Becoming a God

When people mention Yue Guan, most think of historical time-travel hits such as Back to the Ming Dynasty as a Prince and Brocade Night Journey; Becoming a God is precisely the early work he wrote under the name Mengyou Jushi before achieving fame, and it remains his only unfinished full-length novel. Its value lies half in the text and half in its "historical material": readers can clearly see how an author who later excelled at writing characters' psychology and turns of fate practiced his craft in the fantasy genre, how he wrapped a critique of real social conditions in a superpower story, and how ambitiously he attempted to rearrange Chinese and foreign mythological genealogies. The first half depicts the cowardice, forbearance, and imbalance after suddenly gaining power of a small person, in a thoroughly gray tone; the second half suddenly expands its scope, drawing out multi-threaded conflicts among ancient deities, superhumans, and alien life, even incorporating grand imaginings such as "sacrificing oneself to become a new sun." It is imperfect, with a roughness in pacing and structure characteristic of early online serialization, but precisely because it is unfinished, those suspended inquiries leave an especially lingering flavor: who is the true god? Who created god? If you have read Yue Guan's mature works, this book fills in a missing link in his creative genealogy; if you are a veteran reader of online literature, it is also a flavorful sample of its era.