Reading "Lip and Sword"
Ok, after so much time asking the publisher if they solved the editing/proofreading problems of this book and never getting an honest answer, I found the book online and just started reading it :P
"In order to find out the truth about his father's wrongful death in prison, Med school graduate Xing Ming resolutely entered the news industry. With his dedication and commitment to pursuing journalism, he becomes a popular news anchor, known sometimes as an "Ice Prince". To clear his father's name and bring justice to his case, Xing Ming went so far as to sacrifice himself, clinging to influential and powerful people."
From the version I got, yes, there are a many typos, grammar mistakes (sometimes you can't be sure if they're talking about past, present, conditional or future and you just have to read a bit more to correct it in your brain from the context) and 2-3 phrases where the translator changed her mind midways but didn't erase her past attempt so you get something like "and he was have been doing that" :/
In these years waiting for a reply from the publisher, I read the Amazon page from time to time to try to get information from there. People there said that first book had mistakes but was readable (true) but it got worse in next books... I just finished the first book and now I'll see how worse it gets from there on, but what pisses me of is that they deleted all amazon reviews! and, at the end of last year (if I rememeber well), they deleted all new reviews again, if you go check the page now, there's none! I SAW them, I READ them, I know they had reviews and now they don't so I can only asume that somobody posted something they didn't like and deleted everything again -_-
SO, I'm not buying anything until I'm 1000% sure there's not a single problem with the books being sold on retail (they're print-to-order, the issue was that the publisher sent a bad/unedited copy of the manuscript to the retail services and NEVER said if they fixed it or if it was ok to buy it now or anything!)
OK, so now to the fun part: the book!
It's Jin Shisi Chai so the first thing you can expect is a mature way of writting. Just as with "In The Dark", it feels as if reading a proper book instead of a lightnovel, if it weren't because everybody is pretty and sexy (which is GOOD!) then nobody would notice this book was born as a danmei webnovel.
About the story, it was hard to get into it because, for a long while, it's narrated exclusively in third person with almost no dialogue, and that puts a distance between the characters and the reader. As it advances, it slowly adds short dialogues and in the last third it feels a bit more well balanced. Anyway, the story is still interesting enough to keep you reading it but not as much as to binge it.
About the characters... THIS is its main forte! Xing Ming, our protagonist, is not someone likeable, he's a gray character thorwarding to villian, but who still has some morals to not fully turn into one. Anyway, he's cold enough to use his body to get favors from his boss, the ML. We don't have a lot of time to get to know our ML first hand, since the story follows Xing Ming, but seeing his actions, we can conclude that he acts though and cold but in reality has a weak spot for Xing Ming... not in a cute and heartwarming way though! judging by some scenes (mostly bed scenes) he's torn between really caring and being tender and soft to Xin Ming and absolutely hating how he's becoming tender and soft and taking it on the cause of his fall, becoming cruel as soon as he feels the relationship deepening into something like love. Their relationship is quite interesting since *I think* both of them are already in love but haven't noticed or are in a deep denial, at least on Xing Ming's side, since it seems on Yu Zhongye's side it's mostly hatred of anything resembling love.
Plot wise, the first book is an introduction (yes, the whole book lol), we get to know our protagonist as a person, his circumstances and motivations, see the start of his relationship with his boss and see the bases of how the entertaiment industry works, with all the dirty stuff going on behind the scenes. The main plot about Xing Ming searching for the truth about his father's death is barely mentioned since this first volume is mostly about Xing Ming getting it together, making a name for himself and gaining the necessary power to start investigating about his dad's death. All this mixed with TONS of smut! there are many, many, MANY spicy scenes, many of which do develope the plot, as Xing Ming goes from feeling humilliated and questioning what he's doing, to actually enjoying everything and becoming attached without noticing it (can you believe he still thinks he's straight? LOL)
In a way, is a darker and more mature version of Yes, No or Maybe. Our protagonists work in the same industry, both as hosts of news programs, and both are annoying and mean, with the difference that Kunieda Kei (YNoM) is exactly the kind of person Xing Ming would hate the most. While Kei tries his best to hide his annoying side (and makes the life of people around him easier by not complaining or being mean on their faces), Xing Ming is the opposite, he can't control his emotions and acts violently and impulsively, making his own life difficult and giving himself a bad reputation.
If one day I finally read comments seeing the physical edition is already fixed and proofread, I'll probably buy it, but as it is now, without any way of confirming its status and the publisher having zero comunication with customers (and still not shipping preorders from 2 years ago), I don't feel like supporting them. Now I'll start reading the second book and see with my own eyes if the edition is worse than the first book and if I would be ok buying a book with those kind of errors or not (I don't want to damage my eyes with screens if it's not necessary so I was really looking forward to read it in physical form... but not if it means buying a faulty edition supporting a company who has done nothing to change for the better, I hope they don't licence ANYTHING in english anymore!)
