Translation Complete: Tianya, Mingyue, Dao [天涯,明月,刀]
For those who are interested, I wanted to report that, thanks to the combined efforts of myself and chowbeng, the Gulong novel 天涯,明月,刀 has been fully translated in our translation forums, and can be found here.
I firmly believe that this may very well the best wuxia novel I have ever read. It is an exemplar of Gulong's strengths as a writer, but is, in my opinion, almost devoid of Gulong's usual flaws. It tugs as the emotion and draws the reader in as many Gulong novels do, but it is also a very complete, very 'finished' book, which isn't always the case with Gulong novels. The dialogue is strong, and the philosophy within is deep without sounding artificial or preachy. There is, imho, very little of the stupid deus-ex-machina which plagues many Gulong novels; ie, no 'super powerful characters' that pop out of nowhere, perform a brief role for the sake of moving the story along, then are never heard of or never discussed again (I am particularly reminded of the Parrots of Echo Valley in a certain translation by Athena). Every character that you care about has a real, meaningful ending, with nobody dropping off the face of the earth. The human interactions are believable, and nearly every single twist and turn in the compelling story is foreshadowed, sometimes long in advance.
In short, I highly recommend this book. My previous favorite martial arts novel was XAJH; it has been wholly supplanted this novel. This novel has made a Gulong fan out of me, and I bow before the master.