I Am The Swarm

New Year’s Greetings & End-of-Book Reflections

Happy New Year, everyone!

Wishing you a joyful Spring Festival, happiness and good fortune, success in all things, prosperity, family harmony, and lasting health and well-being!

I AM THE SWARM has been written, on and off, for a full year now—and it’s finally complete.

This was Quantum Wizard’s very first long-form novel. Initially, I started with a post-apocalyptic survival story, but that one never got a contract. Later, when Qidian launched its sci-fi writing contest, I dropped that and began writing Swarm instead.

Looking back, as a newcomer, it was probably reckless of me to take on a subject like the Swarm right out of the gate—it was a bit of an overreach. Trying to make this genre feel realistic, especially while keeping a connection to actual science fiction, turned out to be incredibly difficult.

In hindsight, I really should have written at least two other books as groundwork before tackling Swarm. But I dove in headfirst anyway. My writing wasn’t polished enough. I had ideas in my head, but when it came time to put them on paper… I often struggled to express them. The grandeur of the cosmos, the scale of billions upon billions of Swarm units clashing with mechanical warships—it all ended up reading a bit bland.

Add to that my lack of technical knowledge… my brain felt overloaded. I worked hard, did some research, but still couldn’t fully visualize what battles between advanced civilizations should look like. If I had kept pushing on, it probably would’ve just been more giant cannons blasting each other—and I know that’s not what readers enjoy.

So, I decided to bring things to a close by year’s end and wrap it all up naturally.

Even though I know I don’t have the skill to win any awards, I still believe that participation is what matters most.

At that moment, I suddenly felt like—you know what? I can do this again.

So over the next few days, I’ll take advantage of the holiday season to draft a new outline, recharge creatively… and return once more to the battlefield of science fiction.

When that time comes, I hope everyone will continue to support Quantum.

Thank you all!

[T/N:

Hey guys, this is basically the end of the story. There’s one extra chapter left after this, and then I Am The Swarm is completely finished.

I won’t lie. I don’t really know how to put my feelings into words, but I’ll try my best.

I really enjoyed this novel, and I’m sure some of you did too, especially if you made it all the way here. I don’t know if you’ve ever checked the About Us page on my site, but I started Galactic Novels because I was just so tired of reading messy MTLs with zero care for consistency or quality. The final straw for me was seeing a chapter from a certain site (if you know, you know) with all the genders wrong and even the prompt left in the text. That was when I realized—I couldn’t keep lying to myself. I already had a ChatGPT subscription, so I figured ‘Screw it, I’ll translate this myself.’

Before I knew it, I was producing better chapters for some of my favorite novels than the ones being officially posted. And as I kept refining my process, things got better and better. Since I was doing it for myself anyway, I thought, why not share it? That’s when I made the site and started looking for something to translate that no one else had picked up yet, and that’s when I found I Am The Swarm.

At the start, things were amazing,at least to me. It reminded me of Chrysalis and other monster MC stories I’ve loved over the years, especially with that evolution + sci-fi combo (my favorite genre). I got hooked fast. And even when the pacing started to drag, I kept hoping the author would snap out of it and turn things around. But, the closer we got to the end, the harder it became to hold onto that hope.

Now that we’re here, I’ll be honest. I feel really conflicted about the ending. But at the same time, this novel gave me so many hours of entertainment. Even though I spent way more time editing than reading, it never really felt like work because I was enjoying the story too. I’m just really glad I stuck with it to the very end and… holy crap. I finished translating a full novel. I never thought I’d be able to say that, but I’m genuinely proud of myself.

Also, I want to say a sincere thank you to the author, Quantum Wizard. No matter how I feel about the ending, this story was something special, and I’m grateful it existed at all.

And more than anything, I want to thank you for sticking with me through this ride—through the highs and the lows. It means a lot.

I hope that in the future, Galactic Novels becomes a place where you can keep coming back to read more completed stories, ones that are translated with care.

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling. I hope you enjoy the final extra chapter.]