Chinese MM romance fantasy: where to start (and why)?
Recommendations: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (The Untamed) and Thrice Married to a Salted Fish.
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Danmei (耽美) is Chinese MM romantasy, often epic in scope, and often the slowest of slow burns. Two titles pulled me in completely, and they were worth my time for very different reasons.
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The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu – MXTX) is the one that started the conversation for a lot of Western MM romantasy readers, partly because of The Untamed C-drama adaptation, partly because it earns every word of its reputation.
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are one of the great slow-burn MM romances: painful, earned, and completely enchanting. What makes it delicious is the current underneath the romance—the way the story examines how society chooses its scapegoats.
To note: the C-drama adaptation hints at the romance; the books are explicit. Both are worth checking, especially since tracking differences between them is rewarding.
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Thrice Married to a Salted Fish does something structurally unusual: the transmigration happens not to the protagonist but around him, observed from the outside. He’s not the hero of the story-within-the-story, nor the villain either, and is consumed by a specific passion for medicine.
What stays is the bond. So slow a burn that the first book gives not the relationship but the shape of it forming, tender and unhurried. The ending of book one, and the cover, destroyed me. Book two is more intense in terms of politics, and the ending made me open book three immediately (though I am waiting for the translation to be released, so stay tuned).
New to danmei and BL books? The writing style is translated and specific to the genre. Worth knowing going in.
Read more about MM romantasy and queer art on my blog. The reviews (Grandmaster and Salted Fish) are available on Goodreads.