. on the whole, i agree that JY has a more solid foundation in plot. he also writes in a more modern style that is easier to capture the interest of modern readers.
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Post by Admin on Nov 15, 2020 11:19:01 GMT
I really like this statement! This is so true! I guess that's why some people prefer JY better, while some people prefer LYS better. I'm glad you agree. I'm reading Heaven Sword/Dragon Saber now and JY is so logical that you sometimes miss the "wildness" of LYS. Oh, and also JY is very good at blending history with his fiction. Just take the example of JY's depiction of Kangxi in DoMD and Kangxi in LYS's novel. JY's depiction of Kangxi was pretty much on the facts that Kangxi was known as a benevolent emperor - he almost never sentenced people to death; except for rebellion reason and corruption. Therefore, it's kind of too much for some people to read LYS's novel which mentioned Kangxi ordered the killing of Emperor Shunzhi who became a monk in Wutai Mountain. Unfortunately, we can't find a writer who is a combination of JY and LYS
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Post by kyc on Nov 15, 2020 13:18:53 GMT
Oh, and also JY is very good at blending history with his fiction. Just take the example of JY's depiction of Kangxi in DoMD and Kangxi in LYS's novel. JY's depiction of Kangxi was pretty much on the facts that Kangxi was known as a benevolent emperor - he almost never sentenced people to death; except for rebellion reason and corruption. Therefore, it's kind of too much for some people to read LYS's novel which mentioned Kangxi ordered the killing of Emperor Shunzhi who became a monk in Wutai Mountain. Unfortunately, we can't find a writer who is a combination of JY and LYS LYS is more judgemental and he once objected to JY portraying heretical or demonic sect members positively. LYS sometimes takes things too far, so I'm firmly in JY's camp in seeing people as shades of gray rather than black and white. I think LYS just didn't like or trust the Manchus. I agree that JY was fairer. (JY said that on the whole, the Qing Dynasty emperors were more capable than the Ming rulers.) I believe that one day someone will rival LYS and JY, but maybe not anytime soon. Just like no one expects a Messi after Maradona and Pele. There will always be gifted writers although we may be now in a lull period. P.S. I gave Huang Yi a browse... he seems to me far inferior to JY or LYS. Why would anyone would call him a master, when he wrote so much soft porn?
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 15, 2020 19:15:38 GMT
kyc i think the soft porn is rather the point of huang yi's, er, mastery, LOL
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Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2020 4:02:18 GMT
So true...not in any time soon. In recent years, there are many interesting 'ancient theme' 古装 series like Empress in The Palace (Zhen Huan Zhuan), Three Loves, Three Lives, Ten Miles Peach Blossoms, The Untamed, etc. are adapted from internet novels. And they reached a lot of popularity. Therefore, I guess, they should be talented writers in some ways. Although some of the ancient theme novels have the wuxia elements, but most of the times; besides the ancient setting, and some sword fightings, there's no strong wuxia elements. But probably in the next few years, there will be more people who have literary talents who write wuxia. That's so true...Maradona and Pele...and only after more than 30 years there's Messi. Yikes....hopefully we could find a great wuxia writer soon as it is already passed 30 years after JY and LYS's last novels. I only read 寻秦记 (A Step Into The Past) of Huang Yi. Although he has so much soft porn in his novel, I have to say that A Step Into The Past is an engrossing novel. Not to mention that this is the first novel that creates a trend of 'transmigration' Where the main character is somehow migrated into another life or another time, and starts his/her own adventure. This transmigration theme has a huge fans. Therefore, I have to admit that Huang Yi creates a trend and that's why he deserves to be called a master. Of course, we can't compare him with JY and LYS - as it would be like comparing Mozart and Beethoven with Beatles. Beatles is still great though!
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Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2020 4:08:13 GMT
kyc i think the soft porn is rather the point of huang yi's, er, mastery, LOL Well, Huang Yi/ 黃易 is Master Huang (黃) ..so it's kind of suitable for him to be a master in soft porn Note: in mainland, porn or vulgar things is called 黄色/huang se/ yellow. So there's yellow films (porn films), yellow novels, etc.
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Post by kyc on Nov 16, 2020 6:56:00 GMT
So true...not in any time soon. In recent years, there are many interesting 'ancient theme' 古装 series like Empress in The Palace (Zhen Huan Zhuan), Three Loves, Three Lives, Ten Miles Peach Blossoms, The Untamed, etc. are adapted from internet novels. And they reached a lot of popularity. Therefore, I guess, they should be talented writers in some ways. Although some of the ancient theme novels have the wuxia elements, but most of the times; besides the ancient setting, and some sword fightings, there's no strong wuxia elements. But probably in the next few years, there will be more people who have literary talents who write wuxia. That's so true...Maradona and Pele...and only after more than 30 years there's Messi. Yikes....hopefully we could find a great wuxia writer soon as it is already passed 30 years after JY and LYS's last novels. I only read 寻秦记 (A Step Into The Past) of Huang Yi. Although he has so much soft porn in his novel, I have to say that A Step Into The Past is an engrossing novel. Not to mention that this is the first novel that creates a trend of 'transmigration' Where the main character is somehow migrated into another life or another time, and starts his/her own adventure. This transmigration theme has a huge fans. Therefore, I have to admit that Huang Yi creates a trend and that's why he deserves to be called a master. Of course, we can't compare him with JY and LYS - as it would be like comparing Mozart and Beethoven with Beatles. Beatles is still great though! True... many dramas adapted from the internet but no one on JY's and GL's level. Fewer and fewer people are well versed in ancient Chinese history and culture. JY wrote so well that people just follow his style. Web-novels usually follow a template, and they have a tendency to re-use plotlines (longer means more $$). The "transmigration" theme... I used to do internet novel translations and this theme has been recycled to death in a thousand novels. So Huang Yi was responsible for this phenomenon which I dislike. And i can never understand why Huang Yi has to "corrupt" wuxia with soft porn... After finishing the Big Three (LYS, JY, GL), I will read more contemporary wuxia novelists. I'm not very optimistic that I will encounter any great writer. But I'm only like 1/4 into LYS... siuyiu , Huang Yi is no master... maybe only a page boy of JY and LYS, not even on the level of GL.
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Post by kyc on Nov 16, 2020 7:33:41 GMT
My goals in the coming (three?) months:
1) Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber. I'm starting Vol. 3 but am too stressed by work so I can't continue.
2) Another LYS novel - I borrowed The Empress Regnant and Wondrous Heroes (《女帝奇英傳》)
3) The first novel of Wang Dulu's "Crane-Iron Pentalogy" - Precious Sword, Golden Hairpin (《寶劍金釵》). Have that borrowed too.
That said, I feel I'm sometimes rushing which results in me feeling pressure even when reading novels, which ought to be relaxing.
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Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2020 12:13:34 GMT
My goals in the coming (three?) months are to finish: 2) Another LYS novel - I have borrowed The Empress Regnant and Wondrous Heroes (《女帝奇英傳》) That said, I feel I'm sometimes rushing which results in me feeling pressure even when reading novels, which ought to be relaxing. 《女帝奇英傳> is one of the best LYS" novel. I reread the book twenty years after I read the novel for the first time. I still had the same feeling when I reread it. Moved and touched by the story. Really recommend this book! Don't put a target on reading or you will lose the fun and excitement.
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 16, 2020 23:53:08 GMT
kyc hahaha, i meant mastery ironically, of course. if possible, try to pace yourself. you will overlook stylistic and subtle details if your mindset is to devour as many as possible.
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