#wooo im done staring at this take my braindump

I promised and now I deliver! Welcome to my 2k word Cancipin pitch, adapted from discord rant form for perusal by the general public.

Links to the raws, translations, audio drama, and more can be found here. I would suggest reviewing the content warnings before reading this novel, as it covers many heavy themes.

Notes and general disclaimers:

• Spoilers: I tried to keep things vague but assume a low-lever spoiler warning for this whole pitch, I try to mark anything that gets more specific.
• Terminology: I read the raws and have only seen snippets of the English translations on people’s livereads, so the terms I use may not match them 100%.
• I think Cancipin is an objectively well-constructed and highly impressive novel, but I am also very biased because priest checked off All my tastes with this one, take that how you will.
• Just a personal pet peeve but it deals me 50 psychic damage every time I see CCP and have to disambiguate if people are talking about the priest novel or the Chinese government so I request that people abbreviate the title as C2P if possible!! plz

OKAY NOW LET’S BEGIN

General premise

Cancipin is a sci-fi novel set many millenia in the future, in a society where all 8 inhabited galaxies[1] are united under a central governing body, with only the ‘interstellar pirates’ in the outer regions refusing this authority. Residents of the first 7 galaxies live in a (supposed) utopia, supported by a system called the Garden of Eden that allows humans to interface directly with technology and get all their needs taken care of 24/7. However, the 8th galaxy was recovered from interstellar pirates much later and lags far behind in technology, and the locals and any people in the other galaxies with a condition that prevents them from interfacing with Eden basically get dumped there to rot. (Gotta love that dystopian class inequality!)

[1] They’re probably actually solar systems but the Chinese term 星系 is ambiguous and galaxies sounds better I guess, don’t worry about it too much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Setting

Minor spoiler warning since a lot of this info is only revealed later on in the novel, but not really a plot spoiler.

Cancipin is set neither in an era where humanity is at the peak of its technological development nor is it fully post-apocalyptic. Instead, several thousand years ago, there was an age of exploration when humanity built out a transportation network to settle greater parts of the universe and achieved breakthroughs in genetic technology to make all humans live to a life expectancy of 300, but later on, a regime of tyranny took over and a lot (though not all) of this progress was lost.

It describes a world where humanity makes active choices to step back from certain technology that is deemed to be too dangerous - further genome editing is banned despite the successes in extending life spans, and because the tyrannical regime used advanced AI technology to stay in control, there are strict rules that AI must not be allowed to operate independently and cannot resemble humans too closely. It’s very interesting to think about what balance a society should reach between allowing research that improves people’s lives and staying away from projects that are too risky to continue. In usual priest fashion, the novel is not about the technology itself so many of these details simply operate in the background, but it paints a thoughtful picture about where humanity might find itself millenia in the future.

Plot premise

Lin Jingheng is a former admiral of the interstellar union. Though he was disillusioned with the union since years ago when his adoptive father Lu Xin was framed and hunted down by powerful people within the system, he continued to fight to defend the union and put on appearances as he secretly planned a revolt. 5 years ago, he put the first part of his plan into action by faking his death and escaping to the 8th galaxy - partly because it would be easier to avoid detection in a place with no Eden, and partly to look for Lu Xin’s long-lost child, who disappeared after his pregnant wife was shot down while attempting to flee.

Through a series of coincidences, the first person he meets there is Lu Bixing, the son of the top weapons dealer in the 8th galaxy who ran away from home to follow his dreams of exploring the 8 galaxies and building a school. Lin Jingheng set a genetic lock on the escape capsule he fled in to only open for Lu Xin’s child, but as Lu Bixing is the sort of mad scientist to find a mysterious capsule floating in space and go “i’m gonna HACK it” and not just leave well enough alone, he was never able to confirm whether he had the right person.

So, both of them end up settling down on the nearby planet Beijing Beta as Lin Jingheng bides his time taking over the local gang/shadow government of the planet and Lu Bixing is happy to have found a sugar daddy generous sponsor to fund his school. 

But all of their plans are shattered when the interstellar pirates invade and war breaks out, and the rest of the novel follows the journey of this whole world through turbulent times as they try to find a new order in the ruins of the old.

Major themes of the novel involve faith, the resilience of humanity, and the cyclic nature of history. It tells the story of a broken world putting itself back together, and the importance of standing back up even knowing you’ll fall again.

Characters and relationship dynamic/development

Both of the main characters are shaped by their past. Lin Jingheng and his twin sister Lin Jingshu grew up in a cold, lifeless home with only each other to lean on, only to be separated at a young age when their father died. Lin Jingheng was lucky to be taken in by Lu Xin, one of the few people of the Interstellar Union who truly believed in its Declaration of Freedom, and the admiral who disobeyed orders to recover the Eighth galaxy from the interstellar pirates over a century ago. Though Lin Jingheng would lose this adoptive family too early and get pushed into acting the role of the cold, ruthless, power-hungry bastard by the vortex of First galaxy politics, he never truly gives up on his adoptive father’s influence and his sense of duty towards all the people of the Interstellar Union. And, for all that he acts like a huge bastard to everyone else, he remains a secret romantic and incredibly soft towards the people he cares about.

