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山中邪神 was fantastic!!! I’m so grateful I got to read it, and I’m really happy I discovered the 謎團小說獎 by The Office of Historical Suspense Investigation & Research, otherwise I would probably never have found this book.

山中邪神 is one of the three works that won the first edition of the contest. Rules are that the fiction must be inspired by a real criminal case that took place in Taiwan, and this novel’s inspiration is the murder of a governor in Taiwan during the Qing dynasty.

This is mostly a wuxia novel with a historical background though it also adds magical elements. It blends genres like wuxia, mystery and horror, and I personally enjoyed every aspect of the novel.

Political intrigues and schemes are an important part of the novel, so it was a real struggle at first to work my way through historical concepts and vocabulary, but the payoff was huge. The novel depicts a complex web of influence and struggle for power, all closely linked to the situation of Taiwan at the time (1786). Qing officials, Tiandihui members, factions and internal conflict, powerful and influent local families… some fight for political and economical control over Taiwan, over fight for revenge, over pursued what they think is the right path…

The result was a suspenseful, fast paced plot with some epic battles, ingenious manoeuvres and schemes, and mysterious entities who leave a trail of death wherever they go (some parts were quite gory, as a fan of horror, I loved it!!).

The plot and the setting are great, but the characters are equally good. It’s crazy because we don’t get to spend that much time with any of them, there aren’t a lot of introspection or reflexions on the characters, yet it feels like I know them all very well. The main cast was very interesting, our protagonist Lee Hsiu-man was very likeable, but I personally really enjoyed characters that have inner struggles like Chao I-shan, who might be my favourite character.

I don’t know what to say more, this book was fantastic, I loved it more than I can say. And it was a real struggle to read, It took me 26 hours to read (I saw the stats on Readmoo), which is double the time a book of this length usually takes me to complete. This is how much I had to pause to look things up, re-read passages, and how slow I was overall. Despite the language difficulties, I had a lot of fun reading it. Actually, it’s been a while since I got so passionate about a story.

I can’t believe I finished it! When I finished chapter 11, I thought I might as well just continue. It’s crazy how much easier the book has become, the first chapters were so so hard, then it got much easier with some occasional difficult passages that I needed to study, then I was just able to read without looking up words anymore. There’s a lot of recurring vocabulary!

Yeah, this is going to be my favourite book of the year for sure!

What?! How??!!?

That was an incredible chapter! The last lines were so beautiful and impactful!!

There’s a mention of loyalty poison in 山中邪神 which reminded me that I had just drunk that in Where Winds Meet last time I opened the game to continue the main story. Haha, is my MC going to be okay? I haven’t opened the game for weeks or even months? I really wish I had more time to play, but I can’t even keep up with Genshin content.

I really loved this movie, I watch a lot of horror, and it’s really cool to find something that feels fresh and novel. The scenario was great, it doesn’t rely on classic jump scares, and it was genuinely terrifying at times, with a constant tension and suspense because Nikki’s reactions were so unpredictable. Inde Navarrette is incredible, I think that a good part of why the movie is so great comes from her performance.

I don’t know if the audience was supposed to identify with Bear and feel trapped in this situation as he was, but I personally found him loathsome and insufferable. He is the one who wanted it and started it, and he takes advantage of the situation as long as it goes his way, but once Nikki reveals herself as unstable and insecure, he immediately tries to escape. Worse, he triggers her in every possible way, adding to her anxiety and insecurity, which then triggers extreme reactions from her part, to which he reacts as if she was crazy when she’s obviously suffering.

I found that this actually made the movie really interesting, because our protagonist is actually the bad guy, and Nikki is the victim, so it gave a whole new dimension to the film. The end was also excellent.

It’s very intriguing and reads easily! The author is investigating an address that does not exist, but appeared multiple times in strange circumstances…

As expected, I only had time to read half of chapter 10, but this part had such an important episode! I really really love this book.

And 3/4 into it too! I wonder if I can finish it this week?

I started it, it reads very easily. I’m in a phase where I’m more interested in reading horror rather than detective fiction, and this novel looks very good!

New Japanese book is going to be 三重県津市西区平山町3-15-7 by 大舟. I saw the Korean translation in a bookshop this weekend, and it looked cool. There are so many Japanese mystery novels translated into Korean, I could use this as inspiration for my next books instead of looking at prizes.

There’s a manga too, and I’m not sure which one came first, but in any case I took the novel.

Daily chapter done! this one was a short one, perfect for today given that I’m very tired…

I forgot to update, but I listened to a bunch of stories during the weekend. They’re all so great, and many have magical/supernatural elements, which makes them different, while still having everything I like about Otsuichi’s short stories.

I know that Shoji Yuki has written book in a lot of genres, but I was still surprised that this collection felt very different from the police procedural 夜の終る時 and the detective series 郷原部長刑事!

The short stories collected here are more focused on everyday life and society, characters’ motivation and tragic fates. Some were more focused on the social aspect, some more on the mystery, with several featuring female protagonist in a society where they had little to no control over their own life. Some of these stories felt very depressing, some - the ones more focused on the mystery, murder plotting, etc. - were a delight to read.

Overall, I liked it a lot, even though I did prefer 夜の終る時 by a good margin (more focused on the police/yakuza theme). In any case, I think it’s really cool that these short stories have been collected in a new edition.

I put my wuxia novel aside and focused on this one, and I ended up finishing it!

So many unexpected things happened!!

Ready for my daily chapter of 山中邪神, the next one is on the shorter side.

I completely forgot that I have read 流星蝴蝶剑 this year! (in March). So this would have been my favourite book of the year, not 百年の時効.

I’m trying to decide wether I like 山中邪神 or 流星蝴蝶剑 more. They’re both wuxia but very different. 山中邪神 is more historical and focused on institutions, political and economical battles for power and influence whereas 流星蝴蝶剑 was more on a personal level. I find all the intrigues, schemes and treasons at play in 山中邪神 so exciting, combat is described very differently too, and it has a bit of horror/supernatural elements.

With all the crime fiction I’m reading, if I’m debating which of the only two wuxia novels I read this year is my favourite book, then it just shows that I really should read this genre more. I think that as soon as I finish 山中邪神, I will add this fourth slot to my rotation.