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Jan. 16th, 2021 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI just finished zooming my way through the cnovel New Times, New Hell after seeing this recommendation from littlerhymes.
The premise: promising developer Yu Zhengdu gets hired at a new company two months before graduating, where he immediately demands to sign the one-year contract right away to ensure his benefits come through, despite the HR manager's attempts to convince him that he should maybe give the company a test run first.
Ten minutes later it is revealed that the company he has just contracted to work for is a.) Hell (in charge of human reincarnation); b.) totally lacking in other human employees, everyone else is ghosts; c.) deeply underfunded with almost no development budget; d.) run by a ghost king named Shang Que who is very handsome but also does not fully understand that the new developer is not here to fix his personal computer when it freezes up from running ten video games at once
YU ZHENGDU: okay well thank you for the opportunity but I think I might like to quit, actually, I prefer a working environment where my colleagues don't habitually pop their ghostly eyes out of their head
HR MANAGER: well ... the thing about hell contracts is .... you can't really break them without severe repercussions? We're VERY sorry we DID try to warn you!
So, with no other choice, Yu Zhengdu rolls up his sleeves and sets about a mission to singlehandedly revamp the company's technological setup, get all his new ghost coworkers off Excel and working in a functional application, and set up a reliable income stream so they can get some working servers and hire a project manager.
Fortunately, ghost king Shang Que is perfectly willing to let his hot new employee convince him of the value of modern technology and the importance of reliable development funding; as the novel goes on, he reluctantly puts himself on a video game budget, starts taking MBA classes in order to become better at corporate management, and becomes an ardent tech evangelist. Growth!
The novel is much more episodic than most of the other cnovels I've read; there's a bit of an overarching plot, but mostly it's bouncing from ghost problem to ghost problem which our protagonists resolve with a little bit of Shang Que's terrifying ghost king reputation and a lot of Yu Zhengdu's cheerful Big Tech optimism. Let's disrupt the Daoist cultivation industry! Everything can be solved with an algorithm and universal WiFi! It's very charming and very funny and often very relatable and also about every other chapter I found myself mentally screaming they needed to hire an ethicist immediately, had anyone in the cast ever taken a training on replication of inherent bias?
I'm also not in any way qualified to talk about the way that the book deals with the the conflicts between contemporary socialism and traditional beliefs -- the central premise for why Hell is broke and needs a developer to begin with is that the traditional heaven/hell system and all the gods collapsed during the Cultural Revolution. It's really neat to see the ways that the book plays around with how the ghosts and gods are struggling to adapt and the integration of the new ways with the old, and I really love a lot of what the book does with the power of human ingenuity and human faith, especially towards the end. But also I definitely have an kneejerk negative reaction to the word "reeducation" and it is thrown around quite a bit ... also also, on the one hand I'm really into the reform of horrible hungry ghost hell from an indefinite to a temporary sentence that encourages rehabilitation and self-improvement towards reincarnation (and, of course, lets everyone have WiFi! "It is the goal of socialism to push for informatization and modernization of distant and isolated areas!") and on the other hand the discussion of prison labor as a positive example is IMO not ... ideal ....
That said, every instance of ghosts and little gods gleefully adapting to the internet age, demanding that the devs add a social messaging function to their shiny new reincarnation app, proudly advertising ghost company benefits, accidentally becoming social media stars beloved by young and old alike ("They are very Buddhist, but also very rock!"), is consistently a delight and I think at least once a chapter I would turn and force Beth to listen to me read an exceptionally entertaining sentence out loud.
The romance is also very funny, low-key and low-angst; Yu Zhengdu is so chill and generally entertained by Shang Que's whole vibe that moments that could be embarrassing or lead to conflict just kind of bounce off him. About eighty chapters in, Shang Que, having Decided that Yu Zhengdu is Obviously Pining For Him, politely informs Yu Zhengdu that when he chooses to confess his feelings he, ghost king Shang Que, will graciously consider his proposal! he shouldn't be discouraged, odds of success are high!
Yu Zhengdu: uh oh, idk how to let him down easy while preserving our friendship
Yu Zhengdu, two chapters of consideration later: actually you know what I think I'm pretty into this
Yu Zhengdu, two chapters of consideration after that: okay I'm definitely into this but also it is very funny watching him try to pretend he holds the upper hand here and I should definitely make him confess to me first
Also, it is impossible not to love Peppa, the adorable ghost child they end up adopting who eventually reincarnates as a much-beloved, deeply horrible, superintelligent goose. Shang Que is a very responsible parent! Before she hatches, he makes sure to play her Mozart for fifteen minutes a day so she can reach her full potential!
Anyway: absolutely recommended, I enjoyed it very much, please come back and talk to me about the ethical issues of removing people's memories of their past lives by automatically setting a tracker to find and delete a line of code on the back end!
littlerhymes.The premise: promising developer Yu Zhengdu gets hired at a new company two months before graduating, where he immediately demands to sign the one-year contract right away to ensure his benefits come through, despite the HR manager's attempts to convince him that he should maybe give the company a test run first.
Ten minutes later it is revealed that the company he has just contracted to work for is a.) Hell (in charge of human reincarnation); b.) totally lacking in other human employees, everyone else is ghosts; c.) deeply underfunded with almost no development budget; d.) run by a ghost king named Shang Que who is very handsome but also does not fully understand that the new developer is not here to fix his personal computer when it freezes up from running ten video games at once
YU ZHENGDU: okay well thank you for the opportunity but I think I might like to quit, actually, I prefer a working environment where my colleagues don't habitually pop their ghostly eyes out of their head
HR MANAGER: well ... the thing about hell contracts is .... you can't really break them without severe repercussions? We're VERY sorry we DID try to warn you!