Lu Bixing, meanwhile, grew up in the Eighth galaxy, witnessing how the Union had abandoned them first-hand. Though he is open-minded, extroverted, and strives to understand people with values unlike his own, his loyalties remain primarily to the Eighth galaxy. Even though he ran away from home, his father, a weapons dealer who goes by Monoeyed Hawk, is one of the most important people in his life (and even if he ends up stuck in the middle of a lot of fights between his ‘sugar daddy’ and his ‘real daddy’). More details about Lu Bixing’s youth get into spoiler territory, but I will note that I consider the 信徒/’Patron’ physical-only extra 100% required reading after the main story. In short, though Lu Bixing gives an initial impression as the sunny, optimistic, maybe even a bit childish type, the optimistic exterior is a side of him that he actively chooses to show to the world. He is more than capable of stepping up and taking responsibility when necessary, and as he says himself, being good-natured doesn’t mean not having a backbone.

In summary~ we have ~ sunny charming extroverted (mad) scientist/school headmaster who gives excellent motivational speeches x stoic cynical serious (but actually a huge mensao) ex-general whose favorite hobby is insulting people with increasingly creative roasts.

As for the development of their relationship, Cancipin is a prime example of what I love about priest’s nianxia[2] novels. Specifically, the way she sketches how two people can go from an uneven relationship between protector and protected, and evolve to become true equals by the end. Even though their romantic relationship begins before the halfway point, their early relationship definitely involved Lin Jingheng treating Lu Bixing as someone to one-sidedly protect and spoil, and Lu Bixing goes through a truly stunning character arc to become someone Lin Jingheng can trust and rely on by the end.

Against the background of a world thrown into turmoil, priest shows us the story of two seemingly different people who undergo and resolve their own crises of faith, find that they are not so different in the end, and choose to fight for a better world hand in hand.

[2] I don’t want to mislead people who specifically enjoy age gap dynamics, so please note that despite the 16-year age gap, that aspect is NOT really prevalent in their relationship, and is also not very remarkable in a setting where people stay young until age 200. The age gap is definitely much less of a factor than it is in Shapolang, Your Distance, etc.

On a lighter note, due to Lin Jingheng’s reputation as a Right Cold Bastard, their relationship is apparently so hilariously baffling to outsiders that priest wrote four whole different scenes of side characters finding out they’re together, and it’s 500% hilarious each time.

NOTE: The following section is going to get more spoilery, and I will allude to some events from both Cancipin and Shapolang more directly! Skip down to the side characters section if you want to avoid spoilers!

Connections to Shapolang and priest’s writing journey

I would highly recommend reading Cancipin sometime after reading Shapolang. The two novels share a number of similarities from a high-level perspective, and knowing what priest disliked about her earlier work, it was interesting to note aspects of Cancipin that appeared to be her making up for some of those regrets and learning from past mistakes to craft a more solid narrative.

She complained that SPL didn’t have sufficient tension because Chang Geng was too OP, but made sure to be absolutely ruthless in Cancipin and make sure fate is never on their side. Most things that could go wrong do go wrong, and she absolutely took the “let’s break this boi like a glowstick and see what happens” approach with Lu Bixing’s growth arc by tearing away his support system and making him step up to take responsibility. In addition, while Changgu could definitely have ended up at odds over their conflicting loyalties and simply didn’t because they got lucky, Lin Jingheng and Lu Bixing have to confront this conflict head-on and actively choose how to compromise on their priorities.

However, being forced to walk this more difficult path means that every single success in Cancipin feels incredibly well-earned because they had to fight for what they want and take initiative to reconcile their differences. Their relationship feels all the stronger for all they had to work for it, and I love them so so much.

Side characters

As usual, priest included quite the interesting and expansive cast of side characters. I won’t go into too much detail as I’ve gone on for quite long already and many details are spoilers, but we have:

Zhanlu, Lin Jingheng’s AI assistant, v cute v babie (I find all the AIs in this novel soooo interesting from an AI alignment perspective but I digress)

Lin Jingshu, Lin Jingheng’s equally hot and scary twin sister, wonder what she’s up to?

Monoeyed Hawk, Lu Bixing’s real daddy, BEST DANMEI DAD 500%, keeps getting in catfights with Lin Jingheng trying to keep him away from his darling son

Admiral Woolf and Professor Harden, older characters who watched the growth of the Union since its founding

Lu Bixing’s students, all cute kids who get a lot of character growth themselves

Elizabeth Turan and Lin Jingheng’s other ex-subordinates, Lin’s circus, pretty much all of them are in love with him (relatable)

And many more!

Action writing

I’m not usually one to gush over action scenes but they deserve a mention because the space battle scenes in this novel are Just. So. Good. In usual priest fashion she didn’t spend too much time giving them a bunch of fancy gadgets, so the battle scenes aren’t too hard to follow, but she uses a certain set of basic maneuvers to build up the most fascinating strategy battles and it’s absolutely mesmerizing to follow.

Sometimes I do get tired when there’s a lot of plot at once but that was absolutely not the case in this novel, I just absolutely couldn’t put it down because the plot, action, and relationship arcs were all just so enthralling.

Anyways, that’s all I’ll say for now, but read Cancipin!! I definitely consider it one of priest’s masterpieces, you won’t regret it!! lulin yyds thanks for your time