Introduction
- Name: Stellar Transformations (星辰变 -- Xingchenbian)
- Genre: Web fanta-xia, i.e. stories about fantastical and chivalrous events which are written and distributed via the Internet. (The actual Chinese term for the genre is Xianxia 仙侠, which has no equivalent in English and literally means chivalrous stories about people who practice to become immortal beings.)
- Author: I Eat Tomatoes (我吃西红柿) -- one of the hotshots of the fantasy genre in China.
- Synopsis: In a galaxy far away, there is a kid with an innate inability to practice internal techniques. In order to gain the respect of his father, he resolutely chooses to follow the more difficult and painful path of practicing external techniques. As the years go by, he grows up, but what really changes his life is a mysterious meteoric crystal stone -- the Meteoric Tear. This stone fuses with the young man’s body unnoticed, and he seems to undergo drastic transformations as a result. After that, everything is changed. Eventually his father knows that the son for whom he hasn’t really shown a lot of consideration possesses astonishing abilities. And there’s a lot more to come.
- Trivia: This fiction was made into a popular MMORPG with the same name in China and has spawned a bunch of copycats.
- Length: 18 books, for a total of 680 chapters (book1 22 chapters; b2 24 chaps; b3 24 chaps; b4 27 chaps; b5 34 chaps; b6 16 chaps; b7 16 chaps; b8 16 chaps; b9 15 chaps; b10 48 chaps; b11 68 chaps; b12 70 chaps; b13 47 chaps; b14 64 chaps; b15 48 chaps; b16 64 chaps; b17 32 chaps; b18 45 chaps.)
I choose to translate this novel into English because I’ve got really bored with traditional wuxia fictions; furthermore the plot is fast-paced and incorporated some wacky stuff from Western sci-fi and cosmology, which happens to be my favorite subject, into Chinese wuxia.
It’s been quite some time since I used English on a regular basis so you will possibly find quite a few weird phrases, made-up words and grammatical errors in my translation. Please bear with them. There are also terms which will be left in pinyin and explained in a separate glossary post because they would sound plain silly if translated. Feel free to tell me if you have better choices.
Although this is a lengthy novel, its chapters are pretty short and the wording is FAR LESS complicated and polished than that of Jinyong novels, so I think anyone with above average English and Chinese skills can translate it without much difficulty. If you want to translate any chapters, you’re welcome to jump on board. If you don’t have the original or don’t like to read it on Chinese websites, I can email it to you too. Just send me a message. The more the merrier. (Sorry guys, now that I've done 30% of the novel, I would prefer it if I can finish it off by myself )
Ok, enough with the intro. It's time I got started. Hopefully I can finish 1 chapter or 2 today or by tomorrow.
- Chinese text: http://www.n6xs.com/read.asp?id=23266
OR: http://www.kuaiyan.com.cn/book/0/15/ (with separate books)
- Epub files (courtesy of wandering): http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthre...=1#post1072518