"In order to find out the truth about his father's wrongful death in prison, Med school graduate Xing Ming resolutely entered the news industry. With his dedication and commitment to pursuing journalism, he becomes a popular news anchor, known sometimes as an "Ice Prince". To clear his father's name and bring justice to his case, Xing Ming went so far as to sacrifice himself, clinging to influential and powerful people."
From the version I got, yes, there are a many typos, grammar mistakes (sometimes you can't be sure if they're talking about past, present, conditional or future and you just have to read a bit more to correct it in your brain from the context) and 2-3 phrases where the translator changed her mind midways but didn't erase her past attempt so you get something like "and he was have been doing that" :/
In these years waiting for a reply from the publisher, I read the Amazon page from time to time to try to get information from there. People there said that first book had mistakes but was readable (true) but it got worse in next books... I just finished the first book and now I'll see how worse it gets from there on, but what pisses me of is that they deleted all amazon reviews! and, at the end of last year (if I rememeber well), they deleted all new reviews again, if you go check the page now, there's none! I SAW them, I READ them, I know they had reviews and now they don't so I can only asume that somobody posted something they didn't like and deleted everything again -_-
SO, I'm not buying anything until I'm 1000% sure there's not a single problem with the books being sold on retail (they're print-to-order, the issue was that the publisher sent a bad/unedited copy of the manuscript to the retail services and NEVER said if they fixed it or if it was ok to buy it now or anything!)
OK, so now to the fun part: the book!
It's Jin Shisi Chai so the first thing you can expect is a mature way of writting. Just as with "In The Dark", it feels as if reading a proper book instead of a lightnovel, if it weren't because everybody is pretty and sexy (which is GOOD!) then nobody would notice this book was born as a danmei webnovel.
About the story, it was hard to get into it because, for a long while, it's narrated exclusively in third person with almost no dialogue, and that puts a distance between the characters and the reader. As it advances, it slowly adds short dialogues and in the last third it feels a bit more well balanced. Anyway, the story is still interesting enough to keep you reading it but not as much as to binge it.
About the characters... THIS is its main forte! Xing Ming, our protagonist, is not someone likeable, he's a gray character thorwarding to villian, but who still has some morals to not fully turn into one. Anyway, he's cold enough to use his body to get favors from his boss, the ML. We don't have a lot of time to get to know our ML first hand, since the story follows Xing Ming, but seeing his actions, we can conclude that he acts though and cold but in reality has a weak spot for Xing Ming... not in a cute and heartwarming way though! judging by some scenes (mostly bed scenes) he's torn between really caring and being tender and soft to Xin Ming and absolutely hating how he's becoming tender and soft and taking it on the cause of his fall, becoming cruel as soon as he feels the relationship deepening into something like love. Their relationship is quite interesting since *I think* both of them are already in love but haven't noticed or are in a deep denial, at least on Xing Ming's side, since it seems on Yu Zhongye's side it's mostly hatred of anything resembling love.
Plot wise, the first book is an introduction (yes, the whole book lol), we get to know our protagonist as a person, his circumstances and motivations, see the start of his relationship with his boss and see the bases of how the entertaiment industry works, with all the dirty stuff going on behind the scenes. The main plot about Xing Ming searching for the truth about his father's death is barely mentioned since this first volume is mostly about Xing Ming getting it together, making a name for himself and gaining the necessary power to start investigating about his dad's death. All this mixed with TONS of smut! there are many, many, MANY spicy scenes, many of which do develope the plot, as Xing Ming goes from feeling humilliated and questioning what he's doing, to actually enjoying everything and becoming attached without noticing it (can you believe he still thinks he's straight? LOL)
In a way, is a darker and more mature version of Yes, No or Maybe. Our protagonists work in the same industry, both as hosts of news programs, and both are annoying and mean, with the difference that Kunieda Kei (YNoM) is exactly the kind of person Xing Ming would hate the most. While Kei tries his best to hide his annoying side (and makes the life of people around him easier by not complaining or being mean on their faces), Xing Ming is the opposite, he can't control his emotions and acts violently and impulsively, making his own life difficult and giving himself a bad reputation.
If one day I finally read comments seeing the physical edition is already fixed and proofread, I'll probably buy it, but as it is now, without any way of confirming its status and the publisher having zero comunication with customers (and still not shipping preorders from 2 years ago), I don't feel like supporting them. Now I'll start reading the second book and see with my own eyes if the edition is worse than the first book and if I would be ok buying a book with those kind of errors or not (I don't want to damage my eyes with screens if it's not necessary so I was really looking forward to read it in physical form... but not if it means buying a faulty edition supporting a company who has done nothing to change for the better, I hope they don't licence ANYTHING in english anymore!)