Magic future tech

I got heavily into Chinese webnovels last year - an addiction that has yet to pass.  Originally I was reading licensed and/or fan translations of the novels, but lately I've shifted to reading directly on the official original sites (first dozen chapters or so are free, and then you can purchase the rest), and letting Google translate take care of me.

Google translate (the automatic function through Chrome) produces perfectly readable Chinese webnovels.  This is such an amazing thing to me.  Occasionaly there are confusions (particularly for people's names, which usually have a distinct meaning - so occasionally someone the novel usually calls 'Liang You' will be called 'cool pomelo' instead), but for the most part it's clean and readable text.  This is pure magic to me - to have that barrier of language taken away and give me access to reams and reams of virtual books.  [I'm presuming that Chinese somehow lends itself into translation into English - whether through similar syntax or some other congruity, because I've seen many very poor machine translations.  Or perhaps Google is just improving their translation tech year by year and has reached 'readable' level.]

I tend to be what I guess could be called a 'glom' reader.  Like, I'll get into the mood for Rex Stout or Agatha Christie, and then will spend the better part of half a year reading all their books in order of publication.  I don't think it's possible for me to glom the entirety of China's web novel output - the books are being written faster than I could ever read - but I seem to still be in the mood to try.

I started out with the historical reincarnation/transmigration novels, but am now on the modern day reincarnation/transmigration, with an admixture of gaming and game system novels.  [I just finished a gaming one which (entirely coincidentally) started off with a take-off a game I'd just been playing called Raft.]  I prefer the stories that go for around 100 chapters, though I've gotten quite a ways into some of the really long ones.

No novel has kept my attention for 6000 chapters, but I have made it more than a million words into a few of them.

On the gaming front, recently I've played a ton of Two Point Hospital, a fair bit of Raft, and have completed the first location in Viscera (a game where you are the janitor that cleans up after Doom Guy [or other equivalent] has blasted their way through the latest zombie outbreak or alien invasion).

Writing-wise, I'm about 3/4 through 'Firsts', which I guess counts as New Adult, but as usual for me doesn't quite match the genre.  It's something between slice-of-life and romance, with some plot vagaries and a ton of sex that somehow manages to be more friendly than erotic.  When I finish it, I'll move on to 'Seconds', a sequel, mainly because I like the characters, and then back to Tangleways.  [So, not a permanent shift to New Adult or anything - just want to write this story.]

All quiet on the corona-virus front - still working from home (with hopes of transitioning to at least part-time working from home once all this is over).  I purchased a face mask in case NSW mandates masks (it probably won't, but Australia's otherwise good progress tripped up and we've gone all second wavy here, and so I'd rather not be caught out trying to convert my socks into a mask at the last moment).

Hope you're all keeping well.