So, with no other choice, Yu Zhengdu rolls up his sleeves and sets about a mission to singlehandedly revamp the company's technological setup, get all his new ghost coworkers off Excel and working in a functional application, and set up a reliable income stream so they can get some working servers and hire a project manager.
Fortunately, ghost king Shang Que is perfectly willing to let his hot new employee convince him of the value of modern technology and the importance of reliable development funding; as the novel goes on, he reluctantly puts himself on a video game budget, starts taking MBA classes in order to become better at corporate management, and becomes an ardent tech evangelist. Growth!
The novel is much more episodic than most of the other cnovels I've read; there's a bit of an overarching plot, but mostly it's bouncing from ghost problem to ghost problem which our protagonists resolve with a little bit of Shang Que's terrifying ghost king reputation and a lot of Yu Zhengdu's cheerful Big Tech optimism. Let's disrupt the Daoist cultivation industry! Everything can be solved with an algorithm and universal WiFi! It's very charming and very funny and often very relatable and also about every other chapter I found myself mentally screaming they needed to hire an ethicist immediately, had anyone in the cast ever taken a training on replication of inherent bias?
I'm also not in any way qualified to talk about the way that the book deals with the the conflicts between contemporary socialism and traditional beliefs -- the central premise for why Hell is broke and needs a developer to begin with is that the traditional heaven/hell system and all the gods collapsed during the Cultural Revolution. It's really neat to see the ways that the book plays around with how the ghosts and gods are struggling to adapt and the integration of the new ways with the old, and I really love a lot of what the book does with the power of human ingenuity and human faith, especially towards the end. But also I definitely have an kneejerk negative reaction to the word "reeducation" and it is thrown around quite a bit ... also also, on the one hand I'm really into the reform of horrible hungry ghost hell from an indefinite to a temporary sentence that encourages rehabilitation and self-improvement towards reincarnation (and, of course, lets everyone have WiFi! "It is the goal of socialism to push for informatization and modernization of distant and isolated areas!") and on the other hand the discussion of prison labor as a positive example is IMO not ... ideal ....
That said, every instance of ghosts and little gods gleefully adapting to the internet age, demanding that the devs add a social messaging function to their shiny new reincarnation app, proudly advertising ghost company benefits, accidentally becoming social media stars beloved by young and old alike ("They are very Buddhist, but also very rock!"), is consistently a delight and I think at least once a chapter I would turn and force Beth to listen to me read an exceptionally entertaining sentence out loud.
The romance is also very funny, low-key and low-angst; Yu Zhengdu is so chill and generally entertained by Shang Que's whole vibe that moments that could be embarrassing or lead to conflict just kind of bounce off him. About eighty chapters in, Shang Que, having Decided that Yu Zhengdu is Obviously Pining For Him, politely informs Yu Zhengdu that when he chooses to confess his feelings he, ghost king Shang Que, will graciously consider his proposal! he shouldn't be discouraged, odds of success are high!
Yu Zhengdu: uh oh, idk how to let him down easy while preserving our friendship
Yu Zhengdu, two chapters of consideration later: actually you know what I think I'm pretty into this
Yu Zhengdu, two chapters of consideration after that: okay I'm definitely into this but also it is very funny watching him try to pretend he holds the upper hand here and I should definitely make him confess to me first
Also, it is impossible not to love Peppa, the adorable ghost child they end up adopting who eventually reincarnates as a much-beloved, deeply horrible, superintelligent goose. Shang Que is a very responsible parent! Before she hatches, he makes sure to play her Mozart for fifteen minutes a day so she can reach her full potential!
Anyway: absolutely recommended, I enjoyed it very much, please come back and talk to me about the ethical issues of removing people's memories of their past lives by automatically setting a tracker to find and delete a line of code on the back end!
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Date: 2021-01-16 10:43 pm (UTC)...I should perhaps finish literally any of the other cnovels I am sort of in the middle of before I actually start reading this one but also if this one is complete and (relatively) short and also not dark then it might be jumping the queue...
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Date: 2021-01-16 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 11:52 pm (UTC)I have this open now, so, just a matter of seeing when it's the story I pick up. :)
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Date: 2021-01-17 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 02:05 pm (UTC)(Peppa is also a social media star and a wonderful recruiting tool for the company despite the fact that 50% of the videos are like 'useless programmer attacked and defeated by angry goose lol'.)
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Date: 2021-01-17 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-29 03:54 am (UTC)This in-universe social media post is so real is the thing. I would react exactly this way to my office angry goose mascot.
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Date: 2021-01-17 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 09:13 pm (UTC)/war flashbacks (I'm a dev)
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Date: 2021-01-18 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-20 09:34 pm (UTC)cnovel genre reading skills
Date: 2021-01-18 04:20 pm (UTC)Re: cnovel genre reading skills
Date: 2021-01-18 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-23 12:51 pm (UTC)But other than that I am really enjoying it! It's extremely funny but also really interesting, which is an excellent combination.
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Date: 2021-01-29 03:52 am (UTC)I am very glad you are enjoying it, though -- I am really impressed at how consistently funny it manages to be. So many good jokes!
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Date: 2021-01-30 03:57 am (UTC)I've finished it now! The plot really suffered some scope creep towards the end (suddenly we are saving the world!) but I enjoyed it the whole way through. Thank you so much for the review!
My favourite part was Zhao Ruola opening her insight eye by getting really hyper-focused on a project one time XD