Did everyone else see this?
Yeah the news came out last year. Not sure if it’s good news for us. We might have to take down our version of the translation. Looking forward to see how the official translation is.
Why do we have to take down fan work? 
I hope it doesn’t come to that. They might flex their copyright muscles but we are doing fan generated content for the community. That should fall under fair use.
I’ve seen that. The names the author chose are horrendous. Fan translation wins, at least in terms of getting the names right. Forget trying to make the name so that English readers can get it. That’s just bastardising the names and then when they try to read the original they get confused.
Well, I’ve got hold of a copy now. I’ve only flipped through it but the writing seems adequate, though not sublime - it’s not better than the fan works, just better edited (since it has a whole publishing house behind it).
The translated names isn’t as annoying as I feared, except that Huang Rong is called Lotus, which… I really don’t like.
There’s an insipid introduction from the translator which comes across as embarrassing. She’s trying to get across the grandeur of Jin Yong’s work, but, 1) just get on with the story, it should stand on its own merits, and 2) a constant theme running through Jin Yong’s stories is the puncturing of ‘grandeur’ and the promotion of hard work by humble characters.
She has also put in an afterword explaining why she decided to go with ‘condor’ rather than ‘eagle’ - the fans wouldn’t recognise it otherwise, apparently (but obviously they’ll be fine with calling Huang Rong ‘Lotus’). And - she reasons - the birds are mythical, since Guo Jing and Huang Rong can ride them, so naming them after a South American bird makes complete sense. Surely she could see that the eagle has more mythic resonance in both Eastern and Western cultures than the condor?
The other thing that really irritates me is the constant comparison of Jin Yong to Tolkien in all their promotional materials - it’s even on the cover of the book. I can’t see any points of contact between the Lord of the Rings and The Eagle Shooting Heroes. I guess they travel around? But there’s no One Great Desperate Quest or all-powerful Dark Lord threatening to rule the land. Anyway, I find it lazy and annoying.
When I have time I will read it through properly. As I said, the writing style is pedestrian but seems perfectly acceptable. And it is nice to have another published work I can mention to non-EPUB people when recommending Jin Yong.
Keep us updated on the book! It is positioned as a Chinese fantasy, hence the comparison with Tolkien I suppose.