Xianxia - My newest Addiction

"Qin Yu from Stellar Transformations"

Xianxia means immortal hero in Chinese and refers to a genre of fiction where the main characters are interested in becoming immortals through meditation and other techniques. Xianxia stories involve a lot of fantasy elements like magic, gods and demons. I found Coiling Dragon on the site Wuxiaworld one day and was immediately hooked. After reading up to Book 13 within two days I took a break and started looking for more. Most of what I could find has been translated from Chinese by wonderful people online. I cannot say how much I appreciate those who translate Xianxia for avid readers like me. Most Xianxia available online has been published as web novels in China. These web novels are usually quite long and I would advise anyone trying to start reading Xianxia to be prepared to spend a lot of time reading these enjoyable and fascinating works of fiction. Coiling Dragon which started me on this voyage is currently translated up to Book 16 Chapter 16 and there are a total of 21 books spanning over 800 chapters.

Apart from Coiling Dragon I am currently reading Battle Through the Heavens, Martial God Asura and Stellar Transformations from the Wuxiaworld site. There are a number of other Xianxia books I am reading on other sites but the greatest collection of Xianxia in my opinion can be found on Wuxiaworld. Another site prospective readers may be interested in is the Wuxia Translations thread on SPCNET.TV which can be found here. I don't like this site as much because navigating it can be cumbersome and the translated chapters of the books are not well laid out. What most translators have been doing is creating blogs and sites to post the books they are working on. I would advise people looking for Xianxia to read to be patient in their search because you never know when you might discover the next gem.

It can be frustrating waiting for the next chapter of your favorite Xianxia book to come out but after you've read it you can't help but want more. That's why I call it an addiction. My greatest hope is for translating software to become so good that I can get the raw books from the Chinese sites and translate it for myself. I know that is something that won't happen for some time so until then I hope those Chinese translators currently working on Xianxia can keep up the good work. Thank